At Disney’s Hollywood Studios, The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure will become part of the Lightning Lane Multi Pass lineup starting September 11, 2025. Guests staying at Disney Resort hotels can select the show in the My Disney Experience app now.
Voyage of the Little Mermaid via DFBGuide YouTUbe
The show premiered on May 27, 2025, replacing the long‑closed Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which ended after the lockdown shutdown. Opening‑day operations included large standby lines—reports cited wait times up to around 80 minutes, with demand remaining steady in subsequent weeks.
Lightning Lane Tiers
When Lightning Lane access begins in September, the show will be designated a Tier Two attraction within the Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane structure. Guests can then select it as one of their additional Multi Pass choices each day.
Looking up at The Hollywood Tower Hotel (The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror) at Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World, December 2004. Photo Credit: The original uploader was Techclub at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
For each Multi Pass, guests may select one attraction from Tier 1 and two attractions from Tier 2, or they may pick all three options from Tier 2.
Tier 1 Options at Hollywood Studios:
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Slinky Dog Dash
Tier 2 Options at Hollywood Studios (current)
- Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
- For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration
- Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
- Alien Swirling Saucers
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror™
- Toy Story Mania!
Guests wanting to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance using Lightning Lane must purchase either a Single Pass or Premier Pass.
About the Show
This live musical retelling of Disney’s 1989 animated classic opened on May 27, 2025, replacing Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which closed in March 2020 amid pandemic shutdowns. The reimagined musical is staged in the Animation Courtyard, featuring a blend of live actors, puppets, projections, and motion‑captured digital characters. It includes classic songs such as “Part of Your World,” “Under the Sea,” “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” and new‑to‑this‑show numbers “Daughters of Triton” and “Kiss the Girl.”
Concept art for The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure
The show features a dramatic onscreen battle sequence staged live, extending the emotional climax compared to the original version.
Disney Legend Jodi Benson, voice of Ariel in the original film, made a surprise appearance during rehearsals. In an emotional backstage video, she watched the first full run‑through and praised the performance, calling it “very special” and “incredible.”
Operational Details
The show soft‑opened on May 26, 2025, with an official opening on May 27th. On opening day, it operated on a continuous loading model from 9:15 AM to 7:15 PM. Standby wait times reached up to 80 minutes during early opening days and remained notable even after implementation of scheduled showtimes.
A mural from Walt Disney Presents at Disney’s Hollywood Studios via Daps Magic YouTube
In advance of the Lightning Lane rollout, the theater was outfitted with appropriate infrastructure. Marquee signage and dual queue clocks—standby and Lightning Lane—with a “Coming Soon” emblem were installed by mid‑May.
Initially, the show ran on a continuous loading model (9:15 AM to 7:15 PM) with no published showtimes. On June 10, 2025, showtimes shifted to a scheduled system, with performances every 40 minutes—for example, 9:20 AM, 10:00 AM, 10:40 AM, and so on through 7:20 PM. Wait times often hovered around 45 minutes after opening.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios, “Looking down Hollywood Blvd., a perfect illusion of the Golden Age of Hollywood … except, y’know, for the giant Mickey Sorcerer Hat” Lake Buena Vista. Photo Credit: Flickr user: Dave Hill and Margie Kleerup, aka Flickr user “The Consortium” Centennial, Colorado https://www.flickr.com/people/the-consortium/, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Lightning Lane icon appeared in-app on May 9, 2025, suggesting future inclusion as a Multi Pass and Premier Pass option rather than a single‑attraction lane. The show already appeared in Lightning Lane Multi Pass listings before opening day.
Controversy of Paid Lightning Lane
Prior to the shutdown of parks in March 2020 due to the 2020 lockdowns, Lightning Lane was a free service known as FastPass+. This allowed visitors to reserve fast passes for free using the Disney app. However, the system did not return once parks reopened. Instead, in October 2021, the Disney parks moved to Genie+, which worked similarly, except for an additional price tag.
Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida
Many guests have seen this as a way that Disney is trying to get more money out of an already expensive experience. Others have noted that since daily tickets are already expensive, this paid-for service will exclude those who cannot afford the add-on.
Will you be using Lightning Lane to see the Little Mermaid show? Have you seen the show already? Let us know in the comments below!
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