Walt Disney World officially announced Lightning Lane Premier Pass, the newest and most expensive line skipping service to replace free FastPass. This post covers the launch date & price ranges for the upcharge option at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. Plus, our commentary how this compares to Universal’s Express Pass, potential popularity, and more.
There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so we will very quickly recap what has happened in the last few months with Lightning Lanes. As you might recall, Walt Disney World Lightning Lane recently retired and replaced the Genie+ service with Lightning Lane Multi-Pass (LLMP). Along with that, a la carte or Individual Lightning Lanes became Lightning Lane Single Pass (LLSP).
The big change with the switch from Genie+ to Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass is that guests can now make ride reservations up to 21 days in advance depending upon their status, and have ability to make 3 selections in advance. With this comes the loss of stacking, a disadvantage for off-site guests, and likelihood that you’ll be scoring fewer Lightning Lanes per day. Among other things, there’s also the reality that you’re committing to buying (or not) before starting your trip and seeing/feeling crowd levels.
There’s a lot more to the new Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and Single Pass, all of which is beyond the scope of this post. We’d encourage you to read our Guide to Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World for all of the foundational need-to-know info of both LLMP and LLSP. This whole system is confusing and convoluted, so you might have a question or two-dozen. That answers all of the most common ones we’ve been receiving from readers.
The important thing to know is that Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and Single Pass will continue to exist. Lightning Lane Premier Pass (LLPP) is distinct from both, and will be an alternative line-skipping product offering for guests who don’t want to hassle with LLMP or LLSP. While Lightning Lane Premier Pass will feature the same ride rosters as the other Lightning Lane services, it’ll function fundamentally differently.
Here’s what Walt Disney World has officially announced about Lightning Lane Premier Pass…
In the coming weeks, Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort will begin piloting another option for attraction entry that will be offered in very limited quantities: Lightning Lane Premier Pass.
Lightning Lane Premier Pass is similar to line-skipping services that have been available for purchase at other theme parks for decades, and a service like this offers a level of convenience that many Walt Disney World guests have requested.
Lightning Lane Premier Pass will include one entry to each Lightning Lane entrance in the theme park they are visiting that day, which guests can use anytime throughout the day at their convenience – without needing to book an arrival time in advance.
Some of the added perks of Lightning Lane Premier Pass include:
- All attractions from Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass.
- Guests can ride the attractions that they want–when they want.
- Lightning Lane Premier Pass will include PhotoPass photo and video downloads.
Walt Disney World will begin piloting Lightning Lane Premier Pass on October 30, 2024.
At launch, Lightning Lane Premier Pass will be available to purchase only by guests staying at Deluxe Resorts or Deluxe Villa Resorts (Disney Vacation Club Resorts). Lightning Lane Premier Pass may be purchased up to seven days in advance of their stay.
Lightning Lane Premier Pass gives Walt Disney World guests one-time entry to each available Lightning Lane entrance in a single theme park for the day. In other words, there is no Park Hopper option for LLPP at Walt Disney World.
Prices for Lightning Lane Premier Passes vary by date and theme park. Launch prices will range from $129 to $449 per person, plus tax, with the highest prices falling on a limited number of days over peak travel periods. Here are the ranges for each park:
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom: $129 to $199 per person, plus tax
- EPCOT: $169 to $249 per person, plus tax
- Disney’s Hollywood Studios: $269 to $349 per person, plus tax
- Magic Kingdom: $329 to $449 per person, plus tax
That’s an incredibly wide range–$129 on the low end for Animal Kingdom versus $449 on the high end for Magic Kingdom. For the peak season price at Magic Kingdom, you could purchase Lightning Lane Premier Pass 3.5 times on the cheapest day at Animal Kingdom!
However, the rest of the year will see roller coaster crowds at Walt Disney World, with low lows and high highs. There’s a reason that multiple weeks from October through December make both lists on our rankings of the 10 Best and 10 Worst Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World in 2024 to 2026
Anyway, expect to see the $129 pricing at Animal Kingdom in early November or December, and the $449 pricing at Magic Kingdom the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. For further commentary about pricing–and the big gap between base costs for Walt Disney World and Disneyland, see our post about Lightning Lane Premier Pass at Disneyland.
