If you’re looking for a budget vacation, you may want to look at places other than Disney World. The cost of your hotel or resort stay, tickets, food and everything about Disney all adds up to thousands of dollars. Since you’re already spending thousands, you may worry about whether you should do one of the Lightning Lane Pass options.
My Experience With the Lightning Lane Premier Pass
My most recent trip to Disney World in Florida was the fourth over the last two years. One of the reasons for so many trips was to write a series about visiting Disney World and getting the most from it–not on a budget. If you’re interested in budget tips, check out my other blog Crabby Housewife, where I’ll also be writing a series on doing Disney on a budget. Near Far Places focuses on getting the most from your travel experience without budget concerns.
The trip was me and my grand for five days. We had five one-day tickets, planning to spend two days at Magic Kingdom and one day each at Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot. All the online forums advised only buying Premier for Magic Kingdom. However, I wanted to test it for additional parks so I could compare to a non-Premier experience and see if it’s worth the extra money.
What Does the Disney World Lightning Lane Premier Lightning Lane Premier Pass Do?
Lightning Lane Premier Pass lets you skip into the lightning lane on every eligible ride (any with a LL) without previous reservations. You just walk right on. Costs range between $129 and $449 per person per day. The price is for one park. You cannot park hop with the Premier pass at this time.
Some argue the pass isn’t worth it for parks like Animal Kingdom and Epcot, where there are fewer rides and you can just use the Individual Lightning Lane system or Single Pass for popular attractions. For me, I spent money to take my grandchild to the parks so we could ride what we wanted. Due to school schedules, we were going during a busy time of year, where I knew we’d wait in lines forever without passes.
I also am in okay shape but I’m older and the grand is five. I didn’t want to mess with a stroller. I didn’t want to crisscross the parks all day to get the best LL’s scheduled. I decided to be really strategic with how I used them to make more time for us to do the things we wanted, like stand in line to see a baby tiger. I went in with the plan to write a series on the topic to help my readers know if certain things were worth the added cost and how best to navigate their trips.
Each person and their situation is unique. If you’re on a budget, you’ll likely not even considering adding several hundred dollars to your day. For me, I had some extra money from a freelance gig and this seemed like the perfect way to spend it.
Saving Time and Riding EVERYTHING
You’ll need to buy your LL passes, whichever ones you choose, seven days in advance if staying on Disney property and three days for other tickets. Staying on property gives you a big advantage with reserving the LL Multipass rides. You’ll be able to reserve three rides each day/park. You will be tied to going to a specific park on a certain day.
I checked the crowd calendars, since I knew it was going to be busy anyway. I organized my schedule before my seven-day mark hit, so I could hit the ground running with reservations. This is what the breakdown wound up looking like.
- Day 1: Hollywood Studies Premier Pass
- Day 2: Animal Kingdom Premier Pass + Single Ride Pass
- Day 3: Magic Kingdom Premier Pass
- Day 4: Magic Kingdom LL Multipass
- Day 5: Epcot Premier Pass
If I had to lose one of those, it would have been the one for Animal Kingdom. Because we wanted to see the baby tiger, I knew some time would be taken up with that. However, were it not for that, we could have easily ridden all rides and just used the Single Pass for Avatar Flight of Passage in the afternoon. I actually wound up getting that Single Ride Pass refunded by talking to guest services when I realized we wouldn’t be in Pandora area until later in the day and the pass was for early. They were wonderful and very accommodating. They offered to let me change it to another park (Guardians) or get a refund.
Benefits of the Premier Pass
I didn’t regret spending the money for one minute. We rode EVERYTHING we wanted to at every park. It was busy, so even the lightning lanes had a slight wait at times, but it was nothing compared to the wait times in the standby line. I knew we needed it the first day, because our flight arrived at 9:30 ish. We were at our resort by a little after 10 via Mears, who I highly recommend (more on this in another article). We were at Hollywood Studios by 11 a.m.
