Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure Virtual Queue Ending

With school winter breaks concluding, Walt Disney World’s holiday crowds are starting to die down. Accordingly, the virtual queue will be ending at Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure once Marathon Weekend is over. This post shares official announcement details, plus our commentary.

It was only a few months ago that Disney’s Hollywood Studios “paused” the virtual queue for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. That change occurred approximately 2 weeks before Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure opened and one month before the rollout of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.

Accordingly, many fans speculated that those were the real reasons for Walt Disney World doing away with the boarding pass system for the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge headliner. We’ll circle back to that subject later in the post. For now, here’s Walt Disney World’s official announcement ending the Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure virtual queue…

The newest attraction at EPCOT, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, had its delicious debut just in time for The World’s Most Magical Celebration honoring the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World Resort! Since the attraction opened on Oct. 1, 2021, scores of EPCOT guests have joined Remy in a visit to Gusteau’s bustling kitchen using the virtual queue, which we introduced as part of the exciting launch.

Now, guests may experience this incredible attraction using a standby queue instead of a virtual queue beginning Jan. 10, 2022. With this change, we will end the use of virtual queue for now for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. Guests also have the opportunity to purchase access to a Lightning Lane queue at this attraction.

Virtual queues continue to be helpful with the launch of popular attractions and the debut of new experiences and offerings, so we may use it again from time to time for select attractions in the future.

Be sure to take advantage of the complimentary Disney Genie service, helping guests create their best Disney day. Built right into the My Disney Experience app, Disney Genie does the planning for our guests–with a personalized itinerary feature and all of their favorites displayed instantly with real-time tips and predictions. Guests may also purchase next available Lightning Lane entry at select attractions with Disney Genie + service or by purchasing access to Lightning Lane entry at select individual attractions for added flexibility.*

*Attractions with Lightning Lane entrances that are Disney Genie+ and individual purchases are limited in availability, subject to change or closure, may vary by date, are not guaranteed and may not be available at all on the date of visit or at the time you make a selection.

As is well-documented in our many posts about Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, our perspective on virtual queues has evolved over time. In large part, that change with Rise of the Resistance was motivated by the attraction improving its reliability and uptime, meaning guests in the standby queue were less likely to endure a breakdown.

For most of the first few months that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance used a standby line, that change was largely vindicated. We had many great experiences breezing through the queue, waiting a fraction of the posted wait time. During September and October, we did the attraction several times with actual waits under 30 minutes.

However, I’m not so sure that could be said about peak weeks, when posted wait times sometimes exceeded 200 minutes. In such scenarios, the odds of a breakdown spiked. The longer you’re in line for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, the more likely you are to encounter downtime. And that’s not the only issue when lines get longer.

After Rise of the Resistance comes back online, there is be a backlog of Lightning Lane guests to process, meaning the standby line crawled. This could happen at any attraction experiencing downtime, but Rise of the Resistance has higher odds of issues. Accordingly, my perspective is that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is fine with standby ~48 weeks of the year, but would benefit from a virtual queue the other ~4 weeks.

On a related point, it’s worth noting that Walt Disney World isn’t calling this a “pause” of the Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure virtual queue. Given that they never brought back the VC for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance during peak holiday crowds, it’s a near-certainty there’s no intention of ever bringing it back. Same almost certainly applies here, hence no longer hedging the language.

Of course, this post isn’t about Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, but I thought that was worth mentioning while on the topic of virtual queues since we’re not really doing Rise of the Resistance ride reports anymore. When it comes to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, we’ve never done ride reports.

The reason for that is simple: no one cares. Sorry to the 7 of you who are diehard Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure fans, but it’s true. This isn’t to say people are skipping Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, it’s a flop, or anything of the sort–to the contrary, it’s a solid “warts and all” addition to Epcot that has been reasonably well-received by regular guests. It’s just no Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which is a blockbuster, once-in-a-generation attraction.

As for the motivations of moving it from a virtual queue to standby, my guess is that this is once again a matter of guest satisfaction. Virtual queues are exceedingly unpopular with guests, who find them counterintuitive and are surprised to arrive and find they do not have the option of standing in line. (As someone who is excellent scoring spots in virtual queues, I love them–but I can recognize not everyone is me.)

This is the same assessment I offered for the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance change, and many of you disagreed, contending it was done to push sales of Individual Lightning Lanes. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s safe to say that was/is not the driving motivation. Individual Lightning Lanes sell out for both attractions on a daily basis–it doesn’t appear that the virtual queue changes the calculus for prospective buyers one way or the other.

Ultimately, I’m guessing the end of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure’s virtual queue will not be as “big of a deal” for most fans as the change to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance for the reasons identified above.

I’m also guessing that virtual queues aren’t totally dead at Walt Disney World, especially with the high-demand Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind debuting this year and the space-constrained TRON Lightcycle Run debuting sometime this decade.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens next with virtual queues at Walt Disney World. With regard to Epcot, a couple of things about which I’ll be curious are whether Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure averages the longest wait in the park for now (my guess is yes) and how crowded that area of France gets on busy days.

There’s also the question of how Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure having a standby queue will impact itineraries and arrival strategy. Our preliminary thinking is that it’ll be our rope drop recommendation, and make arriving via International Gateway incredibly advantageous. We’ll head out to the park next week to check that out, test approaches, and provide an update on how things go with the change, so stay tuned!

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YOUR THOUGHTS

What do you think of this news that Walt Disney World will end of the Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure virtual queue? Do you agree or disagree with this change? 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!

36 Responses to “Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure Virtual Queue Ending”
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