Disney World’s 10 Big Lightning Lane Changes for 2026
There are major changes to Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Walt Disney World, with the pre-arrival priorities at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Hollywood Studios changing, along with the rankings or importance of buying the paid FastPass service at each of the four parks. Here’s what you need to know before you buy LLMP (or decide to skip it) in 2026.
If you’re going to do Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, purchasing pre-arrival up to 21 days in advance is of paramount importance. Depending upon whether you’re staying off-site or on-site, you’ll have 3-day or 7-day windows for making ride reservations.
The latter is for the length of your stay and extends up to two weeks, hence the 21 days in advance. For the most part, guests are booking Lightning Lanes roughly 3 days to 10 days in advance, and that’s reflected in availability (or lack thereof) for popular attractions.
Choosing Lightning Lane Multi Pass ride reservations requires balancing two sometimes competing factors: availability of the best attractions and earliest return times. If you’re staying on-site and making selections 5 or more days in advance, you’re likely to have the option to book almost every attraction. The bigger issue is return times, which can be more important than ride priority.
While you can make attraction selections in advance with Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you can also make subsequent selections on the day of your park visit. Once you redeem a selection, you can use the My Disney Experience app to check availability for another Lightning Lane Multi Pass experience, and then add that to your plans.
We call this the “rolling 3 rule,” which is to say that you can always have 3 Lightning Lane selections (subject to availability). With the rolling 3 rule of LLMP, you can make your next ride reservation as soon as you’ve used one. As is probably obvious, this means that it behooves you to make selections as early in the day as possible to give you more runway for subsequent selections.
The good news is that not every selection you make needs to be for early in the morning. The best practice is making as early of arrival times as possible for at least one attraction in order to “unlock” that 4th ride faster. If you’re only getting late morning or afternoon return times, it often makes more sense to aim for one lower priority Tier B selection in order to prioritize for a mixture of return time and ride priority.
In practice, this means that you may not want to book Soarin’ Across America in advance if your only return time is in the late afternoon, unless you can also get a “burner” Tier B attraction (like Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival) with a return time before 10 am to unlock that 4th selection. That’s actually less of an issue at EPCOT than at DHS, where neither Toy Story Mania nor Tower of Terror have return times before 10 am in the next 13 days!
Along these lines, here’s what you need to know before booking Lightning Lane Multi-Pass in Summer 2026 and beyond, or buying the paid FastPass replacement in the first place. This includes ride reservations we recommend emphasizing to get the most mileage out of Lightning Lane Multi Pass…
Magic Kingdom is #1 Again
We’re going to start by zooming out and viewing the parks as a whole, and the biggest change for 2026 is that Magic Kingdom has restored ride capacity with reimaginings completed. We had hoped that this would result in the end of tiers, but thus far, that has not been the case. The actual result has been improved Lightning Lane inventory and selections aren’t booking up as quickly as they were.
This comes in part thanks to improved reliability and uptime for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, but is mostly about Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Big Thunder Mountain reopening from lengthy closures, following a trio of refurbishments before those. During this time, DHS quietly crept into the #1 spot for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass thanks to better availability and more overall time saved.
With Big Thunder and Buzz both back, this is actually the first time that Magic Kingdom has had every Lightning Lane Multi-Pass attraction online simultaneously for an extended amount of time since the switch from Genie+ to Multi-Pass. The end result of this is better availability, including more options for same-day selections.
Magic Kingdom once again has the deepest ride roster of any park with 18 Lightning Lane Multi Pass attractions. Of those, about a dozen can be worthwhile. Not only that, but if you play your cards right, utilizing savvy strategy for time slots and booking in order of these rankings, you should be able to score at least a half-dozen of those in a day. That’s a higher number than DHS, even if the quality isn’t quite comparable.
DHS is Worth It Even More
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the park with the highest average standby wait times, the #1 overall Lightning Lane Multi-Pass attraction, and easier same-day availability for tier two attractions and ride reservation refills if you leverage the rolling 3 rule and put a little elbow grease into your refresh game.
For all of these reasons, we usually have a great experience with Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. You can save a ton of time with LLMP, and it’s potentially still the #1 park if you’re looking to avoid stress or do a midday break.
In other words, Magic Kingdom moved back into the #1 spot because it got better, not due to DHS getting worse. To the contrary, both improved! Disney’s Hollywood Studios benefits from Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring the Muppets, the Mandalorian Mission for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, and Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live all debuting for Summer 2026.
EPCOT is Essential…Or Is It?
