Lightning Lane Premier Pass Starts Selling Out for Christmas Week 2024

Dec 16, 2024 in "Disney Genie"

Gallery / 1 Photo
Lightning Lane Premier Pass logo

Posted: Monday December 16, 2024 9:50am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

The Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Premier Pass has officially sold out for December 22, 2024, marking the first date during the busy Christmas holiday week to reach capacity.

Following the high demand during Thanksgiving week, this sell-out signals the start of what is expected to be another high-demand period for this new Disney World add-on.

Thanksgiving Week Trends

Thanksgiving week provided the first glimpse of the Lightning Lane Premier Pass's popularity after going on sale in October. All four parks sold out for November 25, the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, with Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Hollywood Studios seeing multiple sold-out dates across the week.

Magic Kingdom was the most sought-after park, with Premier Passes selling out for five consecutive days from November 23 to November 28. Hollywood Studios also saw strong demand, with four sell-out dates over the same period. Despite what many consider to be high-pricing for Lightning Lane Premier, these trends underscored the appeal of skipping standby lines for headlining attractions during some of the busiest days of the year.

What to Expect for Christmas Week

The sell-out of Magic Kingdom on December 22 (priced at $429) suggests that the Christmas week could follow a similar pattern to Thanksgiving. Historically, the Christmas and New Year's holidays bring the heaviest crowds of the year to Walt Disney World. Popular parks like Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios are likely to experience additional sell-out dates for the Lightning Lane Premier Pass in the coming weeks.

Guests planning to visit Disney World during Christmas week should take note of the following:

Plan Early: Guests can purchase the Premier Pass up to seven days before their resort stay. Availability is limited, so purchasing as soon as possible is recommended.
Monitor Sell-Out Trends: With December 22 already sold out, other dates—particularly December 24 through December 31—are likely to sell out soon.
Consider Alternative Options: If Premier Passes are unavailable, guests can use Lightning Lane Multi Pass or Lightning Lane Single, which may still be available.

Why the Premier Pass Is in Demand

The Lightning Lane Premier Pass offers unmatched flexibility compared to other Lightning Lane options. Guests can skip standby lines and enjoy one-time access to all available Lightning Lane attractions in a single park for one day, with no need to schedule arrival windows. The pass also includes Disney PhotoPass perks, making it an attractive option for those looking to capture holiday memories.

Looking Ahead

As Christmas week approaches, sell-out dates for the Premier Pass are likely to accelerate, especially for Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. Guests visiting Walt Disney World during this time are encouraged to act quickly if they plan to purchase the pass for their trip.

Discuss on the Forums

Get Walt Disney World News Delivered to Your Inbox

tanc17 days ago

I used Lightning Lane for 3 days (EPCOT, MK, HS) on my trip, since this will be the last time I go I think until villains land opens. On EPCOT, I found it to be not that worth it honestly. It was nice being able to ride everything but walking half way across the park for one attraction really made it feel like it wasn't a super great value to begin with. Unless you methodically route a path around it, which imo kind of kills the entire purpose then I wouldn't get it for that park again. Or, I would just get normal lightning lanes and just deal with the fact I'd probably miss an attraction or two that day. For MK, it definitely felt like a much better experience overall. I was able to ride every single ride I wanted with minimal waits. It was one of the best days I've ever had at MK, practically as good as August 2020 waits and I had a total blast. But the price is so steep that I would likely only do this for a really big trip or if I know I'm not going back for a while. $400 is not cheap at all, but I can't say how good it felt to just walk past every line that had like an hour long wait, which many of them had reached. Basically was done MK by like 2:00 and rode like everything, was nice to go back to the resort and relax for a bit. For HS, I honestly felt like it was the park that it felt the most worth it. Since many attractions at HS are very close, it was a complete homerun and again the time save felt amazing. The price is even less than MK and I rode just about everything and you get passes for the shows as well.

