Walt Disney World has confirmed that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will return as a top tier Lightning Lane Multi-Pass attraction when the roller coaster reopens in May 2026. Here’s the latest official news, plus why the LL landscape should change at Magic Kingdom once the wildest ride in the wilderness returns.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad closed for a lengthy refurbishment project early last January, meaning it’s already been down for over a full year. Last week, Walt Disney World has announced that the iconic Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will reopen on May 3, 2026.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad has received a mountain-top to cavern-deep refurbishment, including a new track and refreshed passenger trains. With all the improvements made to the attraction, BTMRR will reopen with a lowered height requirement of 38” (down from 40″). Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will also reopen with “new magic” for fans to discover via enhanced story and show scenes.
There have been some questions about whether Big Thunder Mountain Railroad would be upgraded to Lightning Lane Single Pass as a result of the refurbishment. Given the renewed interest in the attraction, pent-up demand among fans after it being closed for ~16 months, and the wider audience by virtue of the reduced height requirement, I could see the logic to some degree, even if highly unlikely.
Walt Disney World has now confirmed that this won’t be the case. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will occupy the exact same status as it did pre-refurbishment, as a Tier 1/Group A attraction as part of the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass service.
This shouldn’t come as a colossal surprise to anyone paying attention. Since the a la carte Lightning Lane tier (now Single Pass) debuted back in October 2021, it has actually lost attractions. This is despite several new headliners opening since that time at Walt Disney World.
Here’s the original 2021 a la carte or individual Lightning Lane ride roster:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Space Mountain
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
- Frozen Ever After
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Avatar Flight of Passage
- Expedition Everest
This changed a lot in the first few months and full year after Genie+ and Lightning Lanes launched. In the last couple of years, however, it hasn’t changed at all.
Here’s the Lightning Lane Single Pass lineup as of Spring 2026:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- TRON Lightcycle Run
- Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind
- Star Wars Rise of the Resistance
- Avatar Flight of Passage
It’s unlikely that there will be any additions to Lightning Lane Single Pass until late 2027 at the absolute earliest, as that’s when Tropical Americas is currently slated to debut. More changes are likely with Monstropolis, Piston Peak and Villains Land.
At no point in time has Big Thunder Mountain Railroad been a Lightning Lane Single Pass attraction. Perhaps if it had been rebuilt on Tom Sawyer Island a la Disneyland Paris, that would’ve been enough to do the trick! But obviously, that’s not what happened.
Only 3 of the original attractions remain in the current Lightning Lane Single Pass lineup. TRON Lightcycle Run and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind both opened since, and unsurprisingly joined LLSP.
Magic Kingdom is the only park with two attractions, albeit one with divergent demographics. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is the oldest of the bunch, and even that’s a relatively recent (by Walt Disney World standards) addition.
Since the biggest ‘refinement’ of the tiers way back in 2022, there hasn’t been a single refurbished or reimagined ride added to Lightning Lane Single Pass. Not Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Test Track 3.0, Zootopia: Better Zoogether, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin or Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring the Muppets (already confirmed as tier 2). It thus should not be a huge surprise that BTMRR isn’t being ‘promoted’ to LLSP.
The biggest change since then was Lightning Lane Multi Pass replacing the Genie+ service, which resulted in the following tiers being introduced to the ‘bundled’ line-skipping option:
Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Multi-Pass
Group A: Choose up to one experience from this tier:
- Jungle Cruise
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Space Mountain
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (starting May 3, 2026)
Group B: Choose your other 2 experiences—or all 3—from this tier:
- The Barnstormer
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant
- Haunted Mansion
- “it’s a small world”
- Mad Tea Party
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic
- Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Tomorrowland Speedway
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid
When purchasing Lightning Lane Multi-Pass for Magic Kingdom, you choose up to three attractions and arrival windows. You can select a single ride from Tier A/1, plus two from Tier B/2, or all three from the latter.
After redeeming your first Lightning Lane Multi-Pass selection, the tiers become irrelevant. You can choose another Multi Pass attraction from either group based on availability.
As a result of this dynamic, there’s essentially double the demand for the handful of “good” Tier B selections when booking in advance. There is also a lot of demand for earlier time slots, as guests want to “unlock” their subsequent selections, taking advantage of the rolling 3 rule. This also means there’s more demand for the top tier day-of.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will reopen following its ~16 month refurbishment only a few weeks after Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin returned from an ~8 month refresh.
With both back online, this will be the first time that Magic Kingdom will have every Lightning Lane Multi-Pass attraction online simultaneously for an extended amount of time since the switch from Genie+ to Multi-Pass. Genie+ did not have tiers for any park, and FastPass+ only had tiers for EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. (LLMP does not use tiers for DAK.)
So why did Lightning Lane Multi-Pass get tiers at Magic Kingdom in the first place when neither of its predecessors had them?
As a quick refresher, Lightning Lane Multi-Pass launched on July 24, 2024.
Prior to that beginning, Peter Pan’s Flight went down for refurbishment on July 8, 2024 for what was scheduled to be a 6-week closure until August 21, 2024. During that project, Walt Disney World added a closure of Jungle Cruise to the refurbishment calendar starting on August 26, with the ride set to reopen on October 18, 2024.
Even prior to these refurbishments, there were credible rumors of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad closing for 12-24 months for a retracking, and permits were filed to back that up. That didn’t end up happening in August as expected, which was likely due to the troubles Tiana’s Bayou Adventure had when it first opened.