Hollywood Studios Day 1
Our top priority, per the grandchild, was Slinky Dog Dash, so we headed there first thing. Standby wait was at 80 minutes. We waited seven minutes to ride. I felt it was already paying for itself. The grand didn’t want to ride Tower of Terror and I couldn’t talk them into it. So, we rode everything in Toy Story Land, grabbed a snack of popcorn because we hadn’t eaten yet and made our way to the Star Wars area.
Here is where things went a little wonky, which is my typical experience at HS and one reason why it is my least favorite park at Disney World. We rode the Millennium Falcon. Wait was 85 minutes in standby. We walked right on. We then made our way to the Rise of the Resistance. It was broken down. This created a scenario I wanted to avoid where we would have to backtrack to try to ride it and do more walking. (We averaged about 25k steps a day while at Disney, even with having a plan.)
It seemed like a good time to make sure we took in Muppets 3D, since it is going away soon–seriously, boo to whoever made that decision! We watched the show and then walked around to PizzeRizzo for a late lunch as we were pretty hungry. We hadn’t eaten breakfast and had only had the popcorn. It was a nice little break and the grand enjoyed the entire area and all the interesting things to see in that little plaza.
When we left there, we decided to go back toward Star Wars, because moving on would mean further to backtrack. We hopped on Star Tours, where you are part of a crew flying a spaceship. The grand loved this and we were with a lovely couple who made it fun. When I pulled up the Disney Experience app, I saw that Rise of the Resistance was finally open again and we hurried over. Just as we arrived, it went back down. Sigh. This is where I questioned the Premiere pass for the first time.
We decided to head to Mickey’s Runaway Railroad, another favorite. We get over there and it’s–you guessed it–shut down. We did a little shopping, hoping something would open back up but it never did. The grand was getting tired. She is five and we’d left our house at 4:30 that morning to catch an early flight. She asked to please go back to the resort and swim and have dinner there, so we did.
All-in-all, we saved enough time to still make the pass worthwhile. That said, the two popular rides being down most of the day made it much less desirable than a regular LL Multipass. If we were arriving earlier in the day, I would not invest in the premier pass for this park. Then again, I don’t particularly like HS and am happy to skip it if others want to. The grand was sold on riding Slinky Dog, so I went with it.
Animal Kingdom Day 2
Even thinking about this park always gets me excited. I love the layout, the animals and the flow of the park. I’ve never had a bad experience here (knock on wood) like I have at Magic Kingdom. This trip, I desperately wanted to lay eyes on the baby tiger. I’d seen videos but to see a baby tiger cub in person…perfection. I knew the wait would be long and that my grandgirl wouldn’t tolerate standing in a line that wasn’t moving if we got there too early.
We took time to eat breakfast at the resort and then hopped on a bus, getting there right around opening. I knew from reading online that the cub was most active from 9 a.m. until about 11 a.m. We stopped to see Mickey and Minnie because zero line and kiddo loves them. We were going to get in line for the tiger right after but the cast members suggested we go ride something to kill the time. We zipped over to Dinosaur, because we are all upset they are replacing it with Indiana jones and we walked right on the ride without using our premier pass. Standby was 5-minute wait, so you better believe we were going to get in a second ride later with our pass.
We grabbed something to drink and made our way back to the tiger line. It had grown considerably by this time but it was almost 9 and it started moving. We did have to wait about 45 minutes to see the tiger, but the line kept moving, which kept my grandkiddo from getting too antsy. There were things to see along the path, too, including another adult tiger.
We saw the baby tiger and it was glorious. I want to stop and offer kudos to the cast members at in this area. I did submit cast compliments for them but I don’t remember their names now. The one girl was directing everyone and giving us details on the best spot to see him based on his current location. Her coworker was reminding people to watch for a few minutes and then make room for others because a lot of people wanted to see the tiger. I appreciated this so much. People have forgotten their manners lately. They don’t consider others and how their actions might impact those further down the line. We watched him for about three minutes, took a couple of videos and moved on so others could enjoy the cutie, too.
