What happens if a ride is down during your lightning lane time?

What happens if the ride breaks down at my time? Once the ride is back up you have an hour to return to ride. If it's down for the rest of the day please visit Guest Relations at the front of the park for a refund. Which should I purchase first, Individual Lightning Lane or Disney Genie+?



If a ride breaks down or is "temporarily unavailable" during your Lightning Lane window in 2026, the My Disney Experience app will automatically issue you a "Multi-Experience Pass" (sometimes called an "Experience Recovery" pass). You will usually receive a push notification explaining that your selection has been converted. This pass is incredibly valuable: it typically has no expiration for the rest of the day and allows you to use the Lightning Lane for almost any other attraction in the park (with a few exceptions for top-tier rides like Rise of the Resistance or TRON). You do not need to visit Guest Relations to fix this; the new pass will simply appear in your "My Day" tab. If the ride reopens later in the day, you can choose to use your pass to go back to it, or you can use it to skip the line for a different ride you hadn't planned on. This system is designed to "make it right" without you having to wait in another long queue due to a technical glitch.

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Guest Evacuation When a Ride Breaks Down In the rare case that a ride has to be evacuated, CMs will escort guests off the attraction to a safe exit. Sometimes these are exits that you might not even be aware of inside the attraction, and you'll see the attraction sometimes with full lighting and elements shut down.

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When you book a Lightning Lane return time, you typically have a grace period of about five minutes on either end, meaning that you can tap in five minutes before the start time or five minutes after the end time.

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Get In Line at Closing Disney's usual policy states that as long as you are in line for an attraction by the time the Park closes, you'll get to ride it. That means if you get on line for Test Track at 8:59 p.m., you may walk off it at 9:30 or later, meaning you'll walk through the Park after it closes.

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Missing a Lightning Lane entirely will result in you not being able to book another one for the same ride. However, once the appropriate time elapses you can book another ride. My suggestion is to be strategic with the Lightning Lane bookings and aim to keep modifying to a time you know you will make it.

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How does the 2-hour rule work? If you select a Lightning Lane through the Disney Genie and the return time is more than 2 hours after the current time and after park open, then after 2 hours you can go in and select your next Lightning Lane even though you have not redeemed your first one.

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If all else fails, definitely ask the people behind you if they would mind if you stepped away from your place for just a few minutes. You can use your My Disney Experience app to find the restroom located nearest the attraction, and that will help cut down on the time you step away.

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Like all of Disney's parks (and most theme parks), just because Magic Kingdom closes at some time doesn't mean you have to be out of the park by that time. The closing time is the when guests will stop being allowed to line up for rides.

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You may be out of luck for purchasing Individual Lightning Lanes for any attraction if you're staying offsite on high crowd days. Rise of the Resistance used to be the clear winner of the popularity contest here, and that doesn't hold true anymore either. At all crowd levels, Flight of Passage sells out first.

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Magic Kingdom Refurbishments and Closures Magic Kingdom has already seen a few changes in 2023, with a couple more still to come. On January 22, Splash Mountain permanently closed as the ride began its reimagining into Tiana's Bayou Adventure. The new Princess and the Frog-themed attraction will open in late 2024.

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Do the rides shut down when it rains? Yes. They absolutely can. Attractions that are outdoors – like Slinky Dog Dash, Expedition Everest, Test Track, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, to name a few – will shut down, especially if there is nearby lightning.

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Attractions close for routine maintenance, safety upgrades, improvements, and reimaginings. (Updated November 8, 2023.) While no one wants attraction downtime during their trip to Walt Disney World, refurbishments are necessary to keep the rides looking good (and safe!) for future visitors.

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Security does a sweep, a group of security personnel start at each far end and check everywhere, as they move towards the entrance anyone lingering will be pushed along. I and witnessed this many times, and even been the absolute very last guest to leave Disneyland and Walt Disney World for the day.

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Park hop. It's actually fairly unusual for Disney World tickets to be completely sold out. Even if a specific park's reservations are sold out, other parks are typically available. For example, Magic Kingdom reservations may be sold out, but Animal Kingdom may have reservations available.

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Inappropriate Attire Disney reserves the right to deny admission to or remove any person wearing attire that is considered inappropriate or attire that could detract from the experience of other Guests.

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Depending on what season you go to Disney World, you'll want either shorts or comfortable stretchy jeans/pants. Black leggings are a great go-to for comfort and durability. During the summer months, always opt for shorter bottoms. A note: You do not have to wear only pants/shorts to Disney world!

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Each Guest can request to enter the virtual queue no more than once per day during regular park hours. Before requesting to join a virtual queue, Guests must have valid admission and may need a theme park reservation depending on the type of admission and date of their visit. Learn more about theme park reservations.

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Virtual queues are completely separate from Lightning Lane, and don't affect your ability to pay for a Individual Lightning Lane selection. In fact, if a ride has both a virtual queue and paid Individual Lightning Lane access, you can use both and ride it twice!

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