3 Reasons Lightning Lane Multi Pass Isn’t the Hack You Think It Is

Lightning Lane, which was previously Genie+ (which was previously FastPass+, and before that just FastPass), is a paid service that can help you skip the line at Disney World. There are three versions of Lightning Lane — Lightning Lane Multi Pass is similar to Genie+, except it can be purchased in advance, and rides are now broken up into tiers.

And, while Lightning Lane Multi Pass can be a huge time (and life) saver when you’re in the parks — it isn’t always the hack you think it is. Here’s what we mean.

You Don’t Need It for Every Park

Lightning Lane Multi Pass can be seriously beneficial at certain parks — but at others, you might find you don’t even really need it. We typically recommend it for Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios since those are the parks with the highest number of attractions — meaning you’ll want to spend as little time in line as possible to get everything done.

But, at EPCOT and Animal Kingdom, there are fewer rides. At these parks, you might find that purchasing Lightning Lane Single Pass makes more sense instead. The popular rides at these parks like Cosmic Rewind and Flight of Passage typically have the longest lines, and those are available with Single Pass anyway!

It Can Be Hard To Get the Rides You Want

Just because you purchase Multi Pass doesn’t mean you’ll be able to simply walk on to any ride you want, whenever you want (you need Lightning Lane Premier Pass for that!) and you’ll still be on your phone quite a bit, trying to pick your next selections.

But, sometimes the rides you want to experience don’t have any available times until much later in the day. The times will continue to get pushed back as more people use Multi Pass, which doesn’t leave you room to ride a whole lot in one day. Of course, this isn’t always the case — we’ve had plenty of success being able to get on nearly every ride we wanted to on more than one occasion — so don’t let this discourage you.

Park Hopping with Multi Pass

Luckily, you only have to purchase the service for one park, but remember what we said earlier about not getting all the rides you want as the times get pushed farther out? That’s especially true when you park hop, since you’re already starting behind the curve.

The folks who have spent all day in the park you choose to hop to have been refreshing that Multi Pass page all day and taking up the earliest Lightning Lanes — which means by the time you get to choose yours for that park, you might have to wait until late in the day to ride — or risk not riding at all.

We’ll be on the lookout for more updates about Lightning Lane Multi Pass and more at Disney World. Make sure you stay tuned to the Disney Food Blog for the latest Disney news!