Disney’s New Skip The Line Theme Park Pass Explained

It is an undeniable reality that to visit the continental Disney theme parks, you will have to prepare yourself to pay a lot of money. Unless you’re local to either Anaheim or Orlando, you’ll have to pay for a hotel, food, the cost of driving (whether with your own car or a rental), parking, merchandise … and, oh, yes, the actual tickets themselves. Disney, for a long time, also allowed guests to jump to the front of the line in various ways, a benefit that used to be free. Ah, but the Disney Parks world is one of change and change costs money. What was once known as the free FastPass system is now called the Lightning Lane system, wherein guests use their phones to select a ride they want to experience and identify their preferred return time, at which point they’d skip past a potentially long line and enjoy themselves. Lightning Lanes have been around for a few years and they’ve required guests to drop some money, but as of the end of this month, you can get ready to lighten your wallet even more with the Lightning Lane Premier Pass.

The Lightning Lane Premier Pass is arriving very soon at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World; at Disneyland, the new pass will be available a week from today, October 23, and at Walt Disney World, it’s coming in just two weeks, on October 30. Although Disney is careful to note that this is a pilot program with limited capacity, the numbers are eye-popping enough to grab headlines, because while the benefits of the pass are enticing, the cost is the exact opposite. At Disneyland, if you’re flush with cash and impatient to ride Indiana Jones Adventure or the like, you can spend $400 per person between October 23 and the end of 2024 to get the pass. At Walt Disney World, though, the cost is much more variable, based on which park you choose to use your pass in. At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the price range is from $129-$199 per person, whereas at the Magic Kingdom, it’s $329-$449 per person. No matter which coast you’re on, the pass is good for one Lightning Lane (AKA one option to skip the line) per ride, per day. 

Now, if those numbers aren’t wild enough, let’s do two quick experiments to see if the headline in the link above — noting that the Lightning Lane Premier Pass costs more than your actual admission — is true. At Disneyland, if you wanted to enjoy the holiday decorations in mid-November, to get a Park Hopper ticket for a single day, enabling you to go to either Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure, that would cost one adult $271. So in that case .. well, yes, you’d end up spending almost $700 to visit two theme parks and ensure that you don’t get stuck in a lot of lines. Over in Orlando, if you decide to splurge for the Premier Pass at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in mid-November, the cost will be right around equal if not more, because a single-day ticket to that park would cost $149 per person. If you can manage to pick your jaw off the floor, let’s dive into the issue.