Walt Disney World has launched Lightning Lane Premier Pass, the new tier of line-skipping that offers one-time access to every Lightning Lane attraction at a park. We tried the service at Magic Kingdom on launch day. The park has 20 attractions with Lightning Lane; let’s try to ride them all!

Lightning Lane Premier Pass Details

Lightning Lane Premier Pass is currently in a pilot period, with limited quantities available only to guests staying at select hotels. They haven’t said if or when it will be available to other guests. Guests can purchase a Lightning Lane Premier Pass up to 7 days before their stay, for the entire length of their stay, starting at 7 a.m. ET.

While Disneyland Resort offers one Premier Pass for both parks, the Lightning Lane Premier Pass at Walt Disney World is for one park per day. Prices vary depending on the park, date, and demand. Here are the ranges per person:

• Disney’s Animal Kingdom: $129-$199 plus tax  
• EPCOT: $169-$249 plus tax 
• Disney’s Hollywood Studios: $269-$349 plus tax 
• Magic Kingdom: $329-$449 plus tax 

On the day Lightning Lane Premier Pass launched – Wednesday, October 30 — Magic Kingdom was $329, and Animal Kingdom was $129.

You can change your Premier Pass to a different park after purchasing. However, you will NOT be refunded if you switch to a cheaper park, and you will have to pay the difference if you switch to a more expensive park.

We have already compared the values of Lightning Lane Multi Pass, Premier Pass, and VIP Tours. In short, Multi Pass (formerly Genie+) requires you to choose a timeframe to “skip” a standby line. You can only book a limited number of Lightning Lanes at a time. Lightning Lane Single Pass attractions are a separate purchase. These are the most popular attractions, like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and TRON Lightcycle / Run at Magic Kingdom.

Multi Pass and Single Pass prices fluctuate. On the day of our visit, Multi Pass was $32 for Magic Kingdom (where we were headed). Single Pass for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was $13, and TRON Lightcycle / Run was $21. So with just Multi Pass and Single Pass, you could spend $66 total to access every Lightning Lane attraction in Magic Kingdom that day.

With Lightning Lane Premier Pass, you get one-time access to every Lightning Lane attraction (including Single Pass attractions) whenever you want. You don’t have to book a timeframe. So access to everything is closer to guaranteed than with Multi Pass and Single Pass, but it is much more expensive.

Lightning Lane Premier Pass Experience at Magic Kingdom

We chose to test Lightning Lane Premier Pass at Magic Kingdom. It’s the most visited theme park in the world, after all. We visited on launch day, Wednesday, October 30, so we spent $329 per person. There are 20 Lightning Lane attractions at Magic Kingdom, which averages out to about $16.45 per attraction.

Some outdoor attractions are better at night. At Magic Kingdom, these include Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, TRON / Lightcycle Run, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Without having to choose return times, we could easily save those for the end of our day.

We stayed at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort since Lightning Lane Premier Pass is currently only available to guests of Disney Deluxe Resort hotels, Disney Deluxe Villa Resorts, and other select hotels. We walked over to Magic Kingdom, hoping to have a fun and relaxing day doing everything. And with theme parks these days, you can’t usually have a relaxing day and do everything.

We got a bit of a late start, eating breakfast at 10:30 a.m. When you can ride anything whenever, what’s the reason to rush? We even stopped to watch the Main Street Philharmonic. The lack of time constraints (except park hours) is one of the nice things about lightning Lane Premier Pass. Magic Kingdom was scheduled to close at 11 p.m. that day.

We started in Tomorrowland with Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. The wait was only 20 minutes but the queue was outside in the sun a bit, so it was a pleasant line to skip. This was not a particularly busy day. It seemed like a weird day to launch Lightning Lane Premier Pass, but maybe it was purposeful to launch it on a day without a lot of strain on the system. This could have been a slow and manageable day without any line skipping.

Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor was only 10 minutes. We circled back in the evening, and it was still 10 minutes. It seems like a waste to use Lightning Lane there, but we wanted to hit everything on the list. For both Laugh Floor and Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Lightning Lane is usually irrelevant. You’re probably going into the same show as guests in standby. In our chart of wait times below, we listed both as not applicable because we didn’t wait less than other guests.

Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid was a bit rough. It didn’t have a good merge point. They let a lot of standby guests go ahead of Lightning Lane guests, and the ride also stopped multiple times. So we did change our plans a bit because we had hoped to do the Haunted Mansion before our lunch reservation, but ended up going to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh instead.

Just like at Disneyland Resort, My Disney Experience has a checklist that automatically organizes every attraction your party has done under “Everyone’s Redeemed.”

The freedom to ride things when you want is really nice. We had a really good time being able to just walk around and go, “Oh, we haven’t done that yet; let’s go,” and know that we’re going to have a minimal wait. We stopped and shopped between rides as there was no rush to do anything. We’re not applauding the Disney we’ve had for the past several years and we’re going to talk about value at the end, but there’s something to be said for the more relaxing experience.

After dinner, we wanted to hit a ride where we could see fireworks. We chose Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, entering the Lightning Lane precisely at 8:24 p.m. (again, we had the freedom to choose the time). We got the perfect view of Lari the Armadillo with fireworks behind him.

By 9:47 p.m., we only had three attractions left. TRON Lightcycle / Run was the longest standby wait of the day at 110 minutes. It’s still a hot ticket attraction without boarding groups. With Lightning Lane Single Pass, which was sold out for TRON by the time we looked this morning, you don’t have a lot of choice about when to ride at all. It’s cool to do it at night, something we’ve only done a few times. Some on our team have probably done it at night more in Shanghai Disneyland with their all-in-one line-skipping package.

Another nice thing about our quest to ride every Lightning Lane attraction was we did things we are normally not motivated to do, like Dumbo the Flying Elephant.

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was our last ride of the day. After you’ve completed everything available through Lightning Lane Premier Pass, the page in the app shows fireworks and congratulates you.

It’s worth noting we also did Country Bear Musical Jamboree, which doesn’t have a Lightning Lane, so we actually did 21 attractions in one day.

Here’s a chart of all the posted wait times, how long we waited, and how much time we ostensibly saved. Keep in mind that posted wait times are not always accurate. Space Mountain had a 30-minute wait posted but it was probably more like 20 minutes. Pirates of the Caribbean had a 5-minute posted wait, but we entered right as the fireworks ended, and crowds were pouring in, so it could have been longer. N/A means there was essentially no wait for either standby or Lightning Lane.

Final Thoughts

This was on a slow day. Obviously, if you came on a day in peak season, you’re gonna save a whole lot more time. When we tried it at Disneyland, it was almost 10 hours on the Saturday before Halloween.

If you came this week and this is what the park was like, we would not advise buying the Lightning Lane Premier Pass. But we would understand if you wanted to, because it made the experience much better. We’re not happy about how much money we spent, but we had the best day. There’s a trade-off here that can’t quite be given a monetary value.

We got to do everything, and we didn’t have to think about it. We took our time. We could sit and relax, knowing that it would be easy to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.

Now, you do only get one entry to each ride. Who wouldn’t love to just re-ride their favorite five or six attractions over and over? But for the sake of theme park capacity and keeping wait times reasonable for everyone, it’s really not something you can offer outside of a VIP tour.

Another factor that made our day so much more enjoyable was not having to look at a phone all day. We didn’t have to watch wait times and scurry across the park to use our time wisely, and we didn’t have to worry about booking the next Lightning Lane. That convenience is part of what you’re paying for.

To put things in perspective, think about this: People are still paying $119 – $129 per person for the dessert parties at Magic Kingdom. Now, we know someone’s going to go in the comments and say, “That has unlimited alcohol.” But we’ll have to assume they’ve never actually done one, because you would know that no human being could drink a glass of that wine, let alone unlimited quantities, to reach the value. It is disgusting; it’s the worst cheap wine we’ve ever had. The beer selection’s not great, either. The food is just okay. No one is paying $119-$129 every night to eat and drink what they’re offering. The value is in having a reserved spot for a fireworks show.