Still at Animal Kingdom
Well worth the time spent! My heart was full. We made our way to Mount Everest as it is my grand’s favorite ride at AK. We again walked right on in about seven minutes in the standby, saving our premier pass for later. It would mean circling the park again, but that’s okay.
Next, we went to the safari and did use our pass as there was a long wait by this time. We walked right on in about three minutes–the time it took to walk the path to the vehicles. We saw tons of animals since it was still pretty early in the day. This is where I stopped and chatted with Guest services about refunding the extra pass.
We planned to go to Pandora next but my grandgirl said she was starving and all she wanted was Rainforest Café.
Taking More Time for Lunch
I knew we were making good time and so chose to take her for a longer lunch, even though we had a character dinner planned for later in the day. I pulled up the app and got a reservation and we made our way to the entrance of the park, where Rain Forest Café is located.
If you’ve never been, there are animals and it storms and the animals come to life. The food is fine. A lot of people will complain and say it is subpar. It’s the quality of a Drake’s or Applebee’s. It may not be gourmet food but it’s good enough. You are there for the atmosphere. We picked out a souvenir for her baby sister and chatted about our next course of action. We decided to start back around and ride dinosaur again and go back in a circle.
I talked her into A Bug’s Life, which she hated, but I wanted her to experience before it went away to become Zootopia. Why, Disney? Stop messing with the classics! We spent some time walking around the Tree of Life and checking out the drawings, getting our photo taken, etc.
Then, we rode Dinosaur again. By this time, the standby wait was about 40 minutes. We walked right on with our premier pass. We circled around and went to the Nemo show, which we’d never seen. It was well worth the time spent. We did skip the Lion King show as we’d done it last time we were there and the grand didn’t like it that much. We rode Mt. Everest again, using Premier to skip the long standby line.
Time for Shopping
By saving so much time not waiting in line, we had time for shopping in Africa. The grand found a cute leather bracelet and they engraved her name on it for her. She wanted Dole Whip but we never found plain dole whip, only floats. We then decided to go over to Rafiki’s Island and pet the goats. You also get to ride a train there and back.
By the time we finished with that, it was time for our character dinner at Tusker House.
Tusker House Character Dinner
The wait staff and the characters were wonderful. Donald Duck was a hoot and kept my grandgirl in stitches. She crushes like a fan girl when she sees Mickey Mouse, so that was the highlight for her. I was underimpressed with the buffet, but I don’t like curry much. If you love curry, you’d probably be into the food there. It was okay. I found stuff to eat and their desserts were good with a wide selection. I did love the seasoned cornbread they had on the buffet.
Overall, I would go again for the character experience, but only if a kid was with me. If just adults, I’d likely leave and go to a resort for something better for dinner without the characters or even just eat at the cafeteria instead.
Day #3 Magic Kingdom Premier Pass Day
This was the day I really wanted to test the Premier Pass for my readers. MK is one of the biggest parks with the most LL rides. It gets unbelievably crowded after about 11 a.m., particularly on a holiday weekend. Cheerleaders were also there, which added to the crowds, although I only saw a few of them. Maybe they were competing the day we were at MK.
My plan was to start up in Tomorrowland and just work my way around the park, rather than going to most popular rides and walking back and forth. I figured we were there two days, so it would be fine if we missed something. I also had Tiana scheduled for 9:30 a.m. the next day with an LL Multipass, so I knew grand would get to ride the one thing she insisted she needed to ride at MK.
We walked on Buzz Lightyear and you can always walk right into Carousel of Progress and People Mover. Next, we went over to the Circus area, which I don’t think I’ve ever visited. We rode Dumbo, Barnstormer and the Train. We then went and rose the teacups. Did I mention we walked onto everything so far? No wait with the Premier pass.
