The Lightning Lane Master Class: Multiple Experiences Passes at Disneyland

So, you're at Disneyland Resort when the next ride you want to go on breaks down. Oh no! That's a toadal bummer. But let's say you are using Lightning Lane Multi Pass (formerly Genie+) and have a Lightning Lane reservation for a ride when it temporarily closes during your one-hour window — now something magical hoppens. That Lightning Lane reservation turns into a Multiple Experiences pass. We love these and can't wait to tell you why you should love them too and how you can utilize them to maximize your time and experience in the park. We bring you the Lightning Lane Master Class on Multiple Experiences passes! (In case you missed it, Genie+ has a new name as of July 24, 2024, but the service continues to work the same.)

Hop To

• Overview
• Ride Breakdowns
• How to Use Wisely

Overview of Multiple Experiences Passes

You should know that when you use Lightning Lane Multi Pass, there are a few rules and guidelines that apply. You have a one-hour window to ride each ride you select. And you can only use Lightning Lane Multi Pass to ride each ride once per day. For the most part, you can usually only select one ride at a time. You can also only book rides with a Lightning Lane Multi Pass. Obviously, if something goes wrong and the ride breaks down, you don't miss out on your chance to ride and have all your plans messed up. Cue the fairy godmother to come in to save the day. Disneyland Resort takes care of you in several ways by loosening the restrictions of that Lightning Lane reservation by changing it to a Multiple Experiences pass as easy as bibbidi bobbidi boo!

Should the ride go down and you cannot ride as scheduled, you'll see a notification in the Disneyland app stating there are changes made to your plans. You can head to My Day and view the changes. You'll likely see an Experience Redemption Lightning Lane — Select Experiences box in place of your Lightning Lane Selection. Woohoo! Those babies are like gold. If you tap it (anywhere in the box except the "Redeem" button), you can find out which ride it replaces and which tickets are involved.

Tap "Find out where you can go>," to see a list of rides you can use it on instead. If you scroll to the bottom, it lists excluded rides. The list of excluded rides may vary based on the popularity of the ride that broke down, so be sure to look to see where you cannot go. Everything else is available to you. You may even be able to use it on a favorite Lightning Lane Multi Pass ride that you already rode that day. Plus, you have until the end of the day to use it. We love the flexibility of these passes!

What Does This Mean?

The Multiple Experiences passes are more than just a replacement Lightning Lane. Several changes make it highly useful, such as:

• The one-hour window to ride has been lifted and now the pass can be redeemed until the park closes (or a particular ride closes for the night).
• You can re-book the same ride that is broken down or you can book a different ride.
• The pass is good for the rides listed in the park, including other Lightning Lane Multi Pass rides and sometimes even rides without a Lightning Lane. (In Disney California Adventure, you can use it for rides without a Lightning Lane!)
• You can choose to redeem the pass for the ride that broke down once it’s back up or use it on a ride you want to ride again. Use it for a ride with a late or far-away Lightning Lane window or a ride that doesn't even have a Lightning Lane (if it's on the list). You have a lot of choices!
• The pass can be used in either park if you are park hopping.
• If you were in an eligibility window for the ride that broke down that prevented you from making another Lightning Lane reservation for a period of time, the eligibility window will be immediately lifted, so you can immediately book again.
• The rides you can use this pass on vary depending on the ride that broke down, but generally, you can not use them on Peter Pan's Flight or any of the paid Lightning Lane Single Pass attractions no matter what. Just tap the pass anywhere but the "Redeem: button" and then the link to show you which rides it is valid for. But it's also valid for rides not listed, as long as they are not under the noted exclusions.

These are usually the top-tier Lightning Lane Multi Pass rides (selection may vary depending on the circumstances or time of year):

• Toy Story Midway Mania!
• Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: BREAKOUT! and Monsters After Dark (during Halloween Time)
• Indiana Jones Adventure
• Matterhorn Bobsleds
• Space Mountain
• Haunted Mansion Holiday (only during certain months of the year, and not likely in 2024 due to the virtual queue)
• WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure
• "it's a small world" Holiday (only during Holiday Time)

If any of those rides break down, you can use the pass to ride them, as well. If any other Lightning Lane Multi Pass ride breaks down, these rides are not included. The lists are subject to change seasonally.

How to Take Advantage of Ride Breakdowns

Let's say you notice a Lightning Lane Multi Pass ride in the Disneyland app that says, "Temporarily Closed." Your instinct may be to skip that ride and pick something else ... but think again. You may be able to use that ride closure to your advantage by acquiring Multiple Experiences passes. You can use them until the park closes on a variety of rides, helping you to manage your day.

