Which Lightning Lanes should I book in each park?

Once upon a time, you could plan a Disney trip and mostly only had to worry about booking your resort and then booking dining reservations. These days, Disney World has definitely become more of a “planner’s” vacation.

So it’s good to be prepared and have knowledge of what you are walking into. You don’t necessarily need to have everything planned out to the minute (though if that’s what you want to do, go for it!), but it is helpful to at least have a general idea and basic itinerary.

If you’re planning to buy and use Lightning Lane passes, you’ll want to do that ahead of time as well. This system replaced Genie+ in 2024, and is actually more similar to Fastpass+ (which came before Genie+). I’ve written my full guide to Lightning Lanes, which includes how they work, how to purchase, and some general strategy, but I wanted to write this post to give some recommendations about which lightning lanes you should try to get in each park.

Also for a bit of clarification – typically when I’m talking about Lightning Lanes, I’m referring to MultiPass. There is also Lightning Lane Single Pass, but I will specify if that’s what I’m talking about.

A couple of general things to note about Lightning Lanes:

• Booking a lightning lane is reserving your place in line at a certain time so you don’t have to wait as long. There are only a certain amount given out for each time slot.
• You are limited to booking 3 per day in advance (that day, once you use them all, you can book more)
• Some parks have “tiers,” and you cannot book more than 1 Lightning Lane from the first tier, which contains the most popular attractions.
• If you are staying at a Disney resort, you can book Lightning Lanes 7 days before traveling. If you are off-site you have to wait until 3 days before.
• The price of Lightning Lane passes varies from day to day and depends on which park you start in, but it’s been ranging from around $18-40 per day.

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#1 priority in tier 1: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

At least right now, if you want to use the Lightning Lane for Tiana’s Bayou then you’ll want to try and get it as your first priority. This may change, but right now it’s a newer so it will “sell out” the quickest.

If you’re not interested in Tiana’s, your next best bet is Peter Pan’s Flight, followed by Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Top priorities in tier 2:

• Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
• Haunted Mansion
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Attractions where a Lightning Lane is helpful but not top priority:

• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• It’s a Small World
• Jungle Cruise
• Magic Carpets of Aladdin
• The Barnstormer
• Space Mountain
• Tomorrowland Speedway
• Under the Sea

Attractions that you usually don’t need Lightning Lanes for:

• Mad Tea Party
• Mickey’s Philharmagic
• Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor

Lightning Lane Single Pass: available for TRON and 7 Dwarfs Mine Train

Magic Kingdom is the only park which currently offers 2 attractions as a Single Pass. Here’s my thoughts on each of them:

7 Dwarfs Mine Train: If you want to ride this and it’s available when you are purchasing Lightning Lanes, I would go for it. It’s one of the cheaper Single Passes (though that means it sells out pretty quickly too). Plus the wait times for this one are always high. If you don’t rope drop this attraction you’ll probably be waiting from 1-2 hours for it.

TRON: If you won’t be heartbroken if you miss it, then I don’t feel TRON is worth the price tag. It can be hit or miss with wait times, but I’ve often been able to join the standby queue and wait about an hour or so – which isn’t too bad in the grand scheme or things.

#1 priority: Test Track

Test Track is easily the top priority at Epcot if you’re interested in it. Remy and Frozen are both solid choices, but the Test Track queue will get the longest. So if you want to do all 3 of them, your lightning lane is best used here. It’s also newer, now that it’s “Test Track 3.0,” so there may be more demand for it currently.

Top priorities in tier 2:

• Soarin’
• Mission: Space
• The Seas with Nemo and Friends
• Spaceship Earth

Attractions where a Lightning Lane is helpful but not top priority:

• Living with the Land

Attractions that you usually don’t need a Lightning Lane for:

• Disney and Pixar short film festival
• Journey into Imagination with Figment
• Turtle Talk with Crush

Lightning Lane Single Pass: Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind

For me, this is a must-do. I will absolutely purchase the single pass to get on it with a shorter wait, and usually try to do standby at least once too. It’s one of my favorite rides, and I love trying to get different songs!

#1 priority: Slinky Dog Dash

If this is a ride you want to do, you’ll want to go after this one first without question. Slinky Dog is the fastest Lightning Lane attraction to “sell out” across any of the parks.

If you can’t get Slinky Dog or don’t want to do that one, your next best option is Rock n Roller Coaster, followed by Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway.

Top priorities in tier 2:

• Toy Story Mania
• Tower of Terror

Attractions where a Lightning Lane is helpful but not top priority:

• Alien Swirling Saucers
• Star Tours
• The Little Mermaid: A Musical Adventure

Attractions that you usually don’t need a Lightning Lane for:

• Beauty and the Beast live on stage
• Disney Junior Live on Stage
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular

Lightning Lane Single Pass: Rise of the Resistance

This is a fantastic ride, but I’m inclined to skip the single pass here. It’s the most expensive out of all of them (I’m seeing it right now in the $22-25 range most days). It does have a standby line, so you can rope drop it or just wait in line during the day. The wait times do start out quite high, but I’ve often seen them fall to 30-45 minutes in the early evening. $25 per person is just a lot of money for one attraction, and the typical wait times don’t justify it for me.

#1 priority: Navi River Journey

Out of all the Animal Kingdom attractions available through MultiPass, Navi River Journey consistently has the longest wait times, so if you are interested in riding that one you’ll want to make it your top choice.

Other top priorities:

• Expedition Everest
• Kilimanjaro Safaris
• Kali River Rapids (in the summer)

Attractions where a Lightning Lane is helpful but not top priority:

• Festival of the Lion King
• Kali River Rapids (in the off season)

Attractions that you usually don’t need a Lightning Lane for:

• Feathered Friends in Flight
• Finding Nemo: the Big, Blue… and Beyond
• Zootopia: Better Zoo-gether

Lightning Lane Single Pass: Avatar Flight of Passage

I’m iffy on this one, so it would depend on who I’m with that day. It’s a more affordable Single Pass than some of the others, but that ~$15 per person can still add up. The wait time here is usually around 2 hours though, at least for the first half of the day. If you’re going to be in Animal Kingdom later you could also plan to hang around and do this on standby when the wait times might be more in the 60-75 minute range. If I wanted to do Flight of Passage I’d probably splurge though, because it’s rare to see the wait times here go lower than an hour.

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I’ll be headed down to Disney World myself soon – which Lightning Lanes should I book? Which ones will you be choosing?