Walt Disney World’s official website emphasizes that they will begin piloting the rollout of Lightning Lane Premier Pass with “very limited quantities.” Our biggest question is: just how limited is very limited?
Will Lightning Lane Premier Pass be so limited that it easily sells out every single day? Is that the reason for restricting it to only Deluxe Resort and DVC Villas? Is this going to meaningful impact Lightning Lane availability for those who want to purchase Multi-Pass or Single Pass? Will this mean more capacity is allocated away from standby lines and to Lightning Lanes?
As previously mentioned, it’s been our understanding that there’s an internal desire within Disney to strike more of a balance between standby guests and Lightning Lane users. Policies and systems that feel fairer to the majority of guests and don’t advantage or disadvantage anyone too much. Disney has been trying to thread the needle with all of the queueing and capacity changes over the last few months.
Our strong suspicion is that Walt Disney World does not want to disturb that ‘delicate balance’ in queue capacity allocation with Lightning Lane Premier Pass. But on the other hand, the company does love money, so if LLPP is selling out daily during its ‘pilot program,’ we could see its availability being upped closer to Christmas. So the bottom line is that these are all open questions for us, and ones we’ll seek to answer during Lightning Lane Multi-Pass field testing later this year. (We won’t be testing LLPP–there’s no point and it’s beyond our budget.)
Turning to commentary, Lightning Lane Premier Pass is essentially Disney’s version of Universal’s Express Pass.
For those unfamiliar with it, Universal’s Express Pass is available as a ticket add-on or with select hotel stays. You can purchase two varieties of Express Pass, regular or unlimited. The regular version allows you to skip the line once per eligible attraction in either park. Universal Express Unlimited offers line-skipping privileges, as the name suggests, an unlimited number of times per attraction.
Unlike Lightning Lanes, guests using Express Pass at Universal are not required to make ride reservations–meaning there are no set return times. You simply go up to the attraction, scan your pass, and use your Express Pass entitlement. There’s nothing to reserve or hassle with in an app. It’s a totally “dumb” system–and I mean that in the best way possible. Express Pass involves zero technology and screen time. It’s completely hassle-free.
Universal’s Express Pass is also much more expensive when not included with a hotel stay. The out-of-pocket cost of regular Express Pass starts at $89.99 per person plus tax and can top out at $290, with the average being well north of $100. Unlimited Universal Express Pass ranges from $120 to $320, with the average near $200.
With that said, there are some critical distinctions between Universal’s Express Pass and Lightning Lane Premier Pass.
The first is that there will not be an unlimited option with Lightning Lane Premier Pass. It’s one entry per attraction, making this equivalent to the regular Express Pass. I guess in theory you might be able to purchase multiple Lightning Lane Premier Passes and fashion a DIY unlimited option, but that’d be pricey and I’m not even sure it’d work.
I suspect Walt Disney World doesn’t want to disturb the ‘delicate balance’ in queue capacity allocation by offering Lightning Lane Premier Pass at an unlimited level. Perhaps more importantly, they don’t want to cannibalize VIP tour sales or Club 33 memberships. If you want the unlimited option, there already exist ways to obtain that.
If they’re too expensive…the unlimited option actually is not aimed at you, I guess? The goal is to be slot this in between existing product offerings, not compete with them. (Unlimited Lightning Lane Premier Pass would likely cost $1,000 to $2,000 on the high end given these price points.)
The next distinction between Universal’s Express Pass and Lightning Lane Premier Pass is that there’s no “free” version of LLPP for on-site hotel guests as there is at Universal Orlando.
Unlimited Express Pass is included with stays at the Premier Hotels, which are Universal’s highest-tier resorts. Guests who stay at Royal Pacific, Hard Rock Hotel, and Portofino Bay all receive Unlimited Express Pass included with their stay at no additional charge (including check-in and checkout days).