Here's how to do it: Look to see what time the selection windows are for that ride. If the times are soon (say the next half hour), you can book the ride that is closed. If it is still down when it's time to ride, you can collect a Multiple Experiences pass. Once you receive one Multiple Experiences pass, immediately re-reserve that ride. If it is still broken down, you can collect another Multiple Experience pass. If the ride comes back up, you get to ride it. But if not, you'll acquire another Multiple Experiences pass. This is our favorite method and it has worked well for us. It's harder to do on busy days when the return times are farther away from when you book, though. 

How do you know if a ride is closed? The Tip Board notes when a ride temporarily closes. Even if the standby line is closed, you can still book the experience with Lightning Lane Multi Pass (formerly Genie+). Maybe the ride will open in time to ride it and maybe it won't. The park map in the Disneyland app also notes when a ride is temporarily closed. To use the park map, tap the teardrop at the bottom of the home screen. You'll see a map of the park with wait times. If a ride has a star instead of a wait time, you can tap it. A notice that says "Temporarily Closed" will appear. Note that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad has a star instead of a wait time. That's a sign that the ride is temporarily down. (Stars can also indicate other non-ride attractions, BTW.)

Here are two scenarios where we worked the ride breakdown to our advantage with Lightning Lane Multi Pass.

Big Thunder Mountain Breakdown in Disneyland Park

We were in line for Indiana Jones Adventure on a day when we were not park hopping. We saw that our next ride, Big Thunder Mountain, had broken down at about 12:15 p.m., right when lines were hitting their peak. Here's what we did:

• Immediately rebooked another Big Thunder Mountain Lightning Lane.
• By the time we exited Indiana Jones, that next ride window had arrived but the ride was still down, so we had received a second Multiple Experiences pass.
• We re-booked Big Thunder Mountain again.
• We used the first Multiple Experiences pass for Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run, which had a 40-minute wait.
• Then we saved the second Multiple Experiences pass for later to ride Pixar Pal-A-Round at Disney California Adventure. It's not on Lightning Lane. We skipped that 45-minute wait. Non-Lightning Lane Multi Pass attractions are included at that park!
• While we were on Millennium Falcon, Big Thunder Mountain reopened just as our Lightning Lane selection window arrived. As soon as we exited Galaxy's edge, we headed to Big Thunder Mountain.
• As soon as we scanned in at Big Thunder Mountain, we booked Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway. Our start time was an hour away.
• Snack time! We had Dole Whip floats at Tropical Hideaway, hit the restroom and walked to Toontown to redeem our Lightning Lane.
• We immediately selected Matterhorn Bobsleds. Our ride window was two hours away. With about an hour and a half to kill after riding the Millennium Falcon, what did we do?
• We enjoyed Fantasyland rides.
• Then we hit Matterhorn Bobsleds, booked Soarin' and hopped over to Disney California Adventure to ride Soarin' and Pixar-Pal-A-Round.

Without Lightning Lane Multi Pass, none of that would have been possible. It was such a smooth day!

Incredicoaster Breakdown When Park Hopping

In this scenario, we'd had a busy morning at Disney California Adventure. We had ridden everything we wanted to except Incredicoaster and had purchased a Lightning Lane Single Pass from 1 to 2 p.m. at Disneyland Park. The plan was to use our last Lightning Lane at Disney California Adventure for Incredicoaster at 12 p.m., have some lunch and hop at 1 p.m. to Disneyland. (BTW: You can now hop as early as 11 a.m.!) Here's what actually happened:

• We were headed to Incredicoaster when the notification popped up. The ride was down and we now had a Multiple Experiences pass.
• We immediately re-booked Incredicoaster and looked through the list of rides we could use the Multiple Experiences pass on.
• In the meantime, we headed to lunch at nearby Aunt Cass Café in hopes that Incredicoaster would reopen before we hopped to Disneyland Park. We decided to save the pass for Disneyland Park since it was good until park close.
• That second Incredicoaster Lighting Lane also converted to a Multiple Experiences pass about 10 minutes later.
• We re-booked a third Incredicoaster Lightning Lane while we ate. It too converted to a Multiple Experiences pass!
• It was close to hop time, so we booked Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for 1 to 2 p.m. While we did not get to ride Incredicoaster, the Multiple Experiences passes rewarded us with skipping the lines at three other rides, so it was a pretty good trade-off. Plus, we lost no time since we ate lunch while we acquired the passes.
• At 1 p.m. we hopped to Disneyland with the following plans in our Disneyland app: A Big Thunder Mountain Lightning Lane, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance Lightning Lane Single Pass (which we purchased for a separate fee) and three Multiple Experiences passes. We were in pretty good shape with five ways to skip the lines in our Disneyland app.
• As soon as we entered Disneyland, we went to Big Thunder Mountain. After redeeming our Lightning Lane, we immediately booked Space Mountain for about an hour away.
• We headed to Rise, then hit Space Mountain (and reserved our next Lightning Lane selection as soon as we redeemed the Space Mountain Lightning Lane).
• Then we worked our three Multiple Experiences passes into our day whenever we had time to kill before the next Lightning Lane. Having three Multiple Experiences passes helped smooth out our afternoon with short waits. In the afternoon, many selection windows tend to be a bit far off and lines can be long, but that did not affect us. Our Multiple Experiences passes filled the gaps between our next Lightning Lane windows. Lily helped choose rides the whole family could enjoy. It made for a line-free day at Disneyland!

