Walt Disney World is testing new discounts on Annual Passes and Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, with surveys exploring guest interest in what amounts to an AP bounceback deal and a return of the Lightning Lane length-of-stay ticket add-on. Here’s the latest, along with why we’d expect both to come to fruition.
Before getting going, the one caveat we want to start with here is that Walt Disney World regularly conducts guest surveys for market research, gauging interest in potential product offerings, testing the waters on intellectual property being considered for expansion plans, new pricing strategies, and much more. They also use surveys on occasion to paper the file, so to speak, in support of preordained decisions that they intend to make.
Much of the time, surveys are a dead end. I’m still waiting on Disney’s Hollywood Studios to change its name to “Disney XL Park” (fingers still crossed on that one), Journey into Imagination to be reimagined (waiting…and waiting…), and for the Ultimate Disney Dining Plan to debut (honestly expect that one to happen). Suffice to say, survey questions should not be viewed as confirmation of anything. Rather, they offer a window into Disney’s thinking, priorities and options that might be pursued. In this case, we think the latest survey checks all 3 boxes and both of these things are likely to happen…
The survey, as shared via screenshots on the WDWMagic forums, tests decreasing price points for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass when purchased during the seven-day advance window. Guests answered questions about buying passes seven days before check-in at $30 per ticket per day, then $27 per ticket per day, then $25 per ticket per day, and finally $15 per ticket per day. I would assume the subsequent questions were asked after $30 because the guest answered “no” to each previous question.
The wording of the survey is odd. It suggests that Walt Disney World may be testing an incentive for guests to purchase a full day 7 days in advance during the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass window, as opposed to same-day. Currently, LLMP prices are the same regardless of when purchased–they are not that dynamic, with prices increasing or decreasing as the visit date draws nearer (attendance projections dictate initial pricing, but it doesn’t change once set).
Personally, I don’t read too much into the precise survey wording here. It’s clumsy phrasing, not indicative of future deals on Lightning Lane Multi-Pass if you buy it when the most motivated purchasers are already buying it. I also would be shocked if Disney used “surge” pricing for LLMP at times when inventory is already limited. That’s a bridge too far, even for them. But more on what’s actually likely to happen here in in a minute.
Walt Disney World also tested a huge $400 discount on eligible Annual Passes in the survey. In a previous question, the respondent had indicated that they planned an additional visit to Walt Disney World in 2026; that seemingly triggered a follow-up question asking whether they’d buy an AP after their upcoming May 2026 visit if offered this $400 discount.
With this, the survey respondent would be able to save $400 on either of the top two WDW APs:
- Incredi-Pass: $1,629 – $1,229 after discount
- Sorcerer Pass: $1,099 – $699 after discount
In this case, there was no follow-up with a larger discount offered, which might be because the respondent indicated that they’d be “somewhat likely” to purchase the AP at $400 off. It should also be noted that the guest could not apply the value of their regular theme park tickets towards the Annual Pass.
The way it’s worded suggests that this would basically be a Bounceback or Unique Stay Offer, but for APs instead of resort rooms. Which is kind of brilliant! I’m shocked we’ve never seen this before.
With survey details out of the way, let’s discuss potential Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Annual Pass discounts, why we believe both are likely in 2026, and what form they’re most likely to take…
Lightning Lane Discounts
As you might recall, Genie+ (successor to FastPass+ and predecessor to Lightning Lane Multi-Pass) launched with a length of stay ticket add-on at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland back in 2021. You could purchase it same-day for $15, or ahead of time for a slight discount.
The pre-arrival ticket add-on of Genie+ ended as of June 8, 2022. It occurred ahead of countless other changes over the course of the next year, including the launch of date-based pricing that October and then park-specific pricing the following year. All of that drove-up the cost of line-skipping at Walt Disney World, often doubling the launch price at Magic Kingdom.
When this add-on was first announced, we called it a “savvy move” on Walt Disney World’s part because guests didn’t know how many days they’d want Genie+ before actually using it. Whether a matter of overestimating its usefulness or peace of mind, there was a high probability that consumers buying the Genie+ add-on would spend more than those who would purchase it on a daily basis, even if they buy the Genie+ add-on option at a “discount.”
This is still more or less our perspective on the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass add-on at Disneyland, which exists to this day. Although you can save some money by pre-purchasing LLMP for your length of visit, you can save even more by not using line-skipping every day of your trip.
Which option is better really depends on your circumstances. Having Lightning Lanes every day is certainly nice, but you can also ‘go hard’ with LLMP one particular day and then use savvy strategy other days, or simply have more relaxed experiences once you check-off your priorities.