In a world where that is the price attached to reserved viewing of a fireworks show, how is a $329 package that skips the line at 20 rides a worse value?

This is going to sell well. They priced Lightning Lane Premier Pass high enough to keep too many people from doing it and priced it low enough for it to be a great value compared to a VIP tour unless you are a large group. Once you get north of six people, the VIP tour might start to make sense.

It’s not a necessary product because you can experience everything within the product without paying for it. The rides are available without payment other than park admission. No one’s being locked out here. We’ve seen a lot of comments where people say they’ve been priced out by this. You weren’t priced out by them adding Disney After Hours events. You were never priced out by the existence of VIP tours. That’s just not a logical mode of thought.

And it’s not meant to be a thing we all do. It’s not even really meant to be a thing to do more than once. It’s meant to be a thing for people that are on a once-in-a-lifetime or once every couple years trip with limited time; a way they can see it all without spending the price of a VIP tour or without buying Lightning Lane every day and fighting the app to make sure they get everything they want.

We could talk about the morality and ethics of that. But that’s not the point of this review. The point is: is it worth it if you want to buy it?

We think for Magic Kingdom, so long as you are coming on a slightly busier day. $16 per attraction is absurd. Not when TRON alone is always north of that price. Obviously, some attractions are worth less. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is usually around $13. But it’s a package.

The ability to do what you want when you want can’t be understated. It’s a freedom that otherwise you cannot have on a Walt Disney World vacation.

The other thing we want to talk about is the people who are mad about the service. We just want to clarify that yes, obviously, there is an ethical argument, but we’ll share something that Tom wrote — this was what he put at the end of pretty much every review of a Disney After Hours evening event at Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and more:

(As copied below from our 2019 Disney Villains After Hours review)

The sad truth is that the everyday Walt Disney World experience isn’t very enjoyable anymore. The parks are overcrowded and wait times are longer than ever, which would indicate that Disney has not expanded the park lineups enough over time to match the crowd levels they see. There is also so much early planning and reservation luck involved in getting FastPasses or that coveted seat at a popular restaurant, not to mention that more often than not it is miserably hot and some of the newer lands don’t offer much in the way of shade…

The overall Disney World experience in 2019 isn’t much fun if you’re trying to do a lot and aren’t more laid-back or “laissez-faire” about it all. I more often than not look around me and see screaming, frustration, exhaustion and worse from guests, which does make the few smiling moments stand out more. In the end, I think the only way to accomplish a lot and not feel miserable by the time your trip is over are these expensive add-on events. I know telling you that does little to fix all of the current problems at the domestic parks, but I’ll recommend these even though a small part of me will die every time I do. I honestly had more fun at the Animal Kingdom Disney After Hours, the Early Morning Magic in Fantasyland, Disney’s Hollywood Studios Disney After Hours, and this event that I have here in Orlando since the early previews of Pandora back in May 2017.

These events are stress-free, take place in the cool evening hours, and are a remarkably good time. Yes, they are expensive, and yes, Disney should care that their normal guest experience is currently miserable, but there’s nothing you or I can do about that. If you personally want to continue to have fun at Walt Disney World and have disposable income, then Disney After Hours is your best bet.

A lot of that applies here. The wait times are not at record highs, but they were then. We’re not fully back to where we were before COVID, wait time-wise. For Disney and Universal, the truth is that the parks are busy. Neither of them have expanded enough to match their capacity needs for their elevated attendance.

So whether it’s that you need to book the Hard Rock, Royal Pacific, or Portofino Bay to get Express Passes, or whether it’s you need to be at a Walt Disney World Deluxe Resort to buy Lightning Lane Premier Pass — though I do think eventually everyone will be able to purchase this — that’s just the sad truth. They have to limit these offerings with high price points because the parks cannot accommodate more people using these systems.

