Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Multi-Pass Rankings & Strategy
Animal Kingdom has 9 attractions with Lightning Lane Multi Pass, the lowest number of any park at Walt Disney World. Only a few of those need the line-skipping service, making DAK the worst park for
Animal Kingdom has 9 attractions with Lightning Lane Multi Pass, the lowest number of any park at Walt Disney World. Only a few of those need the line-skipping service, making DAK the worst park for buying paid FastPass. This list ranks the rides in terms of time-saved and how quickly each books up.
If you’re simply spending a full day in the park, we do not recommend buying Lightning Lane Multi Pass (LLMP) at Disney’s Animal Kingdom (DAK) the vast majority of the time–roughly 300 days per year. Probably closer to 325, including every single day when the paid FastPass service costs under $20 per person. (There’s a reason it’s cheaper–it’s not very useful!)
Most of the time is not all of the time–hence this guide. There are some scenarios when buying LLMP at Animal Kingdom can be advantageous. So prior to listing the objective Lightning Lane Multi Pass ride rankings for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, we’re going to start with strategy for leveraging the line-skipping system–or avoiding it entirely and still minimizing your time spent waiting in standby lines…
We’ve been saying for the last few years that strategy for Animal Kingdom essentially amounts to “don’t go during the middle of the day.” Going early or staying late are equally excellent options, and if you’re spending all day in the park, you’ll presumably be doing both. During a full day in the park, you almost certainly will not need Lightning Lane Multi Pass. You’ll probably be able to do most rides multiple times, in fact.
If we were to recommend buying one line-skipping option at Animal Kingdom, it would actually be Lightning Lane Single Pass for Avatar Flight of Passage. Even that isn’t strictly necessary, as you can do that with a short wait at the beginning or end of the day. (Many days, you can also jump in line right around lunch and have a wait that’s considerably shorter than the posted time, too.)
When it comes to savvy strategy for Animal Kingdom, we’re big fans of Early Entry, which starts at 7:30 am on most days. That time is a huge hurdle for most guests, and a barrier to big crowds. If you’re able to arrive to Animal Kingdom by 7 am, this gives you a big advantage. We walk you through an ideal itinerary for morning in Animal Kingdom Park Opening & Early Entry Ride Strategy. Suffice to say, you should be able to do every single ride in the park before 11 am.
Conversely, the last few hours of the day also work out well. You basically just reverse the approach of that Early Entry and rope drop strategy to backload the most popular rides into the very end of the day. See our Animal Kingdom Afternoon Arrival Strategy. We especially love that approach in winter, when Animal Kingdom is open after sunset. (Pandora is beautiful at night!)
So long as you can do major attractions outside of the window between 10 am and 3 pm, Animal Kingdom is pretty easy on normal days at Walt Disney World. It’s thus during those hours that Lightning Lane Multi Pass can add some value.
If you’re trying to do a whirlwind day, starting with Early Entry and rope drop at one park (ideally Disney’s Hollywood Studios or EPCOT), followed by midday at Animal Kingdom before ending the evening at Magic Kingdom, Lightning Lane Multi Pass can make sense. Basically, any scenario where you want to do 3 parks in 1 day, and plan to “speedrun” Animal Kingdom during the middle of the day is a good candidate for LLMP.
Lightning Lane Multi Pass can be useful at DAK on days when crowds are heavier, such as the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Easter, etc. If you know you can’t get up at the crack of dawn for Early Entry or stay until the bitter end, we’d recommend buying LLMP. Animal Kingdom does a poor job of absorbing crowds, resulting in the longest wait times of any park at Walt Disney World on 9/10 or 10/10 crowd days.
This is because Animal Kingdom doesn’t have as many rides, so tons of guests are concentrated into a handful of headliner rides. During these peak weeks, Lightning Lane Multi Pass goes from being practically useless to absolutely necessary. Quite the swing, we know.
Consequently, whether Lightning Lane Multi Pass will save you a lot of time or almost no time at all really depends upon the crowd level and whether you’re Park Hopping. This isn’t really a profound statement–it’s true at all of the parks–but it’s most pronounced at Animal Kingdom.
On a low to moderately busy day, you won’t save enough time to make the purchase of LLMP worth the money unless you’re Park Hopping after DAK. It’s also arguably not worth the time, as you’ll likely need to criss-cross the sprawling park rather than doing things as you naturally arrive to them while navigating normally.
During peak season, it’s a different story as 6 of the Lightning Lane Multi Pass attractions can have significant wait times throughout the day that are worth skipping. In fact, there were days we visited over the winter when Lightning Lanes even would’ve been useful for Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo: Big Blue & Beyond, which almost never happens. Suffice to say, Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Animal Kingdom on a peak season day can amount to time-savings of ~5 hours, which is pretty good for the cost–especially if you don’t want to wake up super early.
On any of these days, it’s still possible to tackle Animal Kingdom without Lightning Lanes. Our 1-Day Animal Kingdom Itinerary covers how you can accomplish everything even if you’re staying off-site and don’t want to spend anything extra on Lightning Lane Multi or Single Pass. It also offers great “zig when they zag” advice to flip the script on Pandora – World of Avatar and the other side of Animal Kingdom.
On another positive note, Animal Kingdom is the one park at Walt Disney World that does not use tiers (Group A & B) for Lightning Lane Multi Pass, so there’s one fewer complicating factor from a strategy perspective. Again, there’s a reason for that–and it’s the same reason that LLMP costs less at Animal Kingdom than any other park. Demand is lower, and there’s likewise a reason for that–LLMP isn’t as useful at Animal Kingdom. But the plus side is that Lightning Lanes are also easier to book at Animal Kingdom than any other park and last longer!
