When Lightning Doesn’t Strike: Three Lightning Lane Purchases You Should Never Make at Walt Disney World

Tom Corless

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When Lightning Doesn’t Strike: Three Lightning Lane Purchases You Should Never Make at Walt Disney World

Genie+ and Lightning Lane have recently launched at Walt Disney World and we have tried them all. After skipping the wait at multiple rides and watching the standby wait versus the Lightning Lane for several days now, we have come to the conclusion that while some of the paid Fastpass options might be worth the price given certain circumstances, there are a few that are just don’t measure up. In our opinion, these attractions are not worth the additional cost aside from Genie+ to ride and here’s why.

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Space Mountain – Magic Kingdom

Now, it is worth mentioning a few things up front: this conversation could not matter to you on a peak attendance day. On New Year’s Eve at 1:00 PM in the afternoon with a posted wait over 90 minutes, you might just want to splurge and skip the line at Space Mountain. Now, what I’m going to tell you is, there are a multitude of ways to wait less than 30 minutes for this attraction and not pay any additional money. If you’re a Disney resort guest, use Early Entry to knock out both Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Space Mountain. If you’re a Deluxe Resort guest, Evening Extended Theme Park Hours will offer an even greater benefit as less guests will be present. Otherwise, just getting to Magic Kingdom at standard rope drop will still offer a minimal wait at this attraction. There’s just no good reason to pay for this one. Now, Seven Dwarfs Mine train might be worth adding the Lightning Lane just to not fight the usual mob that will march towards that ride in the morning, but Space Mountain in the earliest moments of the day is usually pretty quiet.

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Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – EPCOT

Since Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is still using a virtual queue system, it is somewhat rare that the standby wait time is ever more than 30-45 minutes. What the MyDisneyExperience app will sometimes try to do is suggest that you add-on Lighting Lane, even after you woke up at 7:00 AM and booked your Boarding Group. This would only save you a few minutes of waiting and is a terrible deal.

If anything, you should buy the Lightning Lane add-on so you can sleep in past 7:00 AM on your vacation and not bother getting a Boarding Group. The only other viable option is if you have but one day at EPCOT and you REALLY need to ride this more than once, then the Lightning Lane combined with your Virtual Queue boarding group will allow you two opportunities to enjoy the ride, something you can’t do under the current restrictions.

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Expedition Everest – Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Thus far, this has been the worst value of them all. Expedition Everest has not regularly been cresting a 30-minute wait, so to see a posted 15 minute wait in the app next to a suggestion that you pay to skip that line is likely the best way to summarize Disney’s greed with these add-on Lightning Lane options. Even at an hour wait, Everest has a detailed, charming queue that will be a joy to walk through. Save the money and use it to skip the line at AVATAR Flight of Passage if you’re going to bother with these paid FastPass options.

If you want to learn more about booking individual Lightning Lane options at Walt Disney World, check out our guide here.

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2 thoughts on “When Lightning Doesn’t Strike: Three Lightning Lane Purchases You Should Never Make at Walt Disney World”

  1. I would just wait things out even for major attractions like pandora too. Like you said above it is all about timing its also about season and day. Some parks have the days where they will always be busy sometimes they are just dead! Same for timing as a past cm at mk we use to call it the after 4 rush bc parade folk left you had park to self. Now that is na but still it all depends. Ie. Pandora everyone goes there first if you wait till later in the day and its not a busy day for dak i seen navi river w no wait and walk on and flight max 30-45 mins. Also another past cm tip those wait times are 5-10 added to what it actually is covid wo fp made it more obvious than not.

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