LL Multi Pass Experiences - What is Availability Like????

[Porsche4]

Just wanting to start a thread to get peoples feedback on what difference the new Multi Pass Experience has had on availability and return times. I am reading and seeing from vloggers that MPE return times are now many hours away rather than almost immediate return. There also seems to be less availability and refreshing doesn't seem to reap the same rewards it used to as there are less times available. Would love to keep this thread going with peoples first hand experiences.

 

[laugard]

Hi, there isn't anything new about the Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Disneyland other than a name change. What was once called Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane is now called Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass (the latter applies only for Rise of the Resistance and Radiator Springs Racers.) But nothing about how or when to purchase either type of Lightning Lane pass or how it's used in DL is any different.

WDW is different as they've returned to a system that allows for some advance Lightning Lane reservations. But it is literally just a name change at DL to align across both parks.

It's definitely the case that return times for some high-demand rides can go much farther out. But that's also been the case, and this is where either booking those earlier in the day or trying to modify your booked times can help. And there are still plenty of times when other rides can be booked with a much shorter wait time.

Edit: To also add and clarify, you can also still receive a multiple experience pass if the one you booked via a Lightning Lane Multi Pass is broken down during your return time (sometimes earlier if they anticipate the attraction won't be back up anytime soon). But that's different than the LL Multi Pass since the multiple experience passes don't have return times.

 

[Riss]

My family just returned from a trip to Disneyland, we were there from 7/28 - 8/4 with half of the family joining from 8/1 - 8/4. We added the Lightning Lane Multi Pass when we bought our tickets. This was also our first time to Disneyland, so our first time with this system, but we were familiar with the old system at Disney World.

I haven’t seen what others have said about their experience on the internet, but my family was able to get a lot accomplished with it. I was the main person booking the lightning lanes and I didn’t think too many things booked out too quickly. The earliest it would seem that things would become unavailable, like Guardians, Space Mountain, or even sometimes Indiana Jones, would be maybe early to mid-afternoon, which I expected.

As far as return times, there were moments we were able to book one for an almost immediate return time, even after we were in the parks for a little. One example was for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. On our last park day, we were already in Toontown meeting Mickey Mouse and wanted to go on it, so I checked the return times and refreshed once or twice until a time came up that was about 20 minutes later. We were still in line for Mickey so it worked perfectly for us. In the morning, I would book immediately after all of us, there were 8, scanned in and kept modifying it to be later, which could be up to 5 times of me going back and forth. Sometimes when even looking at modifying, it would give me an earlier time available even though I was attempting for later.

Modifying earlier also worked for us in some cases. On our second day, I was able to get Web Slingers for 9pm. Knowing that was too late, I kept my eye on the availability and kept refreshing every once in a while. It would show that it was no longer available, selling out for the day, but eventually showing an available time of 7pm that I was able to book for us.

Overall, I think my family was able to utilize the lightning lanes pretty well and found that it worked for us. I do think I was looking at my phone pretty frequently whether that was seeing what was available to modify or to book another one. I did also modify lightning lanes to other ones sometimes if they were a better time or better suited to our plan.

 

[Porsche4]

My family just returned from a trip to Disneyland, we were there from 7/28 - 8/4 with half of the family joining from 8/1 - 8/4. We added the Lightning Lane Multi Pass when we bought our tickets. This was also our first time to Disneyland, so our first time with this system, but we were familiar with the old system at Disney World.

I haven’t seen what others have said about their experience on the internet, but my family was able to get a lot accomplished with it. I was the main person booking the lightning lanes and I didn’t think too many things booked out too quickly. The earliest it would seem that things would become unavailable, like Guardians, Space Mountain, or even sometimes Indiana Jones, would be maybe early to mid-afternoon, which I expected.

As far as return times, there were moments we were able to book one for an almost immediate return time, even after we were in the parks for a little. One example was for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. On our last park day, we were already in Toontown meeting Mickey Mouse and wanted to go on it, so I checked the return times and refreshed once or twice until a time came up that was about 20 minutes later. We were still in line for Mickey so it worked perfectly for us. In the morning, I would book immediately after all of us, there were 8, scanned in and kept modifying it to be later, which could be up to 5 times of me going back and forth. Sometimes when even looking at modifying, it would give me an earlier time available even though I was attempting for later.

