Is Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival Lightning Lane worth it?
The short answer
Is Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival Lightning Lane worth it? Usually skippable. At EPCOT, Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival is sold through Lightning Lane Multi Pass — standard slot, with a typical peak standby wait of under 30 min. The Short Film Festival is on EPCOT's Lightning Lane Multi Pass roster, and it is almost certainly the easiest slot in the park to get, for the simple reason that hardly anybody wants it. Three animated shorts run in 4D in a theatre that seats a full house at a time on a posted schedule, eighteen minutes end to end, with 3D glasses and in-theatre effects you feel in the seat. Standby here is a wait for the next showing rather than a queue, so a Multi Pass selection buys a marginally better seat and nothing else — and it is a selection not spent on Frozen Ever After, Remy's Ratatouille Adventure or Test Track, every one of which posts waits several times longer on the same day. What this attraction is genuinely good for is the thing no list tells you: it is the most reliable piece of air-conditioned, seated shelter at the front of EPCOT, and the only 4D theatre in the park. Walk up. Check the posted times, arrive ten minutes before one of them, and if you hit a full house you are waiting one cycle rather than an hour. Use it as the deliberate reset in the middle of an EPCOT day, not as a destination — it sits in World Celebration near the park entrance, so it folds into the walk in or the walk out without costing you a crossing, and it is worth nothing at all if you have to hike back for it. Two warnings that matter more here than at any other EPCOT theatre. The in-theatre effects are physical rather than just visual, which a child who dislikes surprises should hear about before the lights go down, and the 3D glasses are the usual sticking point for small faces. And the one time this theatre does fill is during an afternoon thunderstorm, when every outdoor queue in the park empties into the nearest indoor building — so if rain is coming, go before it arrives rather than with everyone else.
Why we say “usually skippable”
The Short Film Festival is on EPCOT's Lightning Lane Multi Pass roster, and it is almost certainly the easiest slot in the park to get, for the simple reason that hardly anybody wants it. Three animated shorts run in 4D in a theatre that seats a full house at a time on a posted schedule, eighteen minutes end to end, with 3D glasses and in-theatre effects you feel in the seat. Standby here is a wait for the next showing rather than a queue, so a Multi Pass selection buys a marginally better seat and nothing else — and it is a selection not spent on Frozen Ever After, Remy's Ratatouille Adventure or Test Track, every one of which posts waits several times longer on the same day. What this attraction is genuinely good for is the thing no list tells you: it is the most reliable piece of air-conditioned, seated shelter at the front of EPCOT, and the only 4D theatre in the park.
Walk up. Check the posted times, arrive ten minutes before one of them, and if you hit a full house you are waiting one cycle rather than an hour. Use it as the deliberate reset in the middle of an EPCOT day, not as a destination — it sits in World Celebration near the park entrance, so it folds into the walk in or the walk out without costing you a crossing, and it is worth nothing at all if you have to hike back for it. Two warnings that matter more here than at any other EPCOT theatre. The in-theatre effects are physical rather than just visual, which a child who dislikes surprises should hear about before the lights go down, and the 3D glasses are the usual sticking point for small faces. And the one time this theatre does fill is during an afternoon thunderstorm, when every outdoor queue in the park empties into the nearest indoor building — so if rain is coming, go before it arrives rather than with everyone else.
Lightning Lane fees are paid by you directly to Disney and change with demand — we never mark them up. What a real guide does is decide which passes are worth buying for your day, and time the bookings so you ride Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival and everything else without burning your afternoon in standby.
Want your whole EPCOT day planned like this?
A real Disney guide books your Lightning Lanes in the right order and stays with you all day — from $75/hour on your first trip.