Navigating Disney World’s rides and attractions can be a challenge and with a large family including young children and this shaped our approach in 2024 we weighed up the considerable cost of Multi pass compared to the benefits that it offered a family 5.
What is Multi Pass and Why We Love It
The Lightning Lane Multi Pass is a paid service on the My Disney Experience app that lets you book a return time for a ride, When your return time arrives, you get to enter a much shorter queue. This new system offers a huge advantage over the old one: you can plan in advance! This removes a lot of the stress of having to wake up early on the day of your trip to book your first ride.
For a family like ours, being able to plan ahead means we were able to secure our spots on the most popular rides and focus on having fun, not scrambling on our phones, it also meant that with the children, we minimised the time queuing which was a huge help with the children, and even more crucially for us, it allowed us to get more done in the time we had there.+
Our Step-by-Step Multi Pass Strategy
Our strategy is simple: plan your trip in advance and prioritize the most popular rides.
- Step 1: The Booking Window
- This is the biggest change. If you’re staying at a Disney World Resort hotel (like we are at Port Orleans!), you can purchase your Multi Pass and make your first three selections up to 7 days before your trip begins. If you’re staying off-property, you can do this 3 days in advance. Advance booking becomes available for anyone located in America, so it is important to note that it isn’t straightforward to book this if you are based internationally.
- Pro Tip: We researched in advance and found out that by using a VPN whilst logging in from the UK and this allowed us access to our booking window before travel day so we didn’t miss out. Having access to the VPN was also super useful as we could access many restaurant websites beforehand to help us plan ahead, my wife also used it to her advantage to get an accurate ( and long) list of items she wanted from Sephora.
- Pro Tip: Be ready at exactly 7 a.m. EST on the morning your booking window opens! This gives you the best chance to secure a time for the most in-demand rides.
- Step 2: The Three-Ride Rule
- When you purchase the Multi Pass for a park, you can pre-book up to three Lightning Lane selections. At Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios, attractions are split into tiers, so you can pick one ride from Tier 1 and two from Tier 2. Animal Kingdom has no tiers, so you can pick any three rides.
- Our Family’s Pick: We always book our top-priority ride first, like Slinky Dog Dash at Hollywood Studios or Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Magic Kingdom. These rides are in Tier 1 and their return times disappear quickly.
- Step 3: Stack Your Bookings on the Day
- Once your first three rides are booked, your in-park strategy begins. After you redeem one of your pre-booked selections, you can book another Lightning Lane. You can continue doing this throughout the day.
- Pro Tip: If your first Lightning Lane is for later in the afternoon, you can try to book more rides in the park after a two-hour wait from when you made your first selection. This lets you stack up rides for later in the day, so you can enjoy your morning at a more relaxed pace.
What to Know About the Multi Pass System
- Pricing: The cost of the Multi Pass is not fixed and varies by day and park, so you’ll want to check the My Disney Experience app for pricing on your specific travel dates we found that it typically ranged between $20 – $28 per person.
- Single Pass Attractions: Some of the newest and most popular rides (like Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind or TRON Lightcycle/Run) are not included in the Multi Pass. You can purchase access to their Lightning Lanes separately, as a Lightning Lane Single Pass. We did use these for Guardians of the Galaxy, Tron & Flights of Passage, we chose to do this because these were the rides that we would have regretted not experiencing, but felt that the queues of often in excess of 60 minutes were not realistic for us to wait in.
Is it Worth It? For our family, yes! The ability to plan ahead and secure our top rides is invaluable. It removes a ton of stress and allows us to focus on what matters most: making magical memories together. Lesson learned though as we prepare for our trip in 2026 is we are unlikely to buy Fast Pass for Animal Kingdom or Epcot as these parks are typically a but quieter & the non negotiable rides are generally Single Pass which we would definitely purchase again
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