Modifying earlier also worked for us in some cases. On our second day, I was able to get Web Slingers for 9pm. Knowing that was too late, I kept my eye on the availability and kept refreshing every once in a while. It would show that it was no longer available, selling out for the day, but eventually showing an available time of 7pm that I was able to book for us.

Overall, I think my family was able to utilize the lightning lanes pretty well and found that it worked for us. I do think I was looking at my phone pretty frequently whether that was seeing what was available to modify or to book another one. I did also modify lightning lanes to other ones sometimes if they were a better time or better suited to our plan.

Thanks for your detailed report, thats exactly what I wanted to get the feel of from people. It seems your experience with Web Slingers is what I am hearing from a lot of sources and the other main reason I started this post as I think it seems to be what is happening. With an original time of 9:00pm and then Disney opening up more slots as demand rises making it easier to get an earlier slot if you refresh. One vlogger I watch said that the return times when he tried booking things earlier in the day were quite far out but as the day progressed it seem like they dumped a whole lot more availability into the system and things became easier to get. Maybe this new upgrade has given them greater power over distribution and release capability. Guess we will have to see.

 

[crystal1313]

We were just there 7/29-7/31 and we noticed that guardians lightning lanes went the fastest. We were confused until we got in line and noticed that only 2 of the 3 elevators were in use. We had heard that one elevator was being worked on, but weren’t sure if that was a rumor or not. So it explained why the LL was going so quickly. Luckily we were able to modify to an earlier time. And hopefully all the elevators are in use soon.

 

[Riss]

Thanks for your detailed report, thats exactly what I wanted to get the feel of from people. It seems your experience with Web Slingers is what I am hearing from a lot of sources and the other main reason I started this post as I think it seems to be what is happening. With an original time of 9:00pm and then Disney opening up more slots as demand rises making it easier to get an earlier slot if you refresh. One vlogger I watch said that the return times when he tried booking things earlier in the day were quite far out but as the day progressed it seem like they dumped a whole lot more availability into the system and things became easier to get. Maybe this new upgrade has given them greater power over distribution and release capability. Guess we will have to see.

That’s surprising about things being available far out in the morning since that was the opposite that I experienced. As soon as we scanned in and I looked to book our first one, things were almost immediate. They were so immediate, that I had to keep looking to get them later in the day. The latest that I had booked something once was Guardians and that was booking it at around 11am for a time slot a little after 1pm. Once it got to around 3pm, things were farther out for more popular rides, like Indiana Jones.

For the Web Slingers, though, I booked that 9pm slot at around 5:30 - 6pm, sometime before the second parade in DCA, so I’m not sure if Disney released more slots as it also immediately showed having no availability after I booked it and every time I tried to modify until the 7pm showed up.

Based on my experience with it, I don’t think Disney is releasing more times in the way we think. I think that maybe they might release more not from demand, but simply by how the ride might be operating. I also think times open up as others modify their selections since it’s easy to modify and jump around to a different ride to match your needs. I had an Indiana Jones for the afternoon, but since my family was in Toontown and wanted to do Runaway Railway, I modified our Indiana Jones and changed the ride entirely.

Another example is that I booked Big Thunder when it was down with the earliest time being 6:45pm. It was down in the early afternoon. When I saw it back up, I looked at modifying, since I was curious, and saw that I could modify for a 3pm slot. Therefore I assumed that since they weren’t sure when the ride would come back, they pushed the return time to later, since they knew it was going to come back eventually. Closer to the end of the night, if a ride was down, sometimes they would shut down the booking of lightning lanes for that ride entirely.

 

[Porsche4]

Your observation with Big Thunder is interesting. I wonder if they are doing that now to try and close the loop hole of people getting MEP's for rides that are down and using them to accelerate their other LL reservations. Thanks so much for all your information, it is always great to get feedback from people's actual experiences.

