In this post we discuss how to use Lightning Lanes successfully at Animal Kingdom in 2024 under the Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass systems. This includes our Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane priorities and the best rides for Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom. We also discuss Lightning Lane Single Pass access and how to balance your use of Lightning Lanes, standby lines, and single rider at Animal Kingdom.
REMINDER: GENIE+ IS GONE
Disney World’s Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane systems had their last day of operation on July 23. Genie+ has been replaced by Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Individual Lightning Lanes have been replaced by Lightning Lane Single Pass. This post focuses entirely on the new systems.
Related Posts
We also suggest reading our Walt Disney World Lightning Lanes Strategy Guide for a complete understanding of the Multi Pass and Single Pass systems.
Your Lightning Lane strategy should work in tandem with your Animal Kingdom rope drop strategy (including Early Entry, if you have it). What you pick on Multi Pass will impact / depend on what rides you’re able to get to in the morning.
To hear more about specific rides, check out our Animal Kingdom rides guide. We also have a one-day Animal Kingdom itinerary that talks broadly about planning your day at the park.
THE BASICS OF Animal Kingdom Lightning Lanes
Again, you’ll want to check out our Walt Disney World Lightning Lanes Strategy Guide to make sure you really understand Lightning Lanes, but we want to give those of you who are just looking for the basics a quick intro.
Lightning Lanes Allow You To “Skip The Lines” At Walt Disney World
“Lightning Lanes” are the way to “skip the line” at Disney World, and there are two paid services to access them—Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass.
Lightning Lane Multi Pass (sometimes just “Multi Pass”) is a paid (roughly $15 to $35 per person, plus tax, depending on the day) skip-the-line system at Walt Disney World. By purchasing Multi Pass for the day of your visit to a Disney World park, you’ll be able to make bookings to access “Lightning Lanes” which are shorter lines than the regular “standby” lines that most rides have.
We’ve put “skip the lines” in quotes because you’ll usually still have some wait in a Lightning Lane, it’s just much shorter than the regular wait. A typical wait in a Lightning Lane is 5 to 10 minutes. A long wait in a Lightning Lane might be a 20 minute wait for a ride that has standby waits of 100+ minutes.
Not all attractions are included in Lightning Lane Multi Pass. Some attractions don’t have Lightning Lanes and some attractions with Lightning Lanes aren’t included in Multi Pass.
At Animal Kingdom, TriceraTop Spin does not have a Lightning Lane, and Avatar Flight of Passage has a Lightning Lane but is not a part of Multi Pass. To access the Flight of Passage Lightning Lane you’ll have to make a separate Lightning Lane Single Pass purchase. We discuss the included attractions at Animal Kingdom later in this post.
You can make three advance reservations in Multi Pass. The advance booking windows vary based on whether you are a guest of a Disney resort (or select partner resort) or not. Guests of Disney resorts and select partner resorts can purchase Multi Pass for any day of trip (up to the first 14 days) at beginning 7 days in advance of their check-in at 7AM. Other guests can book 3 days in advance of their park visit at 7AM.
Advance reservations are “tiered”, but not at Animal Kingdom. At Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Epcot, you can only make one advance reservation from the “tier 1” rides. The remaining two (or all three, if you so choose) will have to be from the “tier 2” group. Animal Kingdom will not have tiers when the system debuts.
You can make new Lightning Lane reservations as you use them. Once you start to use the initial bookings, you can make new reservations. You have three Lightning Lane slots to keep filled, so any time you use one you can replace it.
Moreover, once you use four first Multi Pass Lightning Lane for the day, you are freed from tier and park restrictions. That is, once you tap into your first Lightning Lane you can make a new reservation in any park and at any tier, and you can modify your remaining reservations to be at any park and in any tier.
You can choose / modify your Lightning Lane time. When you make a new reservation, the system will give you the soonest time by default. You can modify it before completing the booking if other times are available, or you can modify it after you’ve confirmed the booking.