This scenario does work better in the morning when return times are closer and you can take advantage of short wait times to ride other rides. You don't usually need Lightning Lane Multi Pass in the morning, so it's good to use it to manage your afternoon or park hopping. On a peak crowd day, close return times may not be available, so this method may work best on a medium crowd or lighter day.

Knowing Which Rides Don't Open Right Away at Park Opening

For the first hour of park opening, many rides have no wait to a very short wait. We have found that Toy Story Midway Mania! often has a few-minute delay in opening. So on Disney California Adventure mornings, we book a Lightning Lane for Toy Story Midway Mania! by rope drop. We head to Pixar Pier and ride Pixar-Pal-A-Round, which does not have Lightning Lane Multi Pass to take advantage of the shortest wait of the day.

Before we even ride, we usually get a notice right away that our Lightning Lane has turned into a Multiple Experiences pass. We immediately rebook Toy Story Midway Mania! and save that Multiple Experiences pass for later. You can use that top-tier ride pass for almost any Lightning Lane Multi Pass ride in either park except the paid Lightning Lane Single Pass attractions. When park hopping, we save it for Indiana Jones Adventure or Space Mountain since those are the hardest Lightning Lanes to acquire and have the longest lines later in the day.

At Disneyland Park, we select Indiana Jones Adventure before Dope Drop. If it doesn't open right away, we get a top-tier Multiple Experiences pass. If it does open, we ride it after Pirates and Jungle Cruise.

How to Use Multiple Selections Passes Wisely

You can find your Multiple Experiences passes under My Day. When you tap the pass, it tells you which ride it was for and you can tap "Find out where you can go" to find out which rides you can use it for. If you are lucky and have acquired more than one pass, pay attention to which rides they replaced as all Multiple Experiences passes are not equal. Some include every ride except the Lighting Lane Single Pass attractions and Peter Pan's Flight. Some exclude the top tier rides in ech park.

Use the Multiple Experiences pass for comparable rides if you want to. If one pass is good at Space Mountain and Indiana Jones Adventure while the other excludes those top-tier rides, choose which pass to redeem carefully. Pay attention to which redeem code you are scanning. Don't accidentally use one that is valid for top-tier rides on something such as "it's as a small world" (unless that's what you want to do!). Save it for a good ride such as Space Mountain and use a lower-tier pass (if you have acquired one) on a Fantasyland ride.

We use Multiple Experiences passes either for rides that don't have a Lightning Lane and a long wait or for rides that have Lightning Lane with a late selection time that won't work for our plans. Of course, it's always fun to use them to ride a favorite ride a second time.

If you are traveling with a group, we have a Lightning Lane Master Class for using Lightning Lane Multi Pass with a Group you'll find hopful. You can see any Multiple Experiences passes that people who have split off from you have collected in your app. And they can see yours if you link to their account. Try not to use other people's passes and hopfully they won't swipe yours. Sometimes people are nice and share the ones they are not going to use with you, but ask first! Tad and a cousin once racked up more Multiple Experiences passes than they could use. They shared them so we could join them on a ride. As long as the number of riders equals the number of redeemed Multiple Experiences passes, you are good to ride!

If you have any further questions about using Lightning Lane Multi Pass (formerly Genie+), our Disneyland Lightning Lane Multi Pass FAQ may help.

Lightning Lane Multi Pass is one of our favorite ways to maximize time at Disneyland. Did you know you can purchase discounted Disneyland Resort tickets preloaded with Genie+ from Undercover Tourist?

Related: Our Top Tips and Strategies for Using Lightning Lane Multi Pass Service at Disneyland

Keep hopping!