All of that background is relevant to explaining why Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Magic Kingdom might’ve had tiers in the first place or, at minimum, had 5 attractions in that tier. Leadership knew the park was going to be missing a lot of ride capacity for nearly 2 years after LLMP launched, so the tiers made sense to manage Lightning Lane inventory and ensure that the most popular rides had availability.
With all of these attractions operational at the same time starting May 3, 2026, this seems like a good opportunity to demote Jungle Cruise to the second tier. Or perhaps get rid of tiers completely. Unfortunately, this update confirming that BTMRR is part of Tier 1 suggests that’s not happening. At least, not right away.
As things stand, this is going to create an odd dynamic where a few second tier attractions are going to be harder to book than their top tier counterparts. Already, this happens with Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh exceeding Jungle Cruise and Space Mountain. Expect the imbalance to become more pronounced going forward since guests only pre-book a single Tier A selection versus two from Tier B.
There are a couple of plausible explanations for Walt Disney World not rebalancing the tiers with the return of BTMRR.
The first is that Walt Disney World is playing it conservatively, taking a ‘wait & see’ approach to assess how demand shakes out once both Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin have been operational for a month or two.
That’s not a bad idea if they’re debating demoting both Jungle Cruise and Space Mountain, and want to make all changes in one fell swoop. If only one is on the table for relegation to Tier B, there’s no reason to delay; all of the data to make such a decision is available now.
Another possibility is that Walt Disney World actually is not done with the ride refurbishments; that there are more we don’t know about that have yet to be announced.
Most obviously, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure could already use a few months of downtime. We’re not just talking the typical TLC that water rides get in the winter, which is equal parts routine maintenance and not “needing” water-based attractions when the weather is colder.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is already in rough shape. Imagineering should spend some time in there improving the attraction and adding scenery to reduce the dead space, so TBA can come closer to filling its predecessor’s big shoes. With that said, this closure still strikes us as one that’s more likely to happen starting in the colder months, as opposed to over the summer when water rides are needed most.
The other possibility is Space Mountain going down for a track replacement of its own.
There have been rumors over the last year or so that Space Mountain is next up for a track replacement after Big Thunder Mountain Railroad reopens. This strikes me as a plausible continuation of the phased overhaul of Tomorrowland, and one that could/should also include Stitch’s Great Escape, Monsters Laugh Floor, and Tomorrowland Speedway.
The reasons for Space Mountain being next up should be fairly obvious to anyone who has ridden it recently. Space Mountain was once slated for a total overhaul in 2009, but that instead ended up being a multi-month project that involved TLC but was mostly cosmetic and thematic in nature. Over 15 years later, it’s safe to assume the ride needs a re-tracking more now than it does then. From what I understand, roller coasters don’t age like wine.
It really becomes a question of when, not if, and making this a fully-fledged reimagining–as opposed to just a re-tracking–to tie into a bigger picture Tomorrowland overhaul makes sense. Regardless of the specifics, starting this project around August 2026 as opposed to Winter 2027 probably makes sense, especially if Tiana’s Bayou Adventure also goes down for a shorter refurbishment in the colder months.
Ultimately, the only explanations I can think of for Magic Kingdom not doing something more substantial with its Lightning Lane lineup is park ops being in ‘wait & see’ mode or another major refurbishment/reimagining (or two) being on the horizon that’ll drop the top tier back down to 4 attractions for a prolonged period. Perhaps both!
If they’re in ‘wait & see’ mode and no big refurbishment is coming, my prediction is that the top of the Lightning Lane lineup is lightened by early August. That’s the start of the off-season, and is typically a time when changes are rolled out.
If another major closure is slated to start soon-ish, the big question is when that gets announced. Is Space Mountain of the scale necessary for a D23 Expo announcement? (Probably not, unless it’s a light year.) Perhaps that comes during the launch event for Cool Kids’ Summer instead.
A final wild card is that the Lightning Lane Single Pass lineup also gets lightened with Seven Dwarfs Mine Train relegated to LLMP. That would amount to a ‘return’ to the FastPass+ days when there were no tiers. (Minus the whole “free” part…just a little asterisk.)
Honestly, I would bet against this. I do think Seven Dwarfs Mine Train will be moved to LLMP eventually, but probably not until Piston Peak opens and the Cars Rally Racers ride becomes the second Lightning Lane Single Pass attraction. I doubt SDMT gets downgraded before then. That would be a meaningful hit to revenue in the interim, and Disney simply cannot afford that–how would they set new revenue records?!
I’ve speculated elsewhere that Magic Kingdom will eventually have four (4) Lightning Lane Single Pass attractions once expansion is completed. That will be two more than Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but Seven Dwarfs Mine Train won’t be one of them. It’ll be downgraded by 2029 or whenever Piston Peak opens.
Just as is the case now, Magic Kingdom having 4 LLSP attractions has as much to do with the castle park offering sufficient capacity for LLMP as it does popularity. Meaning that Slinky Dog Dash and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure aren’t LLSP despite being newer than SDMT not because they’re less popular, but because DHS and EPCOT don’t have the LLMP capacity to allow for it.
All of that is probably a topic for another post, though. In the here and now, the current tiers at Magic Kingdom won’t make a whole lot of sense as of May 2026 unless there are more changes on the horizon. We’ll keep you posted!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad being a top tier Lightning Lane Multi Pass ride? Expecting any other LLMP or Single Pass changes? Is it time for Walt Disney World to lighten the load of Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom, rebalancing more to the second tier–or eliminating tiers completely? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? 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!