If you’ve visited Disney World over the last five years or so, you’ve probably become familiar with the Virtual Queue system.
Virtual queue is generally used on new rides that have high demand and can give you an opportunity to get on a popular ride without having to pay for the Lightning Lane Single Pass option. But Disney’s Virtual Queue system is frustrating for a variety of reasons, especially when it comes to how it works.
Let’s talk about how Disney’s Virtual Queue system works. Twice a day, you can go onto the My Disney Experience app and try to get into the Virtual Queue for a ride that offers it (for example, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind in EPCOT). If successful, you’ll be given a Boarding Group number. You’ll get a notification later when that Boarding Group number is allowed to ride the attraction. You’ll have exactly one hour to get into that ride’s line.
There’s a big problem with this. When you get your Boarding Group number, you don’t actually get an estimated time of when that group might be called. So you’ll end up waiting around until it’s called, which could be at any time. That means you’ll have to plan your day around expecting to get that call at any point. So you’ll have to be careful about making plans for other rides and any dining reservations you might have. You could be just starting lunch at a table service restaurant, have your boarding group called, and not be able to make it to the ride in time after you finish your lunch. (Disney should accommodate you if you find yourself in this situation.)
By comparison, if you make a Lightning Lane Multi Pass or Lightning Lane Single Pass selection, you’ll be given a specific window of time to get in the ride’s Lightning Lane as soon as you book it. We’re not sure why Disney doesn’t do this for its virtual queue system as it would seem the software has that capability. It might even make the system more efficient.
Now, granted, Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass, as well as the Virtual Queue system, can get backed up if a ride temporarily closes during a given day, but Disney should still be able to give those with a Virtual Queue boarding group an updated time window, if necessary.
We’ll just have to see if Disney ever changes the Virtual Queue system to do this.
Check back with AllEars again soon for more.
This Frustrating Virtual Queue Problem Keeps Catching Disney World Fans Off Guard
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What do you think? Would you like to see this feature added to Disney World’s Virtual Queue system? Let us know in the comments!
There is a way to see your ESTIMATED call back time.
Mine usually shows on the main Home Screen.
You can also look under “View My Day”.
On occasion will will show just your group number, but that’s only happened to me once.
You can also see what group they are currently calling in the app. Go to main screen, scroll down to “Virtual Queue”.
It may change due to guests going through faster or slower and depending on ride break-down, so check back frequently.
Also when Guardians was down last week it showed “temporarily closed” in the wait times list.
During a recent visit at EPCOT when it was apparent our dinner reservation was going to clash with our boarding group window for Guardians we inquired a CM at the Guardians entrance. They allowed us an at will access so there would be no conflict with our dining reservation.
VQs are reserved for rides that aren’t reliable throughout the day and subject to frequent breakdowns. Right now those are Cosmic Rewind and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Disney doesn’t want thousands of people in the queue during one of these frequent breakdowns on two of their most popular rides, so the VQ remains.
This could very well be the reason they didn’t drop the VQ for Tiana’s during the winter, which last year they all but said they would do. They even had to remove this ride from the after hours events. Disney failed so bad trying to slap a re-theme on a 33 year old ride instead of actually refurbishing.