We’ve heard from a number of readers in the last few years who have wanted Walt Disney World to adopt Universal’s Express Pass system. My response has been: be careful what you wish for. That’s in large part because the sense I’ve gotten is that most Disney fans only want the “free with on-site stays” part, and not the “$100+ for bypassing technology” part.
We’ve previously the discussed the ‘why’ of this at great length, but there are numerous reasons why Walt Disney World would not (and in fact, is not) offering “free” unlimited (or even limited) Lightning Lane Premier Pass with on-site resort stays.
For one thing, there’s the disparity in the number of on-site resort rooms. In total, there are just under 7,000 hotel rooms at Universal Orlando Resort (pre-Epic Universe). By contrast, there are approximately 40,000 rooms at Walt Disney World. Even narrowing it down to Deluxe Resorts and adjusting on a per-park basis, Walt Disney World still has nearly triple the number of eligible rooms. It’s a simple numbers game–free unlimited line-skipping for Deluxe Resorts would literally “break” the guest experience for everyone else.
But that’s not really what’s outcome determinative. Quite simply, Walt Disney World doesn’t offer free line-skipping because they don’t need to do so. The last few years should make this plain as day. Walt Disney World keeps increasing prices on Lightning Lanes, and guests keep buying.
There are ways that the current Multi-Pass system is arguably inferior to free FastPass, but I’m nevertheless completely confident it’ll sell out at record high prices the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. Disney has absolutely no incentive to give away for free what guests will spend money–and a lot of it!–to purchase.
Frankly, neither does Universal Orlando! We’ve openly speculated for years that the only reason Universal still offers Unlimited Express Pass is due to a contractual agreement with Loews, which was necessary to get the hotelier on board.
I’ve finally received confirmation that this is, in fact, true. Universal isn’t including Express Pass with hotel stays because it makes any business sense or they’re generous–it’s due to Loews getting a sweetheart deal back in the 1990s when the theme park landscape was radically different.
This is also why Helios Grand Hotel–Universal’s new flagship resort overlooking Epic Universe–won’t offer Unlimited Express Pass at all to hotel guests. It’s also why the existing hotels won’t add Unlimited Express Pass for Epic Universe. The Loews contract is frozen in time, and subsequent hotels and parks are not subject to it.
The next distinction is cost. Regular Express Pass at Universal Orlando has a starting price that’s lower than the Animal Kingdom starting price, and a ceiling that’s over $150 less than the peak Magic Kingdom price.
This is another reason we’ve warned to ‘be careful what you wish for’ with this Express Pass competitor–because it would almost certainly cost significantly more than Universal’s counterpart. As should be clear by now from the endless parade of price increases, Walt Disney World has pricing power. Its demographics are also different than Universal.
Fans frequently blame one another for tolerating paying more and getting less at Walt Disney World, which is misplaced ire. This is actually attributable to first-timers and rite-of-passage tourists.
For the most part, it is not Annual Passholders or DVC members who are “causing” price increases or product offerings like this. C’mon, you really think the people who will wait in line 30 minutes for a “free” magnet or soda are the problem?! As the company itself has made clear, we are the “unfavorables” precisely because we spend less! Those are Disney’s words, not mine!!!
Free-spending first-timers pull out all of the stops for fear of missing out. They have FOMO or FUD and want to make sure their kids’ milestone vacation is as magical as the commercials. This demo almost certainly visits Walt Disney World at disproportionate levels as compared to Universal. I would be willing to bet that per guest spending is considerably higher at Disney than Universal.
The bottom line is that neither of these businesses set their price points as a courtesy to guests. They both charge what the market will bear. As we’ve also been saying for a while, enjoy this while it lasts, Universal diehards–your on-site hotels likely won’t be this underpriced for much longer! Universal didn’t spend billions on Epic Universe for local Annual Passholders–they got a taste of Disney’s demos with Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and want another bite of that with Nintendo!
The prices for Lightning Lane Premier Pass also shouldn’t be a surprise because we’ve (sort of) already been down this road before. Walt Disney World did something similar under the old FastPass+ system, allowing Club Level guests to purchase a ‘theme park extra’ package that primarily consisted of 3 extra FastPass+ selections for $50 per person, per day. That started in 2018 and ran through the closure of the parks in 2020. I thought that was crazy at the time–an insane cost for a system that could easily be ‘gamed’ with just a little effort.