 

[Riss]

Your observation with Big Thunder is interesting. I wonder if they are doing that now to try and close the loop hole of people getting MEP's for rides that are down and using them to accelerate their other LL reservations. Thanks so much for all your information, it is always great to get feedback from people's actual experiences.

Oh I was still getting the multi-experience pass for rides that were broken down, although it wouldn’t let me have more than 2 multi-passes first thing in the morning. One morning Little Mermaid was down and I was able to register it for us first thing in the morning. I then scheduled it for a second time after the first, very quickly with a return time that was in less than 30mins. I also got one for Goofy’s Sky School later in the day. I had scheduled it in case my nephew wanted to go on it, but it was for late at night. I guess it was down and since the lightning lane was for 9:15pm, it didn’t expire until the following day.

A couple of the rides also gave the multi-passes early, I’m assuming if they knew that the ride wouldn’t be back up in time. In the beginning of the week, 3 of us were going to Incredicoaster, so we had that booked, and 2 were going to go to Web Slingers, so they had that booked. While I was double checking the time for Incredicoaster, I noticed we had a multi-pass from Web Slingers, appearing like 5-10 minutes before their lightning lane time.

 

[Porsche4]

Well thats encouraging. Seems like basically nothing has changed at all with the system. Perhaps the vlogger I was watching was just having a bad day when it came to timing LL's. Sound like you guys had a lot of success and a great time. Glad you enjoyed yourselves.

 

[pineapplepalms]

With WDW it looks like you can now modify LL to another park. Does anyone know if that also changed at DLR?

 

[OlliePop27]

With WDW it looks like you can now modify LL to another park. Does anyone know if that also changed at DLR?

That would be so nice! I hope so.

 

[MonocularVision]

In case you weren’t aware you can get all historical data including graphs for LL sellout times at Thrill Data:

https://www.thrill-data.com/lightning-lane/dlr

 

[WretchedHive13]

On a typical day, how many Multi pass LLs have any of you been able to use? We're making our first visit to Disneyland from 9/21-9/27. We are WDW vets and have used the Genie+ LLs to varying degrees of success (and have gone without them), and trying to decide if we will need to use LLs or not. We'll have 4 park days and Oogie Boogie Bash on one of our off days.

 

[OlliePop27]

On a typical day, how many Multi pass LLs have any of you been able to use? We're making our first visit to Disneyland from 9/21-9/27. We are WDW vets and have used the Genie+ LLs to varying degrees of success (and have gone without them), and trying to decide if we will need to use LLs or not. We'll have 4 park days and Oogie Boogie Bash on one of our off days.

It's not really necessary at either park before 11:00 am, but it is useful to stack LL for the evening. You can easily use 5 or more per day. There are certain rides at each park that usually have near immediate availability. There are also many rides at DL that do not have LL at all, so it's usually pretty easy to schedule an evening of non-LL attractions (i.e. shows, Tiki Room, treehouse, Mark Twain, Pinocchio).

The previous poster linked to Thrill Data. Go there and you'll see what availability is like on average for each ride at different times of day.

 

[Porsche4]

It's not really necessary at either park before 11:00 am, but it is useful to stack LL for the evening. You can easily use 5 or more per day. There are certain rides at each park that usually have near immediate availability. There are also many rides at DL that do not have LL at all, so it's usually pretty easy to schedule an evening of non-LL attractions (i.e. shows, Tiki Room, treehouse, Mark Twain, Pinocchio).

The previous poster linked to Thrill Data. Go there and you'll see what availability is like on average for each ride at different times of day.

If you had park hopper and it was an average day and you spent the whole day in the parks I think you could get every LL ride done in one day. Mind you it would be a long and packed day but availability is much easier to get at Disneyland so it can be done. We usually hit rope drop and do as many non LL rides as we can then start using LL after about 10:30 when the wait times and lines grow. We always go back to our hotel for an afternoon break and stack LL's for the evening at whatever park we want to visit and can usually knock out 4 or 5 more rides with LL after dinner.