Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is the newest attraction at Walt Disney World.
This is the first roller coaster ever added at Epcot and it may be the best coaster at
any Disney park worldwide. Excited to hop in line? Not so fast, this coaster uses a virtual
queue system. In this video, I will explain how the virtual queue works for Guardians.
And much of this advice will likely will apply to upcoming attractions like Tron as well.
I suspect this system will be discontinued on Guardians sometime in the next year,
but in case you’re riding it in the near-future, here is an overview of the system.
And this is how the system is as of mid-November 2022.
Keep in mind, Disney could change this at any point. They’ve already tweaked it a few times.
Ever since Rise of the Resistance, Disney has been using this system for their newest attractions
in the US. It is intended to prevent the latest and greatest ride from having multi-hour waits.
However, this turns the ride into a pseudo-lottery, although I’d argue there’s
some skill involved as it’s more or less a game of fastest finger. I’m not a fan of this system.
It restricts how many times you can experience the attraction and can potentially lock guests
out from riding if they have technological issues or lose track of time. I get why Disney does it
to minimize how many people are stuck in this one line, but it can lead to a lot of stress.
There are three times of day when the boarding groups are released: 7 am, 1 pm, and 6 pm.
The 7 and 1 o’clock releases are available to all day-guests. To be eligible for the 7 am drop,
you must have a valid Epcot reservation. Then you use the My Disney Experience app to secure your
spot in the virtual queue. This is before Epcot opens, so it can be done anywhere. It can be done
at your hotel room or even in another state. It just matters that you reserved Epcot for the day.
