If you’re planning a trip to Disneyland soon, you’ll want to make sure you’re up to date on the latest features and tools. One of those features is the Disneyland Multi Pass service, which offers a variety of benefits to park-goers, including access to over 20 popular attractions across both Disneyland and California Adventure. With our Disneyland Multi Pass tips and tricks, you can maximize your experience and make sure you don’t miss out on any of the fun.
In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at Disneyland Multi Pass rides and tips to optimize your visit and create unforgettable memories.
Table of contents
What is Disneyland Multi Pass?
To put it simply, Disneyland Multi Pass is a service that allows guests to skip the regular standby line (and possibly long lines) in favor of an expedited queue known as the Lightning Lane. By taking advantage of the Lightning Lane, guests spend less time in line, allowing them to make better use of their time in the parks.
Multi Pass is available for use in both Disney California Adventure as well as the Disneyland park, but not all rides offer the Lightning Lane. Remember, space is limited in the California theme parks, so Disney has reserved Multi Pass and the Lightning Lane for the rides that stack up some of the longer standby wait times.
Disneyland Multi Pass Rides with Lightning Lane include:
Disneyland Multi Pass Lightning Lane Rides
- Autopia
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
- Haunted Mansion
- Indiana JonesTM Adventure
- “it’s a small world”
- Matterhorn Bobsleds
- Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin
- Space Mountain
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
California Adventure Multi Pass Lightning Lane Rides
- Goofy’s Sky School
- Grizzly River Run
- Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
- Incredicoaster
- Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!
- Little Mermaid Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
- Soarin’ Over California
- Toy Story Midway Mania!
- WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure
In addition to the attractions listed above, Disneyland also offers Lightning Lane service for the following attractions through Lightning Lane Single Pass, requiring a separate purchase (more on this in a bit):
Disneyland Lightning Lane Single Pass Rides
Disney California Adventure Park Lightning Lane Single Pass Attractions
How Does Disneyland Multi Pass Work?
Disneyland Multi Pass allows guests to prebook a timeslot to visit an attraction through the Lightning Lane. Simply open the Disneyland app, find the Lightning Lane Multi Pass tile (shown below) and click to purchase.
Next, you will be asked to select the park you plan to visit. Once you have selected your park, you will see several options. Click to purchase Multi Pass to make your first reservation.
You may make a new Lightning Lane reservation every time you use one or every two hours, whichever comes first.
How Do I Access the Lightning Lane?
Since the Lightning Lane is reserved for those guests who book a time slot through Multi Pass, you’d be right to assume that entry must be restricted in some way. To enter the Lightning Lane, you will need to scan your park pass using your mobile device, plastic ticket card or MagicBand Plus. We’ve found that utilizing the MagicBand is the quickest and easiest way to use Disneyland Multi Pass.
How Often Can I Book a Disneyland Multi Pass Ride?
You may begin making Disneyland Multi Pass ride reservations as soon as you enter the parks. This means that guests who utilize early theme park entry could book their first Disneyland Multi Pass ride of the day a half hour earlier than guests who stay offsite.
Once your first reservation is made, you must wait 2 hours before booking a new Disneyland Multi Pass reservation. Alternatively, you may also book another Multi Pass ride after your return window has been activated – in other words, after you enter the Lightning Lane.
Let’s see how this works with a quick example. On my last trip, I booked a Multi Pass reservation for Haunted Mansion. My return time began at 1:00 pm. Since we scanned into the Lightning Lane exactly at 1:00—as soon as the return window became active—we were able to make our next Disneyland Multi Pass booking right at 1:00.
Likewise, since I made my first booking of the day for 1:00 pm, I could then book another Multi Pass reservation at 11:00 for any time slot that is available, assuming the parks opened at 9:00 am. This is due to the so-called “2-hour rule” which allows guests to book another Multi Pass reservation 2 hours after making the last one.
Is Disneyland Multi Pass Free?
One question guests often ask is whether there is a cost to use Multi Pass. Unfortunately, there is. The cost for Multi Pass begins at $30 per person per day plus taxes but can go higher if the parks are expecting large crowds.