It Gets Busy around 11 a.m.
Your experience may vary but I’ve always had the experience that MK gets busy about 11 a.m. particularly in Fantasyland and for rides such as Peter Pan, Ariel, etc. This day was the same for us. We did use our Premier pass to walk into the lightning lanes but there were slightly waits of about 10 minutes or so anyway. We rode Small World, Peter Pan, Mickey’s Philharmonic, Ariel, and decided to skip the flying carpets and carousel as grand didn’t want to ride them.
We made our way back to Casey’s Corner for a quick lunch of corn dog nuggets and mandarin oranges. Next, we went to Haunted Mansion (slight wait in LL but not bad). We then went to Tiana’s and got on fairy quickly. Big Thunder was closed as they are putting in the Cars area. Grandgirl didn’t want to do Country Bears or the Jungle Cruise.
We then did Pirates. At this point, we’d ridden everything we wanted to ride. We shopped a little and grand wanted corndogs again, so we grabbed some more for dinner. She was tired and wanted to know if we could go swim again, so we left for the hotel. All-in-all, the pass paid off. We did everything we wanted and didn’t wear ourselves out. We could have ridden more. Oh! I forgot we also did the Seven Dwarves Mine Train in there on our way back to the front. We walked right on.
Day #4 Magic Kingdom Again with Multipass
I wish we hadn’t bought the Multipass for this day. We tied ourselves into going back to MK and we would have preferred to head back to AK or have two days at Epcot. We decided if we go again we will do MP and only do MK one day instead of two.
We slept in a little and had a leisurely breakfast at the resort and made it there around 9:30 or so. We started by knocking out our initial LL and going on Tiana again. Our LL was for 9:30 to 10:30 so we had a window of time to work with. Grand didn’t want to do the Haunted Mansion again, where I had the Multipass. We did pirates and then went and got some beignets while I scheduled some more rides.
The next LL I could get was for a couple hours away so we decided to go out to Tom Sawyer Island. Wow! My grand loved this more than almost anything else we did. She loved the tunnels and exploring. I had a hard time getting her to leave the island but weather was coming in and the wind was picking up.
We had a late lunch and rode Seven Dwarves again. We got stuck right in front of sneezy and he wouldn’t stop sneezing on us. The longer it went on, the funnier it became. We were stuck for about 10 minutes before the ride restarted.
We had seats at Seats and Sweets to watch the fireworks, so we decided we would grab a snack of the Dole Whip she’d been wanting since we arrived at Disney. I also insisted we split a pretzel with cheese so we weren’t only eating sugar all day.
We met some characters, watched a stage show from a distance, took more photos and then made our way to Tomorrowland to ride Buzz Lightyear again before heading to our special event.
We took our time leaving because the crowds are horrible right after the fireworks. It was a fully day but a good one. We didn’t ride nearly as much with only the MP with as many people as were there. Had we only done this and not had the Premier pass the day before, I would have been disappointed.
Day #5 Epcot with Premier Pass
I love Epcot. It is my second favorite but vying for spot #1. We started in England, shopping to get some ears my daughter wanted. Then, we went to Remy, Frozen and looked around at things that were open. The World Showcase doesn’t really open fully until about 11, so I went ahead and booked us a character meal at Garden Grill. I didn’t realize Mickey was there, thinking it was Chip & Dale and maybe Pluto, etc. My grandgirl was so excited when Mickey came to our table.
We hadn’t planned a big lunch, but it was just the break we needed and the food was delicious, served family style. I’ve seen people say they didn’t care for the food here but I loved everything about this restaurant, including the presentation and the dessert in a skillet topped with ice cream. My only complaint is that we were stuffed when we finished. While waiting for our table to be called, we jumped onto Soarin’. Went to lunch. Then we rode Living With the Land. We then walked over to Turtle Talk with Crush and decided to skip the aquarium. We went on Guardians of the Galaxy and Spaceship Earth. We walked onto every ride without any waits. It was fabulous. Could we have done without the Premiere pass? Probably. But it was nice to just take our time.
