Are you ready to ride those epic rides at Disney World?
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
Since we’ve had the changes to the rules for park pass reservations, we wanted to see how they affect Virtual Queues, and if that means you’ll be facing problems when you come to Disney World. Let’s find out!
As you know, there are two attractions at Disney World that you can’t just stand in line to ride — TRON Lightcycle / Run and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. This is where Virtual Queues come into play.
TRON Lightcycle / Run
Virtual Queues are free reservations that allow you to join the standby line for those attractions without having to purchase an individual lightning lane to ride. There are certain times of day when the virtual queues open and you join them by using the My Disney Experience app. And then, you wait — without getting in line! You can be doing other things around the parks while you wait in line virtually. Once your turn to join the actual line is “called” you’ll be notified in the My Disney Experience app with a time window for arrival.
Tap Point for Lightning Lane entrance for Cosmic Rewind
Here was the problem you used to face: Before the changes on January 9th, if you wanted to ride EITHER of the attractions, you had to make a park pass reservation for the preferred attraction’s respective park for the morning and then attempt to secure a virtual queue to ride on the app starting at 7AM.
For example, if you had a park reservation for EPCOT, you could ONLY try to get a virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy — you couldn’t try to get a virtual queue for TRON in Magic Kingdom, and vice versa. This meant you had to vie against those who were signed up to visit the same park that morning. If you missed that time, you could make a second attempt in the park after you had scanned in to visit for the day at 1PM, but ONLY if you had already scanned into the park.
TRON Lighting Lane
But now, since the park hopping changes on the 9th, you can try for either ride’s virtual queue first thing in the morning!
This means that if you’re planning to go to Magic Kingdom and you’re on your phone ready to snag that TRON virtual queue reservation right when they open up at 7AM but find that it’s sold out before you can grab one you can quickly change to the Guardians of the Galaxy screen and try for that virtual queue instead.
Screenshot of My Disney Experience
This is a game-changer. All you’ll need to do is just change your plan and go to EPCOT on that day if you get that virtual queue. So you no longer have to worry about having a park reservation for EPCOT. Essentially, you have TWO chances to get a morning virtual queue instead of one. Keep in mind that you can’t hold two virtual queues at once. If you get a TRON boarding group, you can’t go get a Guardians of the Galaxy one, too, or vice versa.
Screenshot of My Disney Experience
If you really want to grab a virtual queue for one of these two rides, make sure that you’re on the app early and ready to join the queue. The way they sell out depends on the day and the crowds. Honestly, this new process is so much better. You still have to act quickly to get a virtual queue, but now you can almost immediately switch to the attraction if the first one is sold out and then you can park hop to the other park after riding that ride!
TRON Lightcycle / Run
Stay tuned to DFB as we bring you more updates and changes from Disney World in 2024!
5 Cringey Things We’re Begging You To Stop Doing in Disney World in 2024.
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So two people could each be on my Disney experience trying for a virtual queue for both of them and go with the first one they get? Or would it not allow that since you have to selecte the same people for both and it would know?
So in other words, you still have a snowball’s chance in hadees of getting on either ride. As there are literally tens of thousands of people in the park vying for the same chance to get a spot on either ride each and every day! Good luck!!
This is one of the biggest downfalls of park reservations going away. In September, I had no problem at all getting a virtual queue every single day, because it was more limited in who could be trying for them. My parents just got back from 5 days at Disney World, and on ALL 5 DAYS, they did not get a single virtual queue. They were spamming the buttons on 2 fast phones leading up to 7am and beyond, and every single day, they failed to get a spot. The virtual queues were all gone in under 0.1 seconds every single day. So they had to purchase a ride for both, and they talked to so many people who were in the same boat.
Instead of only 25% of the guests attending Disney World having access to a particular virtual queue before, now, 100% of guests attending the parks can book a particular virtual queue. With so many more people able to try for a virtual queue, they are booked up in 0.1 seconds instead of 5-10 seconds.
The 2pm park hopping of the past also helped to secure later virtual queues. Twice on my trip, I was scanning into Epcot at 2pm sharp or just after, and both times, I was able to get a virtual queue from the 1pm drop. Spots were still available over an hour later. But now, since people can park hop anytime, a lot more people are in the park at 1pm who didn’t get a spot earlier, making it far more difficult to get a 1pm virtual queue. My parents failed to get a 1pm each time they tried because of this. Those were gone in 0.1 seconds as well. On a previous trip, my parents had no problems getting virtual queue spots every time, so I know it wasn’t that they didn’t know how to do it right. They are pros at this. They taught me.
As a visitor from the UK over many years we are fed up with all these complicated hurdles to deal with inc Genie etc it ruins our trips once having paid the expensive park tickets that should be it! May concentrate on Universal from next year
Unless of course you are DVC AP, as we still need park reservations.