EPCOT used to be the distant #3 park for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. It is now more useful here than ever, thanks to the reimagining of Test Track, improvements to Frozen Ever After, increased accessibility of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and the new Soarin’ Across America.
All of this has, in turn, increased the popularity of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at EPCOT. More reasons to buy LLMP mean that more guests are doing exactly that and, in turn, that you’re at more of a disadvantage if you don’t. That makes Lightning Lane Multi-Pass popularity something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it becomes more of a non-negotiable for another park.
At the same time, both Test Track and now Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure have Single Rider lines. If you’re willing to split up your group, things get a lot easier. Add to that Early Entry and/or Extended Evening Hours, and it’s still pretty easy to knock out all of EPCOT without line-skipping. That’s doubly true in the summer months, when “Diet EPCOT” makes the park less popular.
Animal Kingdom is More Skippable
Animal Kingdom has always been far and away the last place park for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, and we strongly believe most guests should skip LLMP here most days. And if availability is any indication, most guests do–despite the lower price!
This is now doubly true in 2026, as DINOSAUR is closed. There’s little reason to buy Lightning Lane Multi-Pass here, as it’s pretty easy to beat the crowds by simply arriving early or staying late. With even a modicum of strategy most days, you can experience Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and Kali River Rapids with 30 minute or less waits.
Na’vi River Journey is pretty much the only worthwhile LLMP at DAK. Strategically, we’re fans of getting the earliest possible return time for Na’vi River Journey and doing Avatar Flight of Passage via the standby line during Early Entry. By the time you’re done, you should be able to hit Na’vi River Journey via the Lightning Lane and then continue on to other attractions–most of which will still have short waits.
Personally, I might be inclined to make this my only Lightning Lane selection in Animal Kingdom. After tapping into Na’vi River Journey, you can book all subsequent selections in a different park and then use those during the middle of the day when standby lines are longer. That is, assuming you have Park Hopper tickets. If you don’t, LLMP at DAK is utterly pointless.
Bluey is Lightning Laneless
The hot ticket of 2026 at Animal Kingdom is Bluey’s Wild World, which is a friction-filled dance party out at Conservation Station. Thankfully, it does not have a Lightning Lane, which is a good thing as it’d make this experience even more of a logistical nightmare.
This is nevertheless worth noting because Bluey’s Wild World is going to be priority #1 for many young families, and the easiest way to experience it will be rope dropping it. Knock out a couple of rides during Early Entry or regular rope drop, and then board the Wildlife Express Train by 10 am or so.
Based on recent field testing, albeit more limited than I’d like, my experience was that the line for Bluey’s Wild World was shortest first thing in the morning, spiking to 40 minutes at around 10:30 am, then back down around lunch, then up again in the early afternoon, before another lull ahead of closure. Even with a minimal wait, expect Bluey’s Wild World to eat up about 70 to 90 minutes of your day.
New #1A at Magic Kingdom
The Wildest Ride in the Wilderness returned this summer after a 16-month closure! As with Test Track before it, we missed the mark in predicting its popularity, calling Big Thunder Mountain Railroad a “lock” for the #3 spot once the tumbleweeds settle, behind Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Peter Pan’s Flight.
Although that could always change over time, it’s now a month later and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is now the clear #1 attraction in Group A (hence #1A). Oh, and same goes for Test Track 3.0 at EPCOT, which is still going strong one year later.
Our basis for that prediction was that the ‘new ride smell’ would wear off Big Thunder Mountain Railroad faster due to a lack of substantive changes. What we under-indexed was the degree to which lowering the height requirement from 40″ to 38″ and smoother track would make a difference.
On the lower end, this means families with young children can experience BTMRR roughly 12-18 months earlier. On the opposite end of the spectrum, people my age and older can now enjoy Big Thunder even when we don’t need kidney stones dislodged. Our revised assessment is that the refreshed Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will have staying power and remain in the top spot indefinitely.
New #1B at Magic Kingdom
After a lengthy closure that recharged the ride, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin has reopened with enhanced gameplay thanks to new ride vehicles, blasters, interactive targets, real time displays, and new scoring. Unsurprisingly, this has also resulted in increased demand for Lightning Lanes and higher wait times.
This could subside over time, but I’d bet against it. I’ve now played the new Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin over a dozen times, and cannot get enough of it. The gameplay loop is addictive, thanks to satisfying shooting mechanics and an engaging scoring system.
My expectation here is that the gap between Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh will grow greater as more guests experience this refreshed ride and want to replay it during their day. (The two attractions are currently neck and neck.)