Walt Disney World offers a lot of these types of things, so you can decide what’s best for you. If you think $329 is too high, you can travel at a time of year when there are After Hours events. You can get a hotel room and have early entry. You can stay at a Deluxe Resort and be there for Extended Evening Hours. There are several things they offer beyond the normal day guest experience that can give you shorter wait times, or you can skip the lines and buy Lightning Lane every day. It’s up to you as the consumer to parse through all of those and figure out what’s going to work for you.

We don’t necessarily have anything bad to say about any of them individually. We stand by what we’ve said about how the theme park guest experience has evolved over the years. At the same time, this is probably the least egregious of a lot of those things. Disney After Hours — closing a park earlier than you used to for an event that is an added cost is probably more unethical than charging for something like Premier Pass. It’s a middle ground between Lightning Lane Multi Pass and VIP Tours.

It’s not just about the value of each Lightning Lane; it’s the value of controlling the day. The value of being able to do things when you want to do them, not looking at the phone, and having your run of the park.

Now, we will say that we think Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios make a lot of sense, as long as the parks are busy. As far as EPCOT and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, we do not think Lightning Premier Pass is a good use of your money.

A caveat is that you can only buy Lightning Lane Premier Pass for one park per day, so if you’re buying this because you have more money than time (as former Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said), you’ll still need to strategize a little.

What we would recommend is to buy Lightning Lane Premier Pass for Magic Kingdom or Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but rope drop EPCOT or Disney’s Animal Kingdom and do the things that are most important to you. If you show up at 1 or 2 p.m. at Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios, you’re gonna be able to breeze through everything you want to do.

We talk about VIP tours being the ultimate park day, and this is almost all the way there. It won’t get you a lot of the perks the VIP tours get, but it does get you at least one time through every attraction at a less restrictive price. But it prices out enough people that they can control it and keep the wait times low.

Ethically, we still feel the way about Lightning Lane that we felt from day one: it was inevitable, we’re not happy about it, and it’s used on some things that had offered a virtual queue because the capacity of the ride wasn’t high enough to accommodate all the guests in the park. If you’re selling slots that you know take away from Boarding Group availability, you’re locking people out of a chance to ride. We have a Tom rant from when Lightning Lane was rolling out, and he feels the same now as he did then.

The difference here is that we think Lightning Lane Premier Pass is a good service. We think it works for certain people under certain circumstances. This is not for you and me, the regular returning guests. We will very seldom do this, and only if the circumstances are right, like if I have out-of-town guests coming for a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

It’s not for those of us who come once a year or more. We’ve seen these things, there isn’t a need to rush through them all again. But when we visited Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland, I absolutely bought similar packages, because we don’t get to just go there. We wanted to make sure we saw everything because maybe we’ll never get to go again. And that’s the difference.

People who are going to Walt Disney World once in a lifetime won’t bat their eyes at these things, the same way no one bats their eyes at the $129 adult price of a dessert party just to watch a fireworks show. There’s no difference there, and if that sells at that price, line skipping is going to sell at this price.

We can feel angry about it, but it doesn’t change the reality of how people vacation now. And the truth is that vacations are the last thing anyone should spend money on when things are tight. If a few dollars per ticket prices you out of your vacation, then you probably shouldn’t have gone to begin with.

For the base vacation, if you’re cutting it close, they have stuff for different price ranges, whether it’s a value resort or the various discounts they put out throughout the year. If you want the best value, you have to work for it, whether it is trying to find the week when the flights are cheapest, or hotels have a good deal; maybe there’s free dining; whatever the case may be, you have to figure out what works best for you.

There’s also the other side of the spectrum, where it’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and you’ve saved enough money, and you don’t want to think about it. You just want to have an easy, enjoyable trip because the cost is already sunk and you’re never going to be able to do something like this again.

Those guests are the biggest market in Orlando. The first-and-only timers who are going to maximize their limited time.

Again, we’re not ethically or morally trying to defend the existence of paid line skipping. We’re just trying to make it all make sense and help you understand why we think it’s not the end of the world as we know it.

Watch the vlog version of this Lightning Lane Premier Pass review below:

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Shannen Ace