Regardless, the background context to Walt Disney World eliminating the Genie+ ticket add-on is that Disney had been surprised by the early popularity and uptake of the Genie+ service, with not-so-dearly departed CEO Bob Chapek saying as much on multiple earnings calls in late 2021 and 2022. They had underestimated demand, and aimed too low with prices–something that was quickly remedied.
Another issue, though, was a lack of supply. On busier days, the Genie+ service collapsed under crowds. There was simply not enough Lightning Lane inventory to keep up with sales without guest satisfaction suffering.
Consequently, countless changes were made to the line-skipping option; no sense in recapping all of those here. It’s just important to understand that the changes were aimed at boosting Lightning Lane inventory, as supply was a serious problem and the lack thereof resulted in low guest satisfaction and refunds on Genie+ purchases. One of the changes was the elimination of the Genie+ ticket add-on.
Fast-forward almost 4 years, and same-day Genie+ has been replaced by pre-arrival Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, and a ton of other changes have been made to improve line-skipping inventory (including the big one). It also wouldn’t surprise me if demand has decreased or hit a wall (just going by the pricing plateau).
All of this brings things full circle, and the ‘climate’ is once again such that it probably makes more sense for Walt Disney World to capture Lightning Lane Multi-Pass purchases in advance, for the duration of a visit via a ticket add-on than it does selling LLMP a la carte at full price.
The bandwidth exists in Lightning Lane supply, and demand probably makes this once again pencil out. At minimum, it looks like most guests are skipping LLMP at Animal Kingdom, so the add-on would make sense from that perspective alone.
In all likelihood, bringing back the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass ticket add-on at this point increases per guest spending without having any second order consequences. This is something I hadn’t thought about before, but I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t already happened.
At minimum, Lightning Lane Multi-Pass has ‘stabilized’ and is more of a known quantity internally for Disney. Which is to say that we’re not seeing weekly or monthly tweaks to the product offering as was the case for the first 18 months after Genie+ launched. Lightning Lane Multi-Pass hasn’t changed much at all since it debuted ~18 months ago.
In other words, Disney should have more than sufficient data about Lightning Lane inventory, guest demand, where LLMP is being purchased and where it isn’t. They should be able to use that data to set a market clearing price for a ticket add-on so that it’s increasing per guest spending as opposed to causing problems.
We’re publishing this post on the same day that DINOSAUR is going extinct, and our expectation is that it’s going to be a tough 20+ months for Animal Kingdom as the park’s already low ride roster loses another option. This will likely impact LLMP sales, which we’d expect are already sluggish, among other things.
A ticket add-on helps solve that, and is almost certainly the form that a “discount” on LLMP would take. Incentivizing guests to buy more days of LLMP with a bulk discount is absolutely the play here. Outside of maybe an AP add-on (same idea, different scale), I can’t imagine this discount taking any other form.
That could just be a failure of imagination on my part, though. Regardless of the form a potential discount might take, the most obvious goal would almost certainly be increasing uptake at Animal Kingdom. That’s very obviously the weak link 300+ days per year. I would imagine a lot of discounts we see in the next ~20 months are crafted with this in mind (hardly a bold prediction, given the 2-Park and 3-Park Tickets WDW has already been doing).
Annual Pass Discounts
As you might recall, Walt Disney World offered a Free Gift Card for New WDW Annual Pass Purchases last fall. The amount of the gift card was based on the AP tier, and ranged from $25 to $100. This ended on September 30th of last year, right before the start of the new fiscal year. That probably was not a coincidence.
Almost immediately before that, Walt Disney World reduced the Florida Resident Monthly Payment Program down payment from $205 to $99. To offset this the reduced down payment, Disney increased monthly prices, with the result being exactly the same–guests paid the same amount at the end of the 12 months, the allocation of costs just changed.
I would not be the least bit surprised if there are more “levers” that involve Annual Pass promotions in 2026. To the contrary, I’d be surprised if there weren’t any.
Unlike the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass discount test from the survey, the AP one is savvy as-is.
Offering a bounceback discount for Annual Passes to regular ticket holders is brilliant. The $400 discount seems massive (and could be!), but keep in mind that it does not apply the face value of the tickets to the AP purchase. Nevertheless, it could be a win-win for Walt Disney World and guests, depending on the specific terms of the offer.
Capturing semi-regular guests and converting them to Annual Passholders would be beneficial to Disney, especially (again) at a time when there’s excess bandwidth in the parks. Pair that with a Southwest Companion Pass and eventual DVC Membership purchase, and it’s a good way to expand their army of Childless Disney Adults. (Not that we speak from experience or anything!)
