With the introduction of the new Lightning Lane “skip the line” system in July, WDW guests are now able to pre-book their Lightning Lane reservations prior to their trip. This change took away some of the uncertainty for those who like to plan their park days in advance, but it did come with a new set of worries… particularly for those staying off property.
[If you want to read more about the new Lightning Lane system, you can check out some of our previous articles here and here and here]
Guests staying at Disney owned resorts, Swan/Dolphin, and Shades of Green are able to pre-book their LL reservations for the length of their entire stay starting 7 days prior to their check-in day.
Meanwhile, guests staying “off property” with date-based tickets (tickets which have a specific date range for which they are good – i.e. most non-AP tickets) can only start pre-booking their LL reservations 3 days prior to the start date of their ticket.
On the surface, that appears to give “on property” guests a 4 DAY BOOKING ADVANTAGE!
Obviously, that stirs some anxiety among off property guests, and with good reason. If Disney resort guests are able to book 4 days before I can, will there be any good selections left for me?
But what if I told you that you can take advantage of a legal hack to be able to pre-book your LL’s earlier? While that might not completely eliminate the gap, it could at least close it somewhat.
Background on the Hack
In order to extend your booking window as an off property guest, you are need to take advantage of two facts:
- You can book 3 days prior to the start date of your date-based ticket
- The start date of your ticket can be BEFORE your first park day
#2 is really the key to making this work. But what does that this mean exactly?
How Do Date Based Tickets Work?
When you purchase a date-based ticket, you are paying for X park days, but you can spread those park days out over a longer period of time. For example, if you have a 4 day ticket, you don’t have to use your ticket on 4 consecutive days. You can use them over a period of 7 days.
Here are the expiration periods for all of the different date-based tickets:
| # of Park Days | Ticket Expires After… | Ticket Expires After… (Water Park and Sports Option) |
| 1-day | 1 day | 2 days |
| 2-day | 4 days | 5 days |
| 3-day | 5 days | 6 days |
| 4-day | 7 days | 8 days |
| 5-day | 8 days | 9 days |
| 6-day | 9 days | 10 days |
| 7-day | 10 days | 11 days |
| 8-day | 12 days | 13 days |
| 9-day | 13 days | 14 days |
| 10-day | 14 days | 15 days |
As you can see from the table above, if you select the “Water Parks and Sports” option, that adds one more day to your use period.
The other feature of date-based tickets is that YOU can choose the start date of the ticket, and the start date doesn’t have to be on your first park day. This last feature is the key to this hack!
The Hack Explained
By now, you might have already figure out exactly how this hack works.
Instead of starting your ticket on your first park day, pick an earlier start date so that your ticket expires on your last park day.
Here is an example:
Let’s assume that you want to go to the parks for five days… Jan 15 through 19. In this situation, you’d buy a 5 day ticket that is good for 8 days.
If you were to start your ticket on your first park day (Jan 15), you could visit the parks on any 5 days from January 15 through 22 (8 days). Obviously, this would cover the length of your trip. This also means that you could book your LL’s starting on Jan 12 (3 days before Jan 15.. the start of your ticket).
But let’s say that you instead started your ticket on Jan 12. In the case, you could visit the parks on any 5 days from Jan 12 through 19. This ticket would still be valid for all of your park days since the ticket expires on your last park day.
However, you can now start booking LL’s on Jan 9 for your Jan 15 through 19 trip! This effectively extends your LL booking window to 6 days!
If you were to add the Water Parks and Sports option, your ticket would be valid for one additional day. That means you can pick a start date of Jan 11 to cover your trip and be able to book starting on Jan 8… a 7 day booking window… equal to that of someone staying on property for the same time period!!
What About Rest Days?
Obviously, to get the most out of this hack, you’d want to use your ticket on consecutive days. However, if you want to include rest days, that means that you will have to pick a later start date for your ticket. This cuts into your advantage.
In the example above, let’s say that you wanted to go to the parks for five days starting on Jan 15, but with a rest day on the Jan 17. That means that you’d want your ticket to expire on Jan 20. In this scenario, you’d had to pick a ticket start date of Jan 13. With this ticket, you could start booking LL”s on Jan 10… a 5 day booking window. This is one less day than the scenario above.
However, it is still better than a 3 day booking window.
Wrap Up
So there you have it… Buster and the Banshee’s legal hack to extend your off property LL booking window! Hopefully you found this useful, and you can take advantage of this on your next trip!!
Do you have any interesting LL hacks that help YOU out on vacation? If so, leave us a comment and let us know what your favorite tricks are!
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