Chip ChippersonMay 12, 2025

I used LLPP for the first time last week - Sunday in Epcot and Friday in MK (bookending a Wish sailing). It was certainly convenient to not have to worry about return times selling out or conflicting with other plans - and since Friday was our debarkation day, it allowed us to do a lot in a relatively short amount of time. We were celebrating a family member's graduation, so this fit the "special occasion" rule my wife and I enacted when LLPP was announced. With the cruise eating into our park time, it worked out well for us. We didn't arrive at MK until after 11 AM and still hit everything we wanted to. We started in Adventureland and worked our way around and did Jungle Cruise, Pirates, TBA, lunch break for some of us while the teens rode Tron and Space Mountain), Buzz, MILF, 7DMT, Pooh, Peter Pan, Small World, and Haunted Mansion all before 6 PM. After that we had dinner at Be Our Guest and decided to skip the last few remaining rides because thunder storms were moving in and we decided to not chance getting soaked. By my count tracking our waits vs the posted wait times, we saved 267 minutes (closer to 350 minutes for those who rode Tron and SM while us creaky-backed people ate lunch). I know posted wait times are often overstated, but at least 7DMT and HM had lines that looked much longer than their posted waits based on my previous experience (and we had experienced multiple standby wait times earlier in the trip at DAK that were longer than posted). In Epcot the previous Sunday, my estimated time savings was 220 minutes total for Spaceship Earth, GotG, Mission: Space, Soarin', Frozen, and Remy leaving us plenty of time for all of the festival food booths, topiary displays, and photos we wanted. Frozen went down at least twice that day and we managed to squeeze it in between those issues, so I'm not sure how much that impacted the wait time's accuracy. Overall, it was worth it for this trip - the prices weren't near their max and this was a special occasion for our group. It's definitely not something I would make a habit of doing as someone who visits multiple times per year, but it definitely made the trip better. Had we been staying at WDW all week instead of just before and after a cruise, we likely wouldn't have bought LLPP since we would have had EEH at both parks. We probably would have just added park hoppers to the tickets for the non-passholders in our party and added 2-3 days to the tickets with LLMP for DHS (skipped this time to avoid the May the Fourth crowds).

Splash4evaApr 22, 2025

Than Thank you! Will take a look

PurduevianApr 22, 2025

https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/lightning-lane-drop-times.984387/ I haven't updated it in months so I don't know if it is still accurate. Not going to lie, I did the work for it for my trip last November and figured I would share it with the forums (I also put it on Reddit), but I don't plan on updating it regularly. It's not to hard to do though if anyone wants to try to to update it. Using thrill data, it's pretty easy to spot trends. This is TSM for example. Anytime there is a consistent jump to Yellow or Green on most of the days, that's a drop time.

Splash4evaApr 22, 2025

Yes TP i was a member of and it worked like a charm each trip this past one in February was not at all successful only finding a few openings during the trip

Splash4evaApr 22, 2025

Thank you will take a look

nickysApr 21, 2025

Touring Plans “liners” keep an updated list. And for a while here I think @Purduevian had one running.

MickeyLuv'rApr 21, 2025

there's thrill ride Data. Some rides have a long list of potential drop times, but only some of them happen. TRD appears to have updated their list since just a few weeks ago. Previously, they had some of the drop times highlighted, which I took to mean the more likely drop times.

MickeyLuv'rApr 21, 2025

Android here

JD80Apr 21, 2025

This is not how you do statistics.

Splash4evaApr 21, 2025

Do we have an updated list and inventory drops?

Splash4evaApr 21, 2025

Disney has their reasons and whatever they are we will never know. We can guess but most likely never know but imo no wait line posted 60 minutes should never be off more than 10. No wait time of 45 should be off more than 5. Anything 30 and below should be accurate. So on and so forth with longer yet every person i talk with who goes all say same with more inflated wait times. Even if its to make the guest “feel good” its still a “deceptive” practice. And honestly. If you are a multi billion dollar corporation with a name like Disney (at least what it use to mean) and you need to inflate wait times to increase guest satisfaction you better re think your strategy Robert…

Splash4evaApr 21, 2025

Apple here if that helps…

MickeyLuv'rApr 21, 2025

A number of forum members thought reforming/reducing DAS would fix the problem. I also think how much times are off can be characterized in different ways. If the posted wait is 10minutes, and actually is 5, ten we could characterize the posted wait as only off by 5minutes, or we could say the posted wait was half the actual wait. Both would be correct. There is also the challenge of how to characterize some of the pre-shows like GoG and Rise. How often are any of us here willing to test the wait for accuracy when it is over 60minutes? I think most of us here know basic park touring strategy, so we don't get in line for 7D when standby waits are at their daily peaks.