If you’re visiting when Magic Kingdom is busier, scoring a reservation for Space Ranger Spin is also worthwhile since the overflow queue is outdoors and offers limited shade. We’d also add that no attraction in Magic Kingdom has greater re-rideability, so doing this during Early Entry or regular rope drop and having a Lightning Lane is the smart choice.
Soarin Gets Stronger
Soarin’ Over the World was already one of the more competitive Multi-Pass attractions at Walt Disney World after its downgrade to Tier B with last year’s reopening of Test Track. The new film has given Soarin’ Across America even more of a boost.
As of right now, Soarin’ Across America is easily the #1B attraction at EPCOT, and one of the top secondary selections in all of Walt Disney World. This isn’t a huge change given its status before, but it is worth pointing out the popularity here and how this could impact your initial and subsequent selections, Park Hopping plans, or even the decision to purchase LLMP at EPCOT in the first place.
Muppets > Mando
As hinted at above, there’s usually a ‘new ride smell’ that accompanies any attraction update, whether that be a wholesale ride reimagining or even minor enhancements. How long that lasts depends on the degree of the change and guest reception.
This is why it’s surprising that the new Mandalorian mission hasn’t moved the needle on Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at all. Given its underwhelming performance at the box office, this is not a complete shock, but the difference is that the mission updates are actually good. (I haven’t seen the movie and have zero interest, so I can’t speak to its quality.) What I can say is the MFSR upgrades are fantastic and make the attraction much more enjoyable!
Despite that, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run has inexplicably gotten less popular since the new mission launched, which is more attributable to the debut of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring the Muppets than anything else. The Muppet Makeover of RnRC has seen a big boost, and is now the #2 ride in Tier A. It remains firmly behind Slinky Dog Dash, but the gap isn’t as big as it once was. Meanwhile, MFSR sits in distant fourth place, beat out by the all ages Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.
Toy Story (5) Mania
The next change is almost inexplicable, which is that Toy Story Mania has emerged as the clear #1B Lightning Lane at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It was previously neck and neck with Tower of Terror in Tier B, but now enjoys a decisive lead. Our best guess is that this boils down to excitement over Toy Story 5, which is projected to set box office records.
Toy Story Mania has limited to no availability between 3-days and 7-days with regularity, which is also true with Tower of Terror. It’s an even bigger issue at Disney’s Hollywood Studios because Slinky Dog Dash routinely has return times in the second half of the day. Meaning that you might have trouble getting any ride reservations at DHS with a return time before 10 am, which can really limit your availability to leverage the ‘rolling 3’ rule.
With the Toy Story 5 hype training only accelerating, we don’t expect demand for Toy Story Mania to die down over the course of this summer, and without any changes to the attraction. Imagine if they added that Taylor Swift song–it’d surpass Slinky Dog Dash! (Unless they also added it there.)
Ultimately, several of these changes do move the needle on when and where you might want to purchase Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Walt Disney World. Just in the last month, the ride roster has improved at 3 of the 4 parks and there can be more value in line-skipping, especially if you put in the effort to leverage the rolling 3 rule.
At the same time, summer is a slower time of year at Walt Disney World. Lower average standby wait times reduce the “need” to purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass in the first place. It still can be valuable, but it’s not nearly as essential as during busier times of year. Those of you planning trips in mid-October and into 2027 are the ones who could really benefit from the above. Assuming it doesn’t all change again!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
How would you rank your ride priorities with Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Walt Disney World? Surprised by Big Thunder and Muppets moving up, or Millennium Falcon not moving at all? Do you agree with our assessment that getting earlier return times matters a lot for the ‘rolling 3’ rule? Are you planning on buying LLMP or skipping it? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? 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!
I agree with Mike’s comment from Friday; this post should really be titled Lighting Lane “Strategy Changes,” or “Popularity Shifts,” or “Priority Changes.”
The “Big Lightning Lane Changes” title implies that attractions were added to/removed from the system, or had a tier change, etc.
I’ve done the check into Navi after FOP early entry trick to book lightning lanes for a park hop, however I’m really intrigued in something I read.
You’re able to just book Navi, and then get 3 rides for the park you’re hopping to? And the tier system is gone after doing so?
Thanks for another great post!
Yes, once you *use* (can’t just let it expire) your first LLMP of the day, you switch into “day-of” mode, which means you are free to book any attraction in any park (tiering rules disappear).
Don’t ONLY pre-book the River Journey, though. If it’s closed that morning and you’re unable to use that LL, you will be stuck. Better to book other LLMPs in AK that you don’t plan to use (e.g., Better Zoogether), and then once you tap into River Journey, you can cancel the others and book something else.