The cost for Multi Pass may also be purchased as an add on when you book your Disneyland tickets. This is one Disneyland Multi Pass tip we highly recommend looking into. You can secure the cost for Multi Pass when you buy your tickets, making it easier to budget for your trip and protecting you against price increases..
What’s This Lightning Lane Single Pass Purchase You Mentioned?
Some Disneyland Lightning Lane rides are not included in the regular list of attractions covered by Multi Pass. Two rides currently offer entrance to the Lightning Lane through a separate purchase called a Single Pass.
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
- Radiator Springs Racers
These 2 attractions are some of the most popular at the parks right now. To make things fairer for all guests, Disney has not included these rides in the standard purchase of Multi Pass. However, you may still access a Lightning Lane for these rides, by purchasing a Single Pass.
The cost to make an Lightning Lane Single Pass purchase can vary greatly by ride, date, and crowd conditions. To find out how much a Lightning Lane Single Pass purchase will cost, you can once again use the Disneyland app.
Navigate to your tip board and look up the ride in question. Beneath the current wait time, you will see a box that says “Individual Lightning Lane” as demonstrated in the photo above. Within the box, you will find the current purchase price for the Individual Lightning Lane pass on the current day.
Is Disneyland Multi Pass Worth It?
Disneyland Multi Pass is definitely worth it if you have the budget to support the purchase and you strongly want to avoid lines. For guests who only plan to spend a few days in the park, Multi Pass can help you experience more in the short time that you have. However, if you have at least 3 or 4 days on your Disneyland ticket, Multi Pass isn’t a must do at either Disneyland park, since there are strategies for getting around long lines for longer vacations.
How to Use Disneyland Multi Pass: Tips and Strategies
We recently put Multi Pass to the test at both California Adventure and Disneyland. Spreading our trip out over multiple days gave us a lot of time to see how lines grow and contract throughout the day and determine when the service is most valuable.
Based on that extended experience, we’ve developed a number of Disneyland Multi Pass and Single Pass tips and strategies to help you make the most of this feature. After all, if you’re going to pay for it, you might as well optimize its usage.
Our Disneyland Multi Pass tips apply to both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, unless noted.
Disneyland Multi Pass tip #1: Take advantage of early entry.
If you noted the list of attractions above, you likely noticed that a number of popular rides are not eligible for Multi Pass. This includes several Fantasyland rides that can grow long wait times throughout the day.
That’s why we recommend that Disneyland resort guests take advantage of early entry. Early theme park entry at both Disneyland and Disney World allows Disney hotel guests into the park a half an hour ahead of regular opening.
We found that comparatively few people took advantage of this feature, particularly at Disney California Adventure, making it possible to jump right on at least two headliner attractions before regular crowds were in the park.
For example, we arrived at California Adventure at 7:15 am. The regular park hours started at 8:00 am.
By 8:32, we were in the park and walking through the queue to WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure. By 8:55, we had ridden both WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy Mission: Breakout and were on our way to Radiator Springs Racers well ahead of the crowds.
Taking this approach made it possible to knock out 3 of the most popular rides with little to no wait, and without purchasing an Lightning Lane Single Pass to Radiator Springs.
At Disneyland, we were able to ride all of the top attractions in Fantasyland, with the exception of Peter Pan’s Flight, before the park opened. Since these rides are not Lightning Lane enabled, this approach made it possible to experience popular attractions with no wait and reserve Multi Pass for later in the day, when wait times started to get long.
Disneyland Multi Pass tip #2: If you don’t have access to early entry, be at the parks at least a half hour before the gates open.
If you can’t take advantage of early theme park entry because you are staying at an offsite hotel or driving in from somewhere in the area, you can still utilize the morning to maximize Multi Pass. Simply be there 30-45 minutes before park opening. You’ll be let in with all of the guests attending early entry and allowed to line up at the entrance to each land.
By following this Disneyland tip, you’ll be the first to hop on some of the rides where a Lightning Lane is not offered before the wait times get long. You can then use Multi Pass later in the day when ride lines are longest.
