From 2026, hotel guests will swap an underused early entry scheme for a Lightning Lane pass, offering faster access to rides and more control over their day.
Disneyland has announced it will end its early entry programme, which allowed hotel guests to enter one designated park 30 minutes before opening to the wider public, and replace it with a new privilege programme allowing visitors to skip the queue at many attractions.
The early access scheme, introduced in 2022, will still be available for guests of Disneyland Resort hotels until January 2026. The decision to end it was taken after Disney observed it was rarely used, with guests saying their plans did not always match the park that happened to offer early entry on a given day.
NEW: Starting Jan. 5, all guests staying at a Disneyland Resort hotel will receive one complimentary Lightning Lane entry for a Multi Pass attraction of their choice.
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) August 20, 2025
Also NEW: Beginning Jan. 5, Disneyland Resort will end the Early Theme Park Entry program.
The one Lightning… pic.twitter.com/GkH05O0QSO
While many found some magic in having the park all to themselves for half an hour before the crowds arrived, others considered it inconvenient. This meant having to wake up earlier and see their advantage disappear as the day progressed and the parks filled up.
The new programme, aptly named Lightning Lane Multi Pass, is designed to have a greater impact on the visitor experience. Hotel guests will receive one Multi Pass per stay, allowing them to bypass the regular queues at popular attractions.
To qualify, guests must stay at one of Disneyland’s three official hotels – the Disneyland Hotel, the Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, and Pixar Place Hotel – and pre-book their chosen attractions in advance using the Disneyland app.
The new scheme is intended to help visitors plan their days more smoothly, spend less time in queues or deciding which rides to go on, and create a more personalised experience. At the same time, it gives them more opportunities to dine and shop on site, and helps prevent congestion at popular rides – a win-win for guests and Disney alike.
The Lightning Lane perk is expected to be especially valued by families with children, as it shortens waits for popular rides such as Space Mountain, Indiana Jones Adventure and Pirates of the Caribbean.
How will the Lightning Lane pass work?
Hotel guests will receive one complimentary Lightning Lane Multi Pass per stay. Using the Disneyland app, they can pre-book up to three rides in advance, and then add more one by one as the day goes on, depending on availability. In practice, it replaces the quiet half-hour of early entry with guaranteed shorter queues at the most popular attractions.
This new scheme will complement other queue-skipping tools and fast-pass systems already in use in the parks.
This change reflects the way people travel today, with visitors expecting personalised, flexible experiences that give them control over their time. Whether it succeeds will depend on attraction availability.
