Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Multi Pass Touring Strategies

Planning to save time with Lightning Lanes needs to be about more than just the time you save in line. After all, if you cross half the park to save 10 more minutes with a “higher ranking” Lightning Lane reservation, are you really ahead? Choosing three rides in advance with Lightning Lane Multi Pass lets you be smarter than that. You can make a touring plan that saves time and steps at the same time. If that sounds like the kind of plan you’d like to have, read on!

There are three sets of example advance picks for Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom below. Each has suggested touring strategies to minimize backtracking, and some ideas for same-day choices to make when you’re in the park. No matter when you plan to get to the gate or what’s available when you’re eligible to make your selections, hopefully you’ll see something that gives you ideas. Afterward, I’ll talk about how to fit these loose strategies for using Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom into actual times for your selections.

The Basics

Lightning Lane Multi Pass advance selection windows depend on your lodging and ticket type. Advance picks are available 7 days before arrival if you’re staying onsite, for the length of your stay. Or, for those holding date-based tickets and staying offsite, you can begin making selections three days in advance for the length of the ticket. Most international guests won’t be able to buy Lightning Lane Multi Pass until they arrive in the US.

No matter when you purchase, you’ll select three attractions and times before pushing the “Buy Now” button. If you don’t feel it will be worth it based on what you see available, you can simply walk away and decide not to buy Multi Pass that day. If you do purchase, all three advance selections need to be in the same park.

Once in the parks, you can select a new Lightning Lane Multi Pass each time you use one – if you have Park Hoppers, this includes making a selection in another park. However, you can only use Multi Pass once per attraction per day; there are no re-rides.

Attractions where you can use Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom are shown below, along with predictions about what same-day availability will look like. These predictions are based on historical data from the Fastpass+ and Genie+ systems. They’re relative, so you might find same-day availability for “poor” selections if crowds are low on the day of your visit, or poor availability for “good” attractions if you’re visiting during Christmas week. As data for Lightning Lane Multi Pass becomes available, we’ll update the same-day availability below.

• Rides
  • Naʻvi River Journey – poor
  • Kilimanjaro Safaris – poor
  • Expedition Everest – limited
  • Kali River Rapids – limited
  • DINOSAUR – good
• Shows
  • Festival of the Lion King – good
  • It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – good
  • Feathered Friends in Flight! – good
  • Finding Nemo: The Big Blue… and Beyond! – good

Shows have been separated because using a Lightning Lane for shows rarely saves time. At certain times of the day, a strategic same-day pick for a show can ensure that your plan stays on track. But most of the time, show theaters are filled as soon as the audience for the previous show has departed, and you will get into the next show whenever you show up. Shows are very poor choices for advance picks.

With only five rides eligible for Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom, there’s not a lot of opportunity for variety in power combos. Two rides – Na’vi River Journey and Kilimanjaro Safaris – save significantly more time than the rest, which save similar amounts to each other. As long as your advance picks include both Na’vi River Journey and Kilimanjaro Safaris, you’ll be well on your way to maximizing your time savings. And based on sell-out times under Genie+, we think it’s likely that you’ll be able to get both.

Since you’re likely to get both of the high-value choices as pre-selects, the power of rope drop will be best spent on Flight of Passage. But if you’re willing to get a Single Pass for that, or to live with a longer wait, then Animal Kingdom could be a great park for a day when you want to sleep in. Or if you have Park Hoppers, then starting your day at Animal Kingdom could let you set up a nice little stack of Lightning Lanes for the evening somewhere else.

Animal Kingdom Advance Picks Example #1

1. Na’vi River Journey
2. Kilimanjaro Safaris
3. Kali River Rapids

Option 1: arriving at park opening, with or without Early Entry

• Head directly to Flight of Passage and ride, then ride Na’vi River Journey and make a new Multi Pass for Expedition Everest.
• When you’re done in Pandora, check the times for Winged Encounters and Festival of the Lion King and head to whichever Pandora exit serves you best toward Africa.
• Do all desired activities in Africa. If you plan to visit Rafiki’s Planet Watch, now is a good time. When you redeem your Multi Pass for Kilimanjaro Safaris, make a final selection for DINOSAUR.
• Leave Africa in time for a showing of Feathered Friends in Flight and continue on clockwise around the park.