Lightning Lanes Are Not Available During Special Events
Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass are only available during regular park hours at Animal Kingdom. They are not available for special events held before or after regular park hours, like Animal Kingdom After Hours. They also aren’t available during Early Theme Park Entry or Extended Evening Hours.
You Can Park Hop With Lightning Lane Multi Pass
Your advance reservations have to be in a single park. Once you use a Lightning Lane on the day of your visit, you can make your next pick (and modify your remaining initial picks) in any other park.
We have posts on two-day Disney World trips and three-day Disney World trips.
Purchasing Lightning Lane Multi Pass for Animal Kingdom
Before we get to strategy, let’s talk about how you get Lightning Lanes to begin with.
When can I purchase Multi Pass?
Guests of Disney resorts and select partner resorts can purchase Multi Pass for any day of trip (up to the first 14 days) beginning 7 days in advance of their check-in at 7AM. Other guests can book 3 days in advance of their park visit at 7AM. (Note there is an exception for international guests.)
How much does Multi Pass Cost?
Pricing for Multi Pass varies by day and park and is pretty similar to old Genie+ pricing. Expect Animal Kingdom to range from about $15 to $29, with a typical day being around $20.
Everyone in your group needs to have Multi Pass if they plan to use the Lightning Lanes for the Multi Pass attractions. If someone in your party isn’t going on the rides via Multi Pass, they don’t need Multi Pass.
Is Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom Worth It?
Multi Pass is generally not worth it at Animal Kingdom if rides are your biggest priority. If you look at the busiest days of the year, you’re usually going to find a straightforward approach that has you waiting one hour per ride for the five rides on Multi Pass.
That’s not a small amount, but since we’re talking about peak crowds in a park that’s usually open at least 10 hours (and ignoring that you could ride some rides early, before waits go up), it shows that the rides are pretty easily handled without Lightning Lanes.
Where Lightning Lanes make a difference is (1) they will keep you out of those lines altogether and (2) they will make it easier to see the entire park in a day. Besides rides, there are shows (Lightning Lanes can help you get into these, too) and several zoological experiences at Animal Kingdom.
On a typical day you can probably do the entire park without Lightning Lanes. On a peak day you’ll need Multi Pass to experience the entire park.
You should also keep in mind extra hours access—Early Theme Park Entry and Extended Evening Hours. If you have access to those perks (and will use them), you’re less likely to need to skip the lines.
Without Early Entry, Lightning Lanes are still more of a convenience than a necessity. If you have a full day at the park, you don’t need them as long as you’re willing to wait in a few lines. With them, the park is a breeze and you’ll have plenty of time to take in the shows, zoological trails, and other non-ride attractions.
All that said, I want to be transparent—we’ll probably buy Multi Pass most times we’re planning a full day at the parks. We understand well that the cost of a Disney World vacation is tough to swallow. But we also find that the additional cost for three or four days of Multi Pass is usually small relative to the cost of the trip and allows us to have a smoother overall experience.
Lightning Lane Single Pass Purchases
In case you forgot, there are rides at each park that not a part of Multi Pass and that require you to buy access to separate Lightning Lane Single Pass.
At Animal Kingdom, as of this update, Avatar Flight of Passage is the only ride with a Lightning Lane Single Pass. It has a regular standby line (i.e. no virtual queues to worry about) if you don’t want to pay, and is also a part of Early Entry.
If you decide to purchase Lightning Lane Single Pass access for Flight of Passage, you’ll make your purchase at the same time you can purchase Multi Pass.
Is it worth it to buy a Lightning Lane for Avatar Flight of Passage?
If you have Early Entry at Animal Kingdom (and will arrive early to use it), you probably don’t need to buy a Lightning Lane for Avatar Flight of Passage. Since we usually buy Multi Pass, we personally prefer to arrive early and ride Flight of Passage rather than spending even more money on the day.
If you don’t have Early Entry, but do have a full day, you probably don’t need to buy a Lightning Lane for Avatar Flight of Passage. You will need to be prepared to accept a 90 minute wait for the ride in this case.
