Let’s Talk About Day One Without a Virtual Queue in Disney World

In December 2019, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance debuted at Disney’s Hollywood and, in the process, changed everything.

Disney knew that this attraction would break the current system of theme park traffic management.

So, park planners introduced the Boarding Group as a way of virtually queuing park guests.

If Disney hadn’t done this, the lines for Rise of the Resistance would have exited Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Well, they often did anyway, but you get the point. Disney tried something with virtual queues, and it worked well.

Now, more than five years after the first virtual queue, Walt Disney World has finally stopped using them.

Yesterday, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind switched to standby queues.

How well did that massive change in theme park behavior work?

Let’s talk about day one without a virtual queue at Disney World.

About the Attractions

Disney handles every E-ticket attraction a bit differently. Some use virtual queues indefinitely, while others are temporary.

We’ll discuss one of each today, as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure’s virtual queue lasted less than seven months.

Meanwhile, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind’s virtual queue lasted nearly three years.

The attraction celebrates its third birthday in May. So, it was that close.

In fact, I wrote this last May. That was nine months ago! Cosmic Rewind kept a virtual queue a LOT longer than expected.

The main reason for this decision involved park traffic patterns, as EPCOT still hadn’t finished its update at this time last year.

CommuniCore Hall & Plaza wouldn’t open until the summer, with the park remaining wildly popular throughout the year.

Disney would have upset the park’s fragile balance by making a change in 2024, something I realize with the benefit of hindsight.

The prevailing belief is that the demand for Cosmic Rewind dwarfs anything at the park, a notion I’ll accidentally challenge in a bit.

At Magic Kingdom, that’s simply not the case with Tiana, a ride that should never consistently approach the wait times of others.

Specifically, barring something unforeseen, TRON Lightcycle / Run should remain the alpha here, followed by Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

These are the notions we’re testing during the early days of Disney World’s move away from virtual queues.

That system exists to handle the overwhelming demand for the most popular attractions at each park.

During the early days of these E-ticket attractions, a standby queue would congest the entire themed land.

While not Disney’s most popular creation, the virtual queue has achieved its purpose in controlling crowds.

About Day One of the Change at Magic Kingdom

I’ll perform this analysis in multiple parts, as I typically do.

We’ll have the day one report, and then I’ll update after a couple of weeks and a couple of months.

Let’s just say that day one was full of surprises, one of which was a case of hilariously bad timing.

In case you missed yesterday’s update, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure failed to open on time. We call that opening night jitters.

This sort of thing isn’t rare at Disney attractions. It’s actually fairly typical at Rise of the Resistance, as an example.

Still, the awkward timing temporarily set social media ablaze, as disgruntled tourists did what they do best: complain on the internet.

I get it, though. The whole thing felt anticlimactic after a week of excitement regarding the switch to standby queues.

Lately, this sort of behavior has proven the exception at Tiana, though.

After a shaky first month, Tiana has evolved into a mostly reliable attraction, words I wasn’t entirely sure I’d ever type.

There were modest hiccups on six days over the past month, three of which were serious.

So, there was no reason to expect this sort of delay, but it happened.

The other surprise was the wait times were rarely as long as expected.

At 11 a.m., Tiana averaged a 50-minute wait, and it gradually rose to 60 minutes at 2 p.m.

Throughout the day, Tiana’s actual wait hovered in that range, even as My Disney Experience suggested otherwise.

For the day, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure averaged a wait of 45 minutes, which is…quite good.

That’s the range Splash Mountain held throughout its final five years, some of which were admittedly pandemic-impacted.

Magic Kingdom had an ordinary Monday. So, it’s fair to wonder thus far whether Tiana isn’t any more popular than Splash Mountain.

About Day One at EPCOT

Admittedly, I followed this one a lot more closely than Tiana, and you probably understand why.

While I looove Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, it’s just another great ride at Magic Kingdom, a park overflowing with them.

Cosmic Rewind is unquestionably the best thrill ride at EPCOT with Test Track off the menu right now. Like, it’s not even close.

What would you argue is the second-most exciting ride? Mission: SPACE, I guess? That’s a sizable gap right there.

Lately, even as EPCOT has surged in popularity, it has remained a park with a Big Two and everything else.

Now, Cosmic Rewind arrives as a standby queue, something guests can choose rather than luck into via a virtual queue.

The exceptional park reporters at MickeyBlog were first on the scene for Cosmic Rewind’s opening. Here are a few pictures.

You can see that Disney added overflow sections to the standby queue, including some sorely needed overhead cover.

So, you won’t have the sun beating down on you throughout your wait, as used to happen during the early days of Slinky Dog Dash.

As an aside, I try not to plug our social media accounts relentlessly, as you should know how excellent they are by now.

Still, this TikTok exemplifies why you should be following our team.

MickeyBlog’s ace reporters do exceptional work to improve the quality of your Disney visits.

 

(And I love them for their perfect music choice for that particular TikTok.)

About the EPCOT Wait Times on Day One

As the TikTok indicates, by the time Rope Drop began, the signs already indicated a 45-minute wait for the attraction.

By 9:30 a.m., half an hour after the park’s official opening, the posted wait time estimate was 135 minutes.

However, once the park satisfied that opening day rush, the lines diminished in size.

At 1 p.m., the listed wait was 65 minutes, and it hovered in that range for the next several hours.

As usual, a sizable discrepancy exists between the published wait time and the actual total.

For the day, Cosmic Rewind averaged a wait of 69 minutes, which is about 30-50 minutes less than I’d expected.

Now, this statement comes with a huge caveat. It was a pretty miserable weather day in Central Florida.

The low temperature was 54 degrees, while the high was just 67 degrees. Also, it was overcast and rainy.

So, the weather was nippy and just generally unpleasant, a rarity in the Sunshine State.

Still, we cannot blame the weather alone for the surprisingly low wait time.

While Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure had a slower day with a 55-minute average wait, Frozen Ever After was way up on Tuesday.

For the day, Frozen averaged a wait of 90 minutes.

While the attraction had struggled with delays the previous two days, that wasn’t the issue on Tuesday.

So, Cosmic Rewind’s opening day simply didn’t require the massively long waits I’d expected.

That’s a surprise and something I’ll track carefully for the next update.

It’ll be a shocker if this is NOT the EPCOT attraction with the longest wait from now until Test Track 3.0 arrives.

At the moment, I’m not ruling out that possibility, though.

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