I was wrong. (Well, not entirely–it was crazy to buy something you could get for free with a modicum of effort.) Club Level guests loved it–the bonus FastPass+ were insanely popular. Just ask a travel agent. Many had clients who otherwise would not have booked Club Level in the first place do so just to have access to the bonus FastPass+ selections. Meaning that their actual cost wasn’t $50 per person, per day–it was that plus the nightly upgrade to Club Level over cheaper accommodations they would’ve booked in the alternative!
If we’ve learned anything since ~2018-2020, it’s that there’s an insatiable market for exclusive Disney offerings. If such a “perk” on top of a freebie was $50 then, it could easily be triple or more that price now. Whatever you think is the “worth it” price for such a line-skipping product, the actual cost could almost certainly be higher. If you’re even thinking about value-for-money, you probably aren’t the demo for Lightning Lane Premier Pass!
This analysis of Lightning Lane Premier Pass all might sound overly blunt or cold and calculated. And I suppose it is.
But the reality is that I’m not saying this condescendingly as I laugh maniacally at the unwashed masses who cannot afford Lightning Lane Premier Pass. I’m not the target audience for LLPP, either! Heck, I’m not even the target audience for Lightning Lane Single Pass. (Fun fact: to this day, I have still never purchased an Individual Lightning Lane, Single Pass, or equivalent. And not just the Walt Disney World parks–any of them. It’s not that I can’t afford the $15-20 or whatever; it’s that I can’t justify it. I’d rather beat the system than be part of that particular “problem.”)
Look, I would love nothing more than for Lightning Lane Premier Pass to crash and burn. For Walt Disney World to finally push prices too high, and hit the ceiling. For this to end up being more trouble than it was worth for the company, and to learn a lesson as a result. Every time something pushes the envelope on prices, a part of me is hoping it’ll fail and we’ll see a reversal in these trends. I could go on and on, but you already know what I mean–I’d like for Disney to be humbled when it comes to pricing.
I completely “get” why there’s so much schadenfreude around Walt Disney World announcements like this. Given the guest unfriendly decisions, price increases and cost-cutting, it makes sense. But I also try to be level-headed and not pretend that what I want to happen is what I think actually will happen.
In this case, I have little doubt that Lightning Lane Premier Pass will be a huge success. I think it’s more likely that the service sells out with regularity, has even higher prices in 2025, or is further restricted (maybe to only Club Level guests?) than that it crashes and burns. I’d like to be wrong. Not because this particular product bothers me that much, but because I hate the general trajectory of things, and the way Walt Disney World is leaning more and more into creating an in-park class system. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be wrong.
The bottom line is that there’s a huge market for a ‘hassle free’ Express Pass-esque alternative to Lightning Lane Multi Pass. The guests willing to purchase this will probably pay more than you think it’s worth because they’re probably not approaching it from a value-for-money perspective.
This is precisely why I’m not doing that analysis, either. I had two paragraphs about why this is a complete waste of money at Animal Kingdom when it costs $129 (and it is!) but decided to trash that since this post is already a novella and the target audience simply won’t care. That isn’t their calculus. I guess we shall see, though. Even if it’s not for me and I will never buy this, I’m curious to see how it plays out, the fan reaction (backlash?), and so forth!
The only other bad news–aside from, you know, this announcement as a whole–is that now I need to redo all of my Lightning Lane Multi-Pass field testing and strategy guides to account for how Lightning Lane Premier Pass alters the line-skipping capacity allocation. The good news is that few things bring me greater joy than “beating the system,” so expect to see plenty of that over the next few months and throughout 2025. Stay tuned!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about Lightning Lane Premier Pass? Thoughts on Walt Disney World’s “answer” to Universal’s Express Pass? Predictions as to how successful this line-skipping service will be? Under what, if any, scenarios would you buy Lightning Lane Premier Pass? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Other thoughts or concerns? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