If you have a full day at Animal Kingdom and are willing to spend some money, it’s usually going to make more sense to buy Multi Pass than the Flight of Passage Lightning Lane Single Pass.
If you’re only spending part of your day at Animal Kingdom and you don’t have Early Entry, the best way to get as much done as possible is going to be to buy a Lightning Lane for Flight of Passage.
Keep in mind that the Flight of Passage Lightning Lane can sell out well in advance of your visit date. To that end, we can’t advocate a “wait and see” approach for this. Decide beforehand how you’re going to get on this ride.
Finally, we generally think Multi Pass is a better value than the Flight of Passage Single Pass. This can vary by pricing, but Multi Pass usually just costs a few dollars more, and it can get you through all the waits pretty easily at Animal Kingdom. If you can only pick one, we’d usually go with Multi Pass so that we only have the Flight of Passage standby wait to worry about.
Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Priorities
This is a good time to remind you to check the height requirements at Disney World when booking Lightning Lanes, as you want to make sure you don’t wind up with any disappointed littles. While you’re at it, read about visiting Animal Kingdom with a toddler if it applies to you.
Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Multi Pass Attractions
There are nine attractions or experiences that are a part of Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom (alphabetical order):
DINOSAUR
Expedition Everest
*Feathered Friends in Flight!
*Festival of the Lion King
*Finding Nemo: The Big Blue... and Beyond!
It’s Tough to Be a Bug!
Kali River Rapids
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Naʻvi River Journey
As a reminder, Animal Kingdom does not use tiers, and you are free to book any three Lightning Lanes in advance.
Scheduled Shows & Activities at Animal Kingdom
I put asterisks on three of the nine attractions because they occur on fixed schedules, and the Lightning Lanes just guarantee you seating if you arrive within the arrival window. If you see one of these and it fits your schedule, fine, grab it. If a show is important to you, prioritize it.
Low Priorities for Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom
“It’s Tough to be a Bug” won’t require much of your attention on Multi Pass. Might you use Multi Pass to get on it? Sure! If the timing works out and you can use Multi Pass to skip even a 15 minute wait, do it! But this will probably be later in the day after you’ve addressed higher priority rides.
Best Rides for Lightning Lanes At Animal Kingdom
That leaves five rides—DINOSAUR, Expedition Everest, Kali River Rapids, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and Na’vi River Journey. Let’s address these one by one before trying to rank them.
DINOSAUR is probably the least popular of the rides, and particularly late in the day it’s common to see its waits drop to below 15 minutes. It’s also relatively secluded in the park, so waits don’t tend to move up as early as more central rides.
Kali River Rapids will vary in popularity with the weather (more popular on hotter days). Crucially—if you’re a hardcore planning nerd, which you are since you’re still reading this post—Kali River Rapids sometimes opens an hour later than the rest of the park. If you can plan to be there when it opens, you’ll avoid the need for a Lightning Lane on this ride.
Expedition Everest is one of the best roller coasters in Disney World, but its Lightning Lane isn’t wildly popular. It might be more popular than Kali River Rapids on a cool day, but it won’t usually be anything to stress about. It also has a single rider line, which is a good backup if you somehow miss fitting it into your day.
Kilimanjaro Safaris is popular and the other attraction that often is the first to run out of Lightning Lane times. That said, it’s a long slow ride that can take a chunk of time out of your morning if you ride it too soon. For that reason, you probably don’t want it to be your first Lightning Lane of the day. Ideally, you’d be able to use your morning to walk onto one or two rides without using Lightning Lanes (this gives you more flexibility with your picks).
Kilimanjaro Safaris also usually opens at the same time as the park opens to all guests (i.e. it isn’t in Early Entry), which makes it relatively easy to get on early in the day. Importantly, Kilimanjaro Safaris often closes earlier than the rest of the park, meaning it will have fewer Lightning Lane return times than the other rides.
Na’vi River Journey is slightly less popular than Kilimanjaro Safaris. But it’s much shorter than Kilimanjaro Safaris and located near where many of you will be starting your day anyways, at Flight of Passage. This often makes it a good first option on Multi Pass.
