With news that Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind will retain its Virtual Queue once TRON Lightcycle Run opens to the public on April 4th, we wanted to go over the rules of joining a Virtual Queue after Park Hopping. As a reminder, select, high-demand attractions utilize a Virtual Queue at Walt Disney World. The Virtual Queue system debuted with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and has spread to other attractions and experiences. Currently, only Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind has a Virtual Queue, but TRON Lightcycle Run will join the Virtual Queue lineup starting April 4th.
In this article, we’ll cover what you need to know regarding the rules of joining more than one Virtual Queue per day, and your chances for success. We’ll start with the easy part – the 7am drop.
7am Virtual Queue Drop
This one is easy. At 7am, guests with a Disney Park Pass reservation to a park with a Virtual Queue in use will be able to attempt to secure a Virtual Queue. You will be able to attempt to secure a Virtual Queue at 7am from anywhere and you will not need to be physically in or near the park. Here’s who is eligible for each attraction Virtual Queue at 7am:
- TRON Lightcycle Run – Only guests with a Magic Kingdom Disney Park Pass theme park reservation will be eligible to attempt to secure a TRON Lightcycle Run Virtual Queue spot at 7am
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind – Only guests with an EPCOT Disney Park Pass theme park reservation will be eligible to attempt to secure a Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind Virtual Queue spot at 7am
If you have a Disney’s Hollywood Studios or Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park reservation, you will not be eligible to join a Virtual Queue at 7am. That said, you might have a chance at 2pm. Let’s go through the Park Hopper options.
1pm Virtual Queue with Park Hopper
If you want to ride both TRON Lightcycle Run and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind in the same day, or if you are starting at a different park than either of those attractions, there is a chance that you can secure a Virtual Queue via the 1pm Virtual Queue drop. It’s important that we stress that it’s just a chance and not a guarantee. In practice, we think that this will only work with Cosmic Rewind initially, as we expect the 1pm drop for TRON Lightcycle Run to fill up quite quickly.
If you have a Park Hopper ticket, or an Annual Pass, you can try to join the 1pm Virtual Queue drop ONLY after you have physically tapped into the theme park. Let’s run through an example:
You have a Magic Kingdom Disney Park Pass theme park reservation on April 4, 2023 for TRON’s opening day. At 7am, you are able to secure a Virtual Queue spot for Boarding Group 30 for TRON Lightcycle Run. You rope drop and have a pleasant morning in Magic Kingdom before riding TRON Lightcycle Run at 11:30am. When you’re done, you decide to visit Skipper Canteen for lunch at noon and then take the monorail over to EPCOT to park hop at 2pm. You arrive a little bit early and can tap into EPCOT at 1:55pm and the Virtual Queue for Cosmic Rewind is still open. Because it is still open and because you have physically tapped into EPCOT, you can grab a Cosmic Rewind Virtual Queue spot as part of the 1pm drop with your Park Hopper entitlement.
Let’s go over another example. Let’s say that its still April 4, 2023, but instead of securing Boarding Group 30, you get Boarding Group 112. With such a high Boarding Group number, it’s possible that you won’t ride TRON until later in the afternoon or evening. Not a bad thing because the entire area is beautiful at night, but what about Park Hopping for a Guardians Virtual Queue if you haven’t redeemed your TRON Virtual Queue like in the example above? According to Disney’s rules, you can only enter a specific Virtual Queue once per day, but there is no limitation on holding multiple Virtual Queues at a time. You won’t need to redeem one Virtual Queue to be eligible to secure another Virtual Queue.
What Are the Chances?
While it’s nice to know the rules, what are the chances that you can even pull this off? Again, we’re going to assume that Boarding Groups for TRON Lightcycle Run will be full nearly instantaneously at both 7am and 1pm, so we’re going to focus on the 1pm drop for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Wait time tracking website thrill-data.com also tracks how long the Virtual Queue for Cosmic Rewind remains open. Going back to the beginning of the year (2023), here’s how long the Virtual Queue has remained open for the 1pm drop:
- Closed before 2pm: 27 times (40%)
- Closed after 2pm, but before 3pm: 9 times (13%)
- Closed after 3pm: 30 times (45%)
It’s also probably worth noting that these percentages aren’t really the chances that it’ll happen on any given date. There is an ebb and flow based on crowd levels. In the graph below, we can see that a good chunk of days come during more crowded times like the beginning of the year and Presidents Day week. It also looks like weekends seem to be in higher demand. The bottom line is that you can tip the scales in your favor by choosing weekdays that aren’t during peak crowded weeks. In fact, this entire guide might be thrown out the window during Spring Break, but should be applicable once crowds normalize.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!