Option 2: arriving after regular park opening

• Head directly to Africa and do all desired activities. Make a new Multi Pass for Expedition Everest when you ride Kilimanjaro Safaris. If you plan to visit Rafiki’s Planet Watch, now is a good time.
• Leave Africa in time for a showing of Feathered Friends in Flight and continue on to Asia. When you redeem your next Multi Pass, make a final selection for DINOSAUR. Then continue clockwise around the park, finishing in Pandora.

Although this plan says you can arrive any time after regular park opening, it’s actually a terrific plan for arriving in the late morning or early afternoon if you don’t plan to go to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. You’ll need to do a little work to make sure you get in any shows you want to see without schedule conflicts. But lines for Flight of Passage will be lower in the last half hour of the day, and depending on the time of year it will allow you to see Pandora at night – absolutely stunning!

Animal Kingdom Advance Picks Example #2

1. Na’vi River Journey
2. Kilimanjaro Safaris
3. Expedition Everest

OK, straight up – you can run the same strategy as for Picks #1 here, because Kali River Rapids and Expedition Everest are near each other and should have similar same-day availability. So we’re going to mix it up a little and look at how you might use these picks to plan for a different park in the evening if you have Park Hoppers

Option 1: arriving at park opening with or without Early Entry

• Head directly to Flight of Passage and ride, then ride Na’vi River Journey and make a new Multi Pass for Kali River Rapids.
• When you’re done in Pandora, check the times for Winged Encounters and Festival of the Lion King and head for whichever Pandora exit serves you best toward Africa.
• Do all desired activities in Africa and leave in time for a showing of Feathered Friends in Flight. Continue clockwise around the park, making Multi Pass selections for your evening park as you redeem your current choices.

In this approach, you may want to bypass Rafiki’s Planet Watch due to time. This plan also leaves you without a Multi Pass for DINOSAUR. Depending on the crowds, you could decide to ride without one. Or, you could leave Pandora toward Dinoland instead and catch the lines for DINOSAUR in the first hour when they will still be low. The downside is that you’ll pass by the theater for Finding Nemo: The Big Blue… and Beyond! well before the first showtime.

If you arrive at park opening, you might want to consider making a pick for your evening park when you ride Na’vi River Journey. Animal Kingdom usually opens an hour earlier than the other parks, so you will be in a good position to make a prime same-day pick for whichever park you’re hopping to. You should still be able to get a good time for Kali River Rapids that matches up with your plan when you ride Kilimanjaro Safaris.

Option 2: arriving more than a half-hour after regular opening

• Head directly to Asia and ride Expedition Everest, making a new Multi Pass for your evening park. Then ride Kali River Rapids through the standby queue and walk the Maharajah Jungle Trek.
• Head to Africa and ride Kilimanjaro Safaris first, making a second new Multi Pass for your evening park. Do other activities in Africa before heading back to a showing of Feathered Friends in Flight.
• Head back to Discovery Island. Depending on the timing, go directly to Pandora, or catch a showing of Winged Encounters and see It’s Tough to Be a Bug.

If you are arriving later, you may be able to see Feathered Friends in Flight on your way to Africa. You can then simply continue around past Harambe Theater to Pandora instead of going back to Discovery Island from Asia. This choice will be about timing – you’ll delay making your second same-day pick if you stop on the way, and it’s not that far to head back to the Anandapur Theater from Africa.

This approach also omits Dinoland USA and Finding Nemo, unless you want to do some backtracking and ride without a Lightning Lane. But if you want to arrive later at Animal Kingdom and also hop to another park in the evening, tradeoffs are going to be the name of the game.

