No Virtual Queues for Magic Kingdom Parties

Walt Disney World has made changes to its official websites for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party to confirm that a standby line is coming for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and TRON Lightcycle Run. This shares details plus commentary about the virtual queues and when they’ll hopefully be gone for good.

First, we have to stress that this is not an official announcement by Walt Disney World. It’s information gleaned from an update to the attractions lists for the aforementioned hard ticket events. This is a critical distinction because Disney has already changed this info like 4 different times this year.

The same thing has happened in past years. Fans like to look to the hard ticket event pages as signs of what’s to come, but the ‘ancillary info’ that doesn’t pertain to the parties themselves is notoriously unreliable. Other details are often a snapshot in time, or compiled with assumptions based on past precedent.

The most recent example of this came this year when Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was on the list for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party when that was first released. That was probably because someone within the company made the very logical assumption that it would be open for MNSSHP since Splash Mountain was and given that TBA had an opening date before Party Season started. It was a good assumption!

But TBA was pulled from the list (presumably) because it had not yet been confirmed internally. Then it was re-added once it was. A bit of unnecessary whiplash that probably could’ve been avoided if one hand knew what the other was doing and that was properly communicated before the official list was posted.

Anyway, now both Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and TRON Lightcycle Run are on the ride rosters for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party along with a parenthetical next to them that says “standby line offered.” Additionally, the verbiage about virtual queues has been dropped from the page.

Despite all of the above about these lists being unreliable, this is too purposeful and proactive of a change to merely be an assumption or a mistake. Unlike before, this almost certainly is accurate…unless something changes between now and then. But pretty much everything is subject to change, so that alone isn’t worthy of an asterisk.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and TRON Lightcycle Run are also both on the ride rosters for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, and there’s also nothing about virtual queues for that, either. However, the “standby line offered” parenthetical is not present there for whatever reason. It’s likely that this wasn’t deliberate–I cannot imagine a scenario where Walt Disney World would proactively plan to drop the virtual queue for MNSSHP but not MVMCP. It’s safe to assume standby lines are the intent for both.

As a reminder, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is using a virtual queue for its initial opening period. Guests can request to join the virtual queue via the My Disney Experience app at one of two times: 7 a.m. or 1 p.m. While a standby queue will not be available during the attraction’s initial opening days, Walt Disney World expects to open a standby line soon after the attraction’s opening.

That’s what Walt Disney World said when first announcing the opening date and details for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure back in May. Disney’s language at the time strongly suggested Tiana’s Bayou Adventure wouldn’t have a virtual queue for nearly as long as any other ride at Walt Disney World.

Of course, that was also before the ride ran into reliability issues, but thankfully, that appears to be improving. There’s been less daily downtime over the course of the last week, to the point that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is now more or less average–with under an hour per day. That could just be a lucky streak, but if not and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure continues to operate more smoothly, the virtual queue could be retired any day now.

There’s usually a few days between announcement and implementation; what I could see is an announcement within the next two days, to take effect July 15, 2024. I really think it’s coming that soon…but it could be a matter of wishful thinking, as I’ve also been expecting Cosmic Rewind to drop its VQ for over a year, and yet, here we are.

Frankly, I don’t see why the same couldn’t happen with TRON Lightcycle Run or Cosmic Rewind. Both of those attractions are over a year old at this point, and the afternoon virtual queue entry time for each attraction frequently has availability (except during peak season) for minutes or even hours after it opens.

It’s hard to see any reason why TRON Lightcycle Run still “needs” a virtual queue so long after its initial launch season. The attraction has plenty of queue space, and it’s not like the virtual queue is being used to keep wait times down–because of how aggressive they are in calling boarding groups, there line is still routinely over an hour long.

Cosmic Rewind is a bit of a different beast since there is less physical queue space, but they installed overflow outside (complete with umbrellas!) last summer, and it’s just been sitting there since. It stopped “needing” a virtual queue only a few months after it debuted, so back around late Summer 2022.

In our view, virtual queues are guest unfriendly and should only be used when absolutely necessary. As Walt Disney World has made steps to simplify and improve the guest experience, eliminating the remaining VQs at TRON Lightcycle Run and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind seems like an obvious next-step.

And I say all of this as someone who selfishly likes virtual queues because they give me (and other knowledgeable, frequent guests) an advantage over the average visitors. But I also recognize that what’s good for me is not always good for the park-going public.

The thing is that ride capacity is a zero-sum game. If the virtual queue is filling up with a bunch of APs and locals who would skip a triple-digit standby wait, those spots are coming at the expense of someone else. The losers in this scenario are likely disproportionately first-timers and other low-knowledge or technology-averse guests.

Whereas these people often are oblivious to virtual queues or are unsuccessful at joining, many of them are able or more inclined to wait in a long standby line. The balking point is higher for them–they’ve never done the ride, so their tolerance for lines or threshold for waiting is higher than the average AP who skips any standby line that’s over 30 minutes.

First-timers or infrequent visitors are the very demographics that, in my opinion even as a biased and self-interested AP, Walt Disney World should be favoring. It’s better for the sake of guest satisfaction and creating new fans to make things easier for these people, and removing one layer of friction.

This is doubly true when it comes to newer attractions that are the focus of marketing campaigns. There are people who have booked trips after seeing ads for Cosmic Rewind or TRON Lightcycle Run…who haven’t been able to ride because they failed at the virtual queue, or didn’t understand how to ‘play’ in the first place. Or maybe those are just the rides they really, really want to experience over and over again–in which case, they should be able to do so if they’re willing to endure multiple 100+ minute waits. That should be their choice!

As most of us have complained about the amount of screen time and overreliance on technology in visiting Walt Disney World, we should likewise continue to support the retirement of virtual queues. They may benefit us on an individual level, but overall and in aggregate, they are a negative for the guest experience–and one that leads to more complaints and opportunities for disappointment that has no potential resolution. Virtual queues add yet another unnecessary layer of friction and make things overwhelming and intimidating for inexperienced and older guests.

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YOUR THOUGHTS

Thoughts on the virtual queue or standby status of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, TRON Lightcycle Run or Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind going forward? Would you like to see these attractions continue offering virtual queues or not? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!