Is there a reliable chart somewhere that shows the most UP-TO- DATE tiers? My purchase date time is coming up and I am a visual person!
Lori C – you can look on the Disney website. Search “lightning lane passes” – scroll down to the bottom and you can see a list by park. It’s under “Attractions and Experiences” – I am currently looking for myself for our July trip!
Thank you! Exactly what I was looking for!
Tom, You mentioned this in your post “If you’re going to do Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, purchasing pre-arrival up to 21 days in advance is of paramount importance.” What does the 21 days refer to? Disney is stating on the website seven days for resort guests, which we are/will be. Thanks for the help!
Hi Shaun, resort guests can purchase LLMP 7 days prior to their check-in date, for the entire length of their stay, up to 14 days. (Non-resort guests can purchase 3 days in advance for EACH of their park days.) So if you are fortunate enough to have a 2-week trip planned and staying on-site, the last day of your trip would be your 14th day. With the 7 day advance purchase window, 14 + 7 = 21 days in advance.
If you had a 5-day trip, for example, then when purchasing lightning lanes for your last day, you are 5 + 7 = 12 days out. If your first park day is the day after you check in, then you would be purchasing LLMP for that day 8 days in advance.
After our first family trip last April, we discovered that some of the most competitive rides were just no « hits » with our family.
– in AK we did not « get » Avatar at all except for Satuli Canteen ; neither Flight of passage nor Navi River journey worked (maybe the 3d being blurry did not help) ; on our second AK day we didn’t even go there
– in DHS we were a bit disappointed by Slinky Dog Dash which was very underwhelming especially compared to Expedition Everest which was the family favourite ride overall ; I don’t ride ToT so no comment on this one
– in Epcot we definitely liked Gardians of the Galaxy but the family preferred Mission Space and Soarin’ ; my son loved Living with the land!
– in MK I think it was more « aligned » however we were surprised that my son favorite rides were most of the vintage ones : Carousel of Progress, Tiki Room for instance.
Just to say that some of the most competitive LL may be skipped if your family doesn’t care for it ! I would definitely prioritise a bit differently now – however I was glad that we didn’t wait an hour for Slinky Dog Dash – I would have been annoyed.
I just got back and it was my worst experience yet with the MP. The parks were not insanely busy with wait times even for very popular rides under 60 minutes yet after my first three lightning lanes and with constant flicking in my app all day long I was only able to book 1 or two more lightning lanes. Disney has obviously tightened up the availability because I’ve been going for 10 years. I’ve never had this much trouble booking new lightning lanes as long as I was willing to hang out on my phone all day long on my family vacation.
“Disney has obviously tightened up the availability because I’ve been going for 10 years.”
This has been my observation as well. It isn’t a change for Summer 2026, so it isn’t discussed here, but it’s nevertheless worth mentioning. Definitely not as much inventory as the FastPass+ or Genie+ days.
This is yet another reason why we don’t purchase LLMP that often. I view this as a positive; it means that the standby experience is better because the ratio has improved.
Check out this post for more: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/lightning-lane-multi-pass-worth-money-disney-world-lower-crowds/
Steve – you just reminded me why we will only get for MK – had a very similar experience last two trips
Yep! We went in early March and we only got our 3 LL rides at each park. By the time we were able to get our next LL there were none available for the whole rest of the day! Waste of money for our family of 5!!!
would never buy it again. Ride only 1 time and cannot select same ride again.
i.e. ride toy story and you aren’t able to select it again.
never ever ever buying ll again…
Thanks for the article Tom. I got excited there for a minute thinking WDW was dropping the tiers. Title should be “Big Lightening Lane Strategy Changes”
I’m going 6/27-7/2 and can’t wait. I will get LLMP and LLSP or possibly Premier pass for our 4 park days because we it the pool all day and do parks late afternoon and into the night (4 day park ticket deal is best prices I’ve seen in a while). I did get premier pass last year because we don’t go to the parks until the afternoon and everything is gone by then (miss stacking with Genie). LLMP stinks if you are an afternoon family like ours and is not worth the money. Wish Disney would figure out a way to accommodate non rope droppers.
now totally confused, seems to make everything more stressful
So if going in mid-late October with 3 adults and a 9 year old, would buying the LLMP be a worthwhile spend?
We just got back from a 8 day trip and used both multi and single LL. Here is my issue with multi LL. I did do an early reservation but once we used it nothing that was in group A was available ALL day. I felt like it was a total waste of money and a LL reservation just to try to get multiple reservations. What did I do wrong?