Disneyland Multi Pass tip #3: You don’t have to book your first Multi Pass reservation as soon as you enter the parks.
As frequent travelers to Disney World, we were surprised to find that we didn’t always need to book a Multi Pass reservation the minute we entered the park. Under Genie+, Disney World Lightning Lane reservations begane at 7:00 am for Disney resort guests, and some rides sold out of Lightning Lane bookings throughout the day. We always used this early morning times to reserve a Lightning Lane spot for those attractions that are likely to be gone later in the day.
However, this didn’t seem to be a problem at Disneyland or California Adventure. Since both parks open early in the morning and typically close later at night, there are more MultiPass bookings to go around, so sellouts were rare. However, if you’re visiting at a more crowded time period, you may find reservations going more quickly.
We recommend you ride as many attractions in the morning as you can before wait times get long, and then start using Multi Pass for the rides with the longest queues. Remember, you can always see the current wait time for a ride in the Disneyland app as well as the return window to enter the Lightning Lane for a Disneyland Multi Pass ride.
Once you see return windows for more than 90 minutes in the future, you should consider booking that attraction sooner, rather than later. For example, if you check the Disneyland app at 11:00 am and see a return window for Space Mountain that begins at 12:30 or later, you can be assured that more people are beginning to book this ride. Make your own reservation soon to make sure Lightning Lane spots don’t sell out before you can reserve one.
Disneyland Multi Pass tip #4: I’m a late riser. Should I still use Multi Pass?
In a way, Multi Pass at Disneyland was made for late risers. During our recent extended trip, we noticed that the largest crowds began arriving around noon. Wait times on rides that had measured under 15-minute in the morning begin to rise to 30 minutes or even an hour as more guests entered the park.
If you’re arriving at the parks in the afternoon, Multi Pass can help you save a lot of time in line. Just be sure to check Lightning Lane return times as soon as you enter the park, and book an attraction you want to ride with most distant return time. If you arrive at the park at noon and the return time for Millennium Falcon is 8:00 pm, while the return time for Space Mountain is 4:00 pm, you’re better off booking the Millennium Falcon Multi Pass. By the time you can book another Multi Pass in 2 hours, spots for Millennium Falcon will probably be gone, but there will still be space in the Lightning Lane at Space Mountain.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Disneyland Multi Pass
If you still have questions about using Multi Pass at Disneyland or California Adventure, we’ve answered some of the most common queries below. If you still can’t find the information you need, feel free to use the contact form in the right sidebar (below in mobile) to get in touch with us.
Does Disney Multi Pass include Disney PhotoPass digital photos ?
When you purchase Disneyland Multi Pass, you do get free digital downloads of any pictures taken by PhotoPass photographers in the park as well as ride photos. However, to make sure you have access to your ride photos, you will need to locate the monitor at the end of the ride and make note of the number associated with it. You’ll need to enter this later into the Disneyland app to claim your ride photo. We found it easiest to take a picture of the monitor displaying your ride photo and number.
To access any photos taken by PhotoPass photographers, make sure you have them scan your MagicBand or ticket in the mobile app.
Does Disneyland Multi Pass work with park hopper?
You may use Disneyland Multi Pass with a park hopper ticket. However, you cannot reserve a Lightning Lane enabled ride for the park you are hopping to until you have physically “hopped” into that park.
Can Multi Pass reservations sell out?
Yes, spots in the Lightning Lane through Multi Pass can sell out. To ensure that guests spend as little time in the Lightning Lane as possible, there are a limited number of Multi Pass reservations available each day for each ride.
Can Disney Multi Pass be added later, after I’ve entered the park?
You may purchase Disneyland Multi Pass at any point during the day. However, there are a finite number of slots available, so it is possible that the service may sell out under peak crowd conditions.
Does Multi Pass Include Lightning Lane?
Yes, Multi Pass does provide access to the Lightning Lane. To clarify, Multi Pass is the service offered at Disney parks that allows guests to book a ride window to enter the Lightning Lane.