As is probably obvious by now with unexplained references to tiers and other undefined terms, these Disney’s Animal Kingdom LLMP ride rankings below presume basic knowledge about the Lightning Lane Multi Pass system, including advance booking windows and the Tiers or Groupings at EPCOT. If you are not familiar with this service or are already feeling lost, start by seeing our Guide to Lightning Lane Multi Pass & Single Pass at Walt Disney World for all of the foundational need-to-know info about this replacement for free FastPass+. This whole system is confusing and convoluted, so you might have a question or two-dozen. That answers all of the most common ones we’ve been receiving from readers.
Now, on with the best to worst Lightning Lane Multi-Pass attractions at Disney’s Animal Kingdom…
Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Multi Pass Rankings
1. Na’vi River Journey – This is the objective #1 Lightning Lane Multi Pass selection at Animal Kingdom. On average, this will save you the most time, especially on moderate or high crowd days when it means skipping a triple-digit wait time for Na’vi River Journey.
When crowds are lower, Na’vi River Journey should have same-day availability until midday or later, meaning it’s the rare #1 pick you can score after Park Hopping with consistency. Regardless of your approach, Na’vi River Journey is a savvy selection for a Lightning Lane Multi-Pass.
2. Kilimanjaro Safaris – The argument could be made that Kilimanjaro Safaris is actually the better #1 pick for Animal Kingdom from a quality perspective. That this is the better attraction, will still save you a ton of time on busy days, and it’s more important to get an ideal time slot for Kilimanjaro Safaris. We don’t disagree with any of that!
Wildlife on the safari is most active first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon, making an earlier or later return time subjectively preferrable. However, the standby line is short early in the morning and late in the afternoon, so using the Lightning Lane then is often pointless. That isn’t true on 8/10 or above crowd level days, though, so we’d recommend trying for a Kilimanjaro Safaris time slot before 11 a.m. if at all possible (assuming no Park Hopping). That also gives you time for standby strategy at rope drop and making a prompt 4th selection after using this Lightning Lane.
By contrast, there’s no subjectively “better” time for Na’vi River Journey since the experience is an artificially-staged indoor boat ride. (Sorry for the spoiler that you don’t actually visit an alien planet.) So you can book that Lightning Lane whenever–make it work with your itinerary and plans for Pandora (as noted above, it’s great during Early Entry or evening).
3. Expedition Everest – This can have decent wait times during the middle of the day, making a Lightning Lane for Expedition Everest advantageous. It’s relatively common to find same-day Lightning Lane availability well into the afternoon…and there’s also a single rider line.
4. Kali River Rapids – During the colder months of the year, Kali River Rapids is pretty unpopular and won’t have much of a wait, making Lightning Lanes pointless even on 8/10 or 9/10 crowd days for the winter holiday weeks (Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve). However, once warm weather hits it becomes popular once again. On the hottest days of the year, this leapfrogs Expedition Everest and Kilimanjaro Safaris into the #3 spot.
5. Dinosaur – Here’s where we enter “only necessary in high crowds” country. On a low or moderately crowded day, Dinosaur will have a short or nonexistent wait and Lightning Lane Multi-Pass won’t be necessary. On busier days, having a Lightning Lane time reserved could save you 60 minutes here. Our expectation is that the popularity of Dinosaur will increase once its closing date is announced, which will likely happen very soon. Once fans start flocking to Dinosaur for their farewell rides, this could also become a top 3 Lightning Lane.
It’s Tough to Be a Bug – We have yet to see a day when this attraction has run out of Lightning Lane reservations. On the busiest days of the year, it can have a wait time, making the line-skipping useful. On about 300 days of the year, that’s not the case.
(Like Dinosaur, this will also likely close in 2025, making Animal Kingdom slim pickings for Lightning Lane Multi Pass unless they temporarily demote Avatar Flight of Passage.)
Festival of the Lion King – We have seen peak season dates when Festival of the Lion King has cut the standby line due to crowds. The Lightning Lane would’ve saved guests having to wait for a subsequent show in that case, though.
Finding Nemo: The Big Blue…and Beyond! – Same story here.
Feathered Friends in Flight – And again.
On the vast majority of dates, booking a Lightning Lane for any of these shows is just going to amount to needless backtracking or clicking in the app, and the opportunity cost of not booking something else. Most guests on most days should simply do shows via the standby lines.
Ultimately, you should be able to knock out every single Animal Kingdom attraction via Lightning Lanes on the vast majority of days. The biggest problem you’ll run into on busier days is booking both Na’vi River Journey and Kilimanjaro Safaris, which may not be possible in 10/10 crowd levels.
The majority of guests staying the whole day at Animal Kingdom won’t need Lightning Lane Multi-Pass except on those 10/10 crowd days. Even then, it’s not strictly necessary. Wait times drop a lot in the last 3 hours of the day, and we’ve yet to have any problem accomplishing every major ride at Animal Kingdom via standby in a full day. (The trickier part is occupying the middle of the day when lines are at their worst.)
Lightning Lane Multi-Pass is most useful at Animal Kingdom when arriving late and leaving early. That means on “challenge” days when you’re trying to do Early Entry and rope drop at Disney’s Hollywood Studios or EPCOT and plan to end the evening in Magic Kingdom. Lightning Lane Multi Pass offers minimal value at DAK on most days, but can still be very useful when paired with other parks.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
How would you rank your ride priorities using Lightning Lane MultiPass in Animal Kingdom? Surprised by any of the rankings in our top 5 or is this all pretty obvious? Are you planning on buying LLMP or skipping it? Will you use it on a DAK-only day, or exclusively when Park Hopping? Do you agree or disagree with our rankings? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