Finally, we headed back to the World Showcase where we grabbed my grand’s favorite, a funnel cake topped with ice cream in America and a cheese bread bowl in France as part of the Art Festival going on. Grandgirl was exhausted, so we left before fireworks and headed to our resort.
Unplanned Day Extra Day at the Resort and Disney Springs
If there is one thing you should do when planning your Disney World trip it is to plan for the unexpected. Something will cost more than you expected. It just will. I pulled up my Southwest app to check on our flight and a bright red alert went across my phone that weather delays were happening in the Midwest and our flight would very likely be delayed.
After checking incoming weather the next morning, I decided I didn’t want to be stuck at the airport overnight without a hotel room. I called Disney to see if we could extend our stay another night and stay in the same room. No problem and they gave me a great rate! Love that kind of pixie dust. Next, I got on the Southwest app and changed our flight to the next day, although a bit later in the day. Finally, I called Mears Transportation and explained the situation and asked if we could change our shuttle. No problem. I asked them to book us an hour earlier than they normally do because last time there were a lot of stops and I got worried we might not make it through security in time for our flight. No problem.
Finally, I woke the grandgirl up and broke the awful news to her that she got an extra day in the Disney bubble. She was devastated–not at all. The weather was nice, so we decided to go to Disney Springs to shop and have lunch. She wanted to eat at the Dinosaur restaurant, which is basically Rainforest Café with dinos. She had more fun playing in the fossil dig area while waiting on our table than she did doing anything else. I could have saved a fortune on tickets! Ha ha!
After lunch, we grabbed some cupcakes from Sprinkles and headed back to the resort. We decided she would swim and play on the playground and then we’d pack and such.
New Final Day
Our new final day was pushed to the next day and into the evening. We had to check out of our room by 11, so we dropped our suitcases (came with one and left with two LOL) at the bellhop. We decided to go back to the playground areas and walk around the Cars displays again. My little grand was into taking photos that day and we got a ton of great ones.
When Mears came to pick us up, a man in a Mears van called my name. I watch WAY too much true crime and felt a little uncertain about the situation. I started talking and was also texting my husband that I was in a van and I snapped a photo of the man when he wasn’t looking. Ba ha ha! I wasn’t going down without a fight. Turns out that the man was super nice and really was with Mears. When I rebooked, the lady I spoke to got me a private shuttle at no extra charge so I wouldn’t miss my flight or have to worry about it. I already liked Mears for shuttles to and from the airport but this level of customer service sold me on the company. He also dropped us right at our airline check in, which saved some walking.
So, Would I Do Things the Same Way Again?
Yes and no. I do think the Premier pass is worth it at times. If I were going during a busy time of year, I would invest in it for Hollywood Studies and Magic Kingdom. That said, I probably would not for Animal Kingdom or Epcot. For AK, I would buy the single pass to Avatar and the Multipass to book a safari and Mount Everest. Everything else would have been fine for standby and we could have rope-dropped Dinosaur.
I’m on the fence about Epcot. We got in a lot of rides by just walking on and we had more time in the World Showcase and to do things like the Moana path, which kids love. It also was a lot less money than the MK Premier pass. I’d probably check crowd calendars and decide from there. It was also nice to miss that morning rope drop crush and take our time arriving. That said, if I were going with just another adult, I would mainly make sure I had a pass for Guardians of the Galaxy. As much as I love the movie Frozen, I could survive without the ride if the wait was too long. I have never seen wait times crazy for Soarin’ or Living With the Land. I’d skip Turtle Talk. I’d be more focused on food and taking in the sights probably. Multipass might be worth it for adults.
What do you think? Will you invest in the new LL Premier pass the next time you visit Disney World?
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