About the new Lightning Lane system - PREP 418

Disney launches a new Lightning Lane system on July 24. Listen to learn more about how you can use this to your advantage on your next trip to Walt Disney World.

In this article

The Basics

Genie+ system will be called Lightning Lane Multi Pass. The Individual Lightning Lane will now be called Single Pass.

This new system will allow you to book lightning lanes prior to your trip. This is like the previous FastPass+ system.

The Disneyland Version will stay exactly the same, it will just have a name change. Everything else will be exactly the same.

These changes will take place beginning on July 24, 2024.

What will be different?

You will now be able to pre-book your selections at 7 a.m. Eastern time. If you are staying onsite these sections can be made 7 days prior to your trip. If you are staying offsite, you can book these 3 days prior to your trip.

You must use the app to make these purchases and selections. You will not be able to make selections on a desktop. Because of this, international guests must be in the United States in order to make their selections.

When purchasing, you can book this for just specific days of your trip. You do not need to purchase the Multi Pass in order to get the single pass. You can purchase it for one day of your trip.

How will it work?

Pre-booking

If you purchase the Multi-pass, you can book 3 lightning lanes in one park for each day of your trip. If you are park-hopping, you will need to choose which park you want to choose.

If you purchase the Single Pass option, you can choose up to two at any of the parks. You can make them for two different parks and they do not need to be the same parks as your multi-pass.

There will also be tiered rides at each park except Animal Kingdom during the pre-booking process. This will limit you to only getting one tier 1 attractions and two tier two selections. This is similar to the tiers under the FastPass+ system.

In the Parks

These tiered limitations do not apply once you are in the park. You will be able to modify times as you have done previously.

This system will not be working until July 24. You cannot book anything prior to July 24. Disney did send out emails to people saying that they could book 7 days prior to their trip beginning on July 24, but this was automated.

The system will not be available until July 24.

As soon as you tap in, you will be able to book another lightning lane immediately. You do not need to wait 2 hours like you did previously. You can only have 3 lightning lanes at any time.

We suspect that additional availability will be released same-day. Previously inventory would be released the same day and we expect that to be the same with this new system. We do not know how quickly availability will fill up at this point.

Churning vs. Stacking

Genie+ gave you the ability to stack lightning lanes for a certain period of time. You could stack lightning lanes for later in the day every 2 hours.

This likely won’t be quite as easy with the new system because you can only have a maximum of 3 lightning lanes booked at any one time.

However, you can always have three lightning lanes and two single passes at one time. You can stack these for later in the day if you are not going to rope drop.

Churning lightning lanes will be even easier than with the Genie+. If you rope drop, you can begin churning immediately. As soon as you tap in, you can get another one and continue churning them.

Pros and Cons

We have been through four different systems already and think this one brings together the best elements of the previous systems.

Pros

Only getting up early once rather than every day of your trip is a huge pro for this system. – Genie+ caused you to wake up early every day of your trip without knowing what you will get. This new system only has you getting up early one time to pick your selections.
You can also choose your times for your selections, which is an advantage over Genie+ without having control over the times.
This system also allows you to pre-pay for the system rather than paying for it each day like with Genie+.

Cons

There are some cons for this system as well.

International guests cannot purchase or book selections until they are in the United States
Having a maximum of three selections will make stacking more difficult.

FAQs

What will this new system cost? – We believe it will be similar to Genie+ but Disney has not released the price for this new system.
Will there still be Virtual Queues? – Yes. The virtual queues do not have anything to do with this system. It is just a less chaotic way to have a standby line.
Will the characters have lightning lanes? – The tiered attraction list did not include characters. We believe the characters will have lightning lanes.

Questions we are wondering

Do you have to make three selections or can you make two?
Do you have to use all three lightning lanes before you can get a lightning lane for a different park?
When booking a split stay, is it two different booking dates like with dining?
For international guests, can they have someone in the United States, like a travel agent, make their selections for them?
Can lightning lane return times overlap? FastPass+ times could not overlap but with lightning lanes under the Genie+ system they could.
Can you separate your party into two different parks and still pay in the same transaction? It is a benefit to pay for everything in one transaction but we do not know if you will be able to split up your party.
Will there be party maximums with this new system?
What can you select when? Can you go through the new system and book all tier 1 selections first, then single selections, and then the tier two selections?

There is a lot left to learn! We will be there July 28 to test the new system.

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