Undercover Tourist Date-Based Tickets - LL length of pass booking?

[ffugitive]

I am thinking about purchasing our tickets for a trip for next year through UT. We will be staying offsite. My question is whether I get the benefit of booking LL for full length of stay starting 3 days out from the first day, or do I have to book 3 days out for each day of the trip?

 

[Tom_E_D]

I am thinking about purchasing our tickets for a trip for next year through UT. We will be staying offsite. My question is whether I get the benefit of booking LL for full length of stay starting 3 days out from the first day, or do I have to book 3 days out for each day of the trip?

There's no "stay" involved when offsite. But, assuming you're buying dated tickets, which I think is the only type UT sells, you can book for length of ticket. Here's what the Disneyworld (link) website says:

• Guests with date-based theme park tickets (which require the Guest to choose a start date at the time of purchase) can purchase 3 days before the first day of their ticket, for the total number of valid admission days on their ticket.

 

[NYHeel]

In fact I'm trying to decide if I should save $100 and change the first day of my dated tickets one day later but lose one day of pre-booking LL. I'm doing a combined 10 day Universal and Disney vacation starting on 1/4/2026. The first three days (1/4 - 1/6) will be Universal and then most of the remaining days are Disney. If I set the start date of the tickets to 1/4 then my LL booking day is 1/1 (convenient since off from work) which is 6 days before my first Disney park day. However, I can move my ticket start date to 1/5 and that would move my LL booking day to 1/2 but would reduce the price of my 6 tickets by about $100 combined.

So ultimately, my question is as follows. Is there significant incremental value in having my LL booking day be 6 days before my first park day vs. 5 days? I'd probably pick a park that doesn't have as much LL demand (maybe Magic Kingdom since things are more spread out though I really haven't done the LL research yet) for the first day but what do you guys think that extra day is worth. Keep in mind that there's 6 of us on this trip (youngest is 17) so it's a larger group than many.

 

[CarolynFH]

In fact I'm trying to decide if I should save $100 and change the first day of my dated tickets one day later but lose one day of pre-booking LL. I'm doing a combined 10 day Universal and Disney vacation starting on 1/4/2026. The first three days (1/4 - 1/6) will be Universal and then most of the remaining days are Disney. If I set the start date of the tickets to 1/4 then my LL booking day is 1/1 (convenient since off from work) which is 6 days before my first Disney park day. However, I can move my ticket start date to 1/5 and that would move my LL booking day to 1/2 but would reduce the price of my 6 tickets by about $100 combined.

So ultimately, my question is as follows. Is there significant incremental value in having my LL booking day be 6 days before my first park day vs. 5 days? I'd probably pick a park that doesn't have as much LL demand (maybe Magic Kingdom since things are more spread out though I really haven't done the LL research yet) for the first day but what do you guys think that extra day is worth. Keep in mind that there's 6 of us on this trip (youngest is 17) so it's a larger group than many.

Are you staying onsite or offsite for your WDW park days?

If you’re onsite, your LL booking window begins 7 days from checkin, regardless of the ticket start date, so I’d buy the less expensive tickets.

If you’re staying offsite, your LL booking window begins 3 days before the ticket start date, not 7, so in that case you’ll have to decide whether the extra day of booking is worth $100 to you.

 

[NYHeel]

Are you staying onsite or offsite for your WDW park days?

If you’re onsite, your LL booking window begins 7 days from checkin, regardless of the ticket start date, so I’d buy the less expensive tickets.

If you’re staying offsite, your LL booking window begins 3 days before the ticket start date, not 7, so in that case you’ll have to decide whether the extra day of booking is worth $100 to you.

I'm staying offsite. On site isn't really an option for us. But that's a whole other discussion. Ultimately I'm trying to decide if the extra day has value being that it's going from 5 to 6 days. I'm trying to find the data on availability but it looks like thrill-data's data is down. Are there other sources for LL availability data?

 

[Tom_E_D]

I'm staying offsite. On site isn't really an option for us. But that's a whole other discussion. Ultimately I'm trying to decide if the extra day has value being that it's going from 5 to 6 days. I'm trying to find the data on availability but it looks like thrill-data's data is down. Are there other sources for LL availability data?

Normally, Touring Plans has a page with that data too: https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/lightning-lane

But it is also not updating now. Disney made some changes recently that are causing problems to these and similar websites.