Also felt like the park hopper was a waist of money because you couldn’t get LL reservations for later times in other parks as well.
Aaack, we’ve never done any form of LL at EPCOT before. We’ll be there on July 1 and I’m really banking on your prediction that the early closure that day is going to mean lower crowds (and we’re doing EE, albeit from the back of the park.) But I am getting nervous from home watching wait times for Soarin/Test Track/Guardians all skyrocket pretty early in the day…Putting a lot of faith in July 1 predictions and our experience in MK when we’ve been there on early closing days that all will be well.
I won’t be there on July 1st, but really (REALLY!) wish I were.
There isn’t a chance on earth I’d buy LLMP on that day. You will be fine with standby. There’s really no point in watching wait times for normal days because, as you know, those are likewise utterly meaningless for party-shortened days at the other parks.
Have fun–I’m jealous!
Thank you for the boost of confidence! We’re driving down from our home in D.C. to Florida for a cruise on the Wish and I’d sworn we wouldn’t hit up the parks at all while we were down but the promise of such low crowds and experiencing Soarin 3.0 and Test Track 3.0 for the first time was just too much to pass up!
I will be there mid October and am wondering if the old tips regarding MK party days are the same. ie: not needed but more useful when rolling them into another park for the afternoon/ evening. Or whether it makes AK more useful on those days?
Tips are the same for party days at this point, and I don’t see any reason to believe they’ll change for 2026.
I personally would not buy LLMP, even for another park, on a party-shortened day at MK. If I were to do so (and again, I wouldn’t), it would be when Park Hopping to DHS. That’s literally the only scenario where it gets a “maybe” from me. Of course, reasonable minds may differ on that, and I recognize my threshold for buying LLMP is higher than many guests.
Booked LLs for our summer trip recently, and we used it for Epcot but I was on the fence. I’m not sure if my son will ride Soarin and, without that, you basically pay the full price to get one headliner. Rides that appeal to young children at Epcot rarely have a line to begin with. Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios were very obviously worth it though.
Totally agree. Exactly why we don’t buy LLMP at EPCOT.
Also why, when it’s all three of us, we don’t buy LLMP at DHS. Different dynamic once kids are a tad taller, though!
I bought it mostly out of fomo, lol, but if we find the lines for Frozen and Remy are manageable in the morning, probably won’t buy it again.
For AK LLMP, do you book all three (like Safari and Everest after Na’vi River), or just Na’vi and start booking for your afternoon park hops at 8:01am?
I personally don’t buy it for DAK at all, but I’d do some variation of the latter approach if I did.
Really want to underscore how unnecessary LLMP at DAK is if you rope drop, though. The longest line that I encountered in last week’s field testing was Bluey. I did everything else with minimal waits prior to that, and could’ve done Na’vi River Journey again after lunch with a ~20 minute actual wait.
I’d be much more inclined to buy LLSP for Avatar Flight of Passage and book afternoon LLMP returns for EPCOT. But even FoP should be easy via Early Entry!
I’m not shocked if Millennium Falcon doesn’t seem any busier now. Unlike Muppets, the building looks the same on the outside. If you don’t read blogs or watch a lot of YouTube, you might not realize HOW MUCH it’s changed.
That’s a fair point. Batuu being so “in universe” definitely has not done that attraction, or its refresh, any favors.
Probably also doesn’t help that the film has underperformed, as any hype that could be driven by external marketing has also fallen flat. (For whatever it’s worth, we’ve seen far less interest in MFSR than any other new additions we’ve covered. Even the Animation Courtyard placemaking project is more “popular” by the metrics we see.)
Hmmmmm….
Was going to just get multipass for our Mk days but now you are tempting me to possibly get for our HS days as well …
Less than 3 weeks away
You should definitely monitor wait times and see if the potential time-savings is worth it to you.
I haven’t done extensive field testing with LLMP since the summer started, but there have been times when I’ve saved 300+ minutes in a day at DHS thanks to Genie/LLMP.
Hi Tom! Thanks for the great strategy post. I always learn so much from your strategy posts. My family of five will be visiting WDW June 24-July 1, which coincides with “twin peaks” of summer. I’m on the fence about LLMP in Epcot. My concern isn’t so much lines but waiting in the heat. My youngest is nine so we are not hesitant to take advantage of single rider lines. We are always purchase LLMP for MK and DHS. We got a great deal on our Disney resort stays so I’m not terribly concerned about spending money on multipass if it’s good value.
Thanks so much for your help and wishing you and your family all the best!