New! Custom Lightning Lane “Grace Period” for Touring Plans

Starting today you can tell our touring plan software how long of a “grace period” you want to assume when using Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

What is the Lightning Lane Grace Period?

The grace period refers to the amount of time your Lightning Lane remains usable beyond the end of the original return window. As of today, that grace period is exactly 119 minutes in Walt Disney World.

For example, let’s say you’ve got a Soarin’ return time of 4:50 PM to 5:50 PM as shown here:

Disney’s unwritten policy is to accept that Lightning Lane for 119 minutes beyond the 5:50 PM end time shown. That means you can enter Soarin’s Lightning Lane line until 7:49 PM. Simply tap your Magic Band or phone against the Lightning Lane reader and the light will turn green, indicating the Lightning Lane is still valid; you don’t have to ask a Cast Member if it’s okay to be late.

How to Set a Custom Lightning Lane Grace Period

The new Grace Period setting is in the Advanced Options section of the touring plan optimizer:

The default value is 90 minutes. Other options range from 15 to the full 119 minutes. And there’s a “zero minutes” option for folks who don’t want to rely on the unwritten grace period for their Lightning Lanes.

The Grace Period Means More Efficient Touring Plans

In testing the new grace period, we noticed that the touring plan software uses something similar to the Lightning Lane stacking strategy. Specifically, the touring plan software will suggest booking another Lightning Lane as soon as the official one-hour return window has closed, but before the grace period has expired. But it will still optimize your plan as though that expired Lightning Lane is valid, which reduces your waits in line.

Bug Fixes and Upcoming Releases

This release also includes fixes for two bugs that occasionally miscalculated the “Time I can get another Lightning Lane” in the touring plans. Fixing those bugs should result in more Lightning Lane suggestions and less waiting in line.

Beyond that, we’re preparing two upcoming releases for the touring plan software:

1. Lightning Lane recommendations for touring plans within the next 14 days will use the current Lightning Lane return times to predict the day-of return times. For example, if we know that it’s 5 PM “today” and “tomorrow’s” Soarin’ return times already start at 1:30 PM, then when you optimize your touring plan for “tomorrow”, the first available Soarin’ Lightning Lane time should be at 5 PM. The current process can get confused when it sees a one-off Lightning Lane return time that’s earlier than expected, so this will help.
2. Better intraday wait-time adjustments while you’re in the parks. This is a number of small projects wrapped into one. It includes observations we’ve made in 2025 around both Disney’s and Universal’s posted wait times, and how they relate to actual waits in line at rides. This should result in better estimates of your actual wait in line, and more efficient touring plans.

Let us know in the comments below when you use the new Lightning Lane grace period in the parks.