In the past, special offers with bonus months or deeper discounts for DVC members have been offered. About a decade ago, we purchased a promotional Disney Vacation Club Annual Pass for $595. Around the same time, there was also a 15 months for the price of 12 months promo.
The most likely AP discount for 2026 is probably just bringing back the gift card promo from last year. Whenever predicting future discounts, the safest course of action is simply a repeat of what happened in the past. Walt Disney World already held two dozen meetings or whatever to get the greenlight on that special offer, so simply bringing it back for another year would only require one dozen meetings. Efficiency!
The most logical discount from my perspective is 3 free months deal. They’ve done this in the past, as has Universal (USH is currently doing it right now); it just makes sense at a time like this. There’s nothing major and marketable happening in 2026 or the first half of 2027. Again, Tropical Americas at Animal Kingdom is probably at least 20 months away. Doing a 3 free months deal as part of a summer ticket promo package just makes sense, and captures APs for a period that will otherwise be slower.
Another option would be making the Sorcerer Pass available to the general public. Walt Disney World probably doesn’t want to do this, as “forcing” out of state fans to either buy the more expensive multi-day tickets or the top-tier AP is the desired outcome for the company.
We also wouldn’t be surprised to see Walt Disney World remove the reservation requirement. Removing that friction point might spur sales of new Annual Passes–and without any discounting being necessary. They might even do it just on the top tier in order to incentivize lower tier Passholders to upgrade.
I would argue that theme park reservations have outlived their usefulness at Walt Disney World on 98% of dates (if not more). It’s a totally different story at Disneyland, but not Walt Disney World. At this point, it probably makes sense to drop reservations entirely and use a mix of blockouts and the occasional (very, very rare) phased closure.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’d make a new ‘Animal Kingdom After 4’ Annual Pass and sell it to anyone.
One of the most common arguments among fans is about how Annual Passholders cause overcrowding. Because we APs are, in the infamous words of the former CFO, an unfavorable attendance mix. Meaning that, on average, Passholders spend less per visit. No matter how you might feel, that is statistically accurate.
In doing our part to help support the struggling business, we contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the company’s coffers last year. I am very confident our total spend on all things Disney was higher than over 99% of guests. But we did so over the course of nearly 100 days in the parks, so I’m also fairly confident our per visit cost was in the bottom 50% of guests.
Now that Walt Disney World is operating in a post-pent-up demand environment when capacity is not constrained, there’s no reason they can’t have both. They’d prefer a 5-day trip from once in a lifetime tourists over that same 5-days from us, but it’s not an either/or proposition. Our visit isn’t coming at the expense of theirs; there’s sufficient capacity for both.
Walt Disney World and Disneyland do not want to reduce the number of Annual Passholders. What they want is more granular control.
It’s the same idea with crowds, period. Disney doesn’t want lower attendance. If they could maximize guest spending & satisfaction, and crowds, they absolutely would. Hence the wait times we see between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, which is both the busiest week of the entire year and the most expensive.
That approach isn’t replicable most weeks, but that example should be proof positive that Disney wants to have its cake and eat it, too. They optimize for a mix of spending, satisfaction, and crowds. Controlling the flow of Annual Passholders is one such way, opening that valve a little more–like right now–when tourist numbers are down (or projected to be down) is another.
Ultimately, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Walt Disney World has already released a flurry of deals for the first half of 2026, including some unprecedented ones. We’re expecting another release in the spring that includes more ticket deals, and it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if that also results in an Annual Pass promo (and maybe a Lightning Lane Multi-Pass ticket add-on around the same time as part of the annual product launch). It’s a similar story at Disneyland, which has actually gotten more aggressive with ticket deals.
It’s hard to say what’ll happen here. Disney clearly wants to see growth from the Parks & Resorts segment, and the easiest way to accomplish that is via attendance growth and higher per guest spending. Converting out of state tourists to Annual Passholders (at a big discount) accomplishes the former, and selling more Lightning Lanes (at a more modest discount) accomplishes the latter. That’s doubly true if Walt Disney World surgically targets the AP bounceback deal to guests who stay on-site and are otherwise identified as bigger spenders. For updates on discounts and everything else, sign up for our FREE Walt Disney World newsletter.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of Walt Disney World testing Annual Pass bounceback deals and Lightning Lane Multi-Pass pre-purchase discounts? Would either move the needle for you or not? Are there other special offers for either that would appeal to you? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Other thoughts or comments in response to this? 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!