Animal Kingdom Advance Picks Example #3

1. Na’vi River Journey
2. Kilimanjaro Safaris
3. DINOSAUR

Option 1: arriving at park opening with or without Early Entry

• Head directly to Flight of Passage and ride, then ride Na’vi River Journey and make a new Multi Pass for Expedition Everest.
• Head out of Pandora toward Discovery Island, and do any of Winged Encounters, It’s Tough to Be a Bug, or Discovery Island Trails that you would like to do.
• Continue on toward Dinoland USA and ride DINOSAUR, making a new Multi Pass for Kali River Rapids.
• Continue around the park counter-clockwise.

If you want to see Finding Nemo … the Big Blue and Beyond, then this probably isn’t a good strategy unless you want to spend some time on the activities in Discovery Island. The first showing of Finding Nemo is generally about 3 hours after park opening and you’re likely to finish with Dinoland early enough to give you a significant wait for that.

Option 2: arriving mid-morning or later

• Head directly to Dinoland USA and ride DINOSAUR. Make a new Multi Pass reservation for Expedition Everest.
• Continue around the park counter-clockwise. Try to get a same-day reservation for Kali River Rapids that works well with your schedule when you redeem your Everest Multi Pass.

Depending on your arrival, crowd levels, the air temperature, and general wait times, you could be better off making your same-day Multi Pass for Kali River Rapids instead of Expedition Everest. In that case, you can choose to ride Everest in the regular queue, via the single-rider line, or simply backtrack after Kali River Rapids if wait times justify that approach.

Working Your Advance Picks Into a Touring Plan

You probably noticed that none of these example sets have times on them. The right times for you will be based on what you see when you make selections, and what time you plan to arrive at the park.

It’s always true that placing return times earlier in your park day gives you the most flexibility to get more “valuable” selections as you use them in the parks. You’ll have more options making a same-day pick at 10 am than you will at 4 pm.

Here’s what I recommend. Start by making a custom touring plan built around one of these strategies. Include shows, meals, and other activities – Animal Kingdom has so few Lightning Lane rides because it has so many walking trails, shows, and other self-paced attractions. Make a TouringPlans custom plan to estimate how long it will take you to move through each area of the park and get an idea of where to place your Multi Pass return windows. After using Optimize for a single pass, don’t be afraid to order attractions in the same area together and use Evaluate to make sure they stay that way.

The closer you are to the park date, the more you’ll see that the selection of times for pre-booking will be limited. If you can’t get the times you were aiming for, you’ll need to make a choice. You can either adjust your plan around what you can get, or change strategies to get picks that you can begin redeeming earlier. Don’t forget that you can modify your selections and times after you purchase and before you get to the parks.

Once you have your advance picks, come back to your touring plan and enter them to finalize it. If you’re a subscriber, you’ll be able to use your plan with the Lines app in the parks. You can add in new selections that you make same-day and adjust your plan as you tour. (Because sometimes even the best plans run into some unexpected attraction downtime in the parks.)

What to Take Away

At Animal Kingdom, the strategy for Lightning Lane advance picks is basically: “Get Na’vi River Journey, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and anything else that isn’t a show”. It’s up to you to decide what third pick suits you best based on how you plan to tour the parks.

⭐ Even though there’s not a lot of strategy to advance picks, there’s not “one right way” to use Lightning Lane Multi Pass at the Animal Kingdom. Making your plan first can help you make advance selections that minimize extra steps in the park.

⭐ Aiming to plan clusters of Multi Pass reservations and activities based on park location provides some flexibility around same-day return times. Doing shows or other non-queued attractions in the same area will make it easier to fit the times that you see for the two attractions that you didn’t select in advance into your plan.

⭐ Try to plan your Lightning Lane touring so that you begin using your reservations soon after you arrive in the park. This will give you the most choice for the two additional picks that you can make.

⭐ Don’t forget that you can adjust the times of selections you’ve already made. It’s easy to spend more or less time than you planned on a self-paced attraction, and adjusting your return times will feel better than rushing away from something you’re not done with yet.

What’s your favorite way to use Lightning Lanes to tour Animal Kingdom? Let us know in the comments!