So I’d currently rank the Multi Pass priorities at Animal Kingdom as follows:
Na’vi River Journey
Kali River Rapids (hot days or if you can’t get there near its opening time)
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Expedition Everest
Kali River Rapids (cool days or if you can get there near its opening time)
DINOSAUR
That’s just a “raw” ranking, though. We need to discuss why you might depart from it and how this all plays out during the day.
Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Planning
Now that we’ve covered the Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane priorities, we need to talk about how to actually put together a day at the park.
Which Lightning Lanes Should I Book in Advance At Animal Kingdom?
Ideally, you’d book Naʻvi River Journey, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and Expedition Everest (or Kali River Rapids, between maybe May and September) as your three advance reservations. Realistically, any combination of three of the five rides is going to be fine.
If you have Early Theme Park Entry, our suggested lineup makes it an easy decision to use that time to ride Flight of Passage, avoiding paying for the Lightning Lane Single Pass. Just keep in mind the wait time for Flight of Passage and the timing of your first Lightning Lane (i.e. don’t get in a 90-minute standby line at 8:58AM if your first Lightning Lane is 9AM to 10AM).
Alternatively, you can sleep in and skip Early Entry altogether, either buying the Flight of Passage Lightning Lane or just waiting in line for it sometime during the day.
If you don’t have Early Theme Park Entry, this lineup gives you two options for rope drop. You either (1) go and quickly ride DINOSAUR and TriceraTop Spin with probably no wait to start the day, or (2) go and get in the long wait for Flight of Passage. If you go with option (2), just make sure that long wait won’t cause you to miss your first Lightning Lane time.
What Lightning Lane should I grab Fourth, Fifth, etc. at Animal Kingdom?
Besides the three we recommend picking in advance, we’ve only got two rides—DINOSAUR and Kali River Rapids (or Expedition Everest)—left. So, book those at your leisure. Otherwise, consider using Multi Pass to skip the waits for the shows, particularly Festival of the Lion King.
Example Day At Animal Kingdom with Genie+
Note: Example day with Multi Pass will be posted sometime in August. I’d feel bad about this delay, but c’mon—five rides, and you can advance book three, so…
Here’s an example morning Emily and I spent at Animal Kingdom with Genie+ (Lightning Lane activity bolded). Since we had Zoe with us, we had to ride some rides separately. This example actually uses a different approach than what’s discussed above (and it skips Meet Disney Pals). That said, I like how it shows some versatility in using Genie+ at this easy park.
6:30 Purchase Genie+
7AM Select Kilimanjaro Safaris Genie+ LL
7:44 Arrive
8AM Park Opens
8:15 Everest (Kenny, walk on)
8:21 Everest (Emily, walk on)
8:36 Kilimanjaro Safaris (posted 15, 6 LL)
8:40 Grab DINOSAUR LL (8:45 - 9:45)
9:16 DINOSAUR (Kenny, walk on / used LL)
9:33 DINOSAUR (Emily, same)
9:35 Grab Kali River Rapids LL (9:50 - 10:50)
9:50 TriceraTop Spin (posted 5, actual 3)
10:10 Kali River Rapids (E, walk on / used LL)
10:18 Kali River Rapids (K, same)
10:18 Grab Na’vi River Journey LL (12:20 - 1:20)
12:20 Avatar Flight of Passage (Kenny, posted 70, actual 89)
12:41 Navi River Journey (posted 50, 2 LL)
12:54 Lunch at Satuli Canteen
2PM Lion King Show (space available at 1:45, used LL)
You can see we took the approach of getting through DINOSAUR and Kali River Rapids before booking Na’vi River Journey. This left us a two-hour gap, which we used to wait in line for Avatar Flight of Passage.
How To Spend One Full Day At Animal Kingdom
We have a full post dedicated to our one-day Animal Kingdom itinerary.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.
Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Lightning Lane Guide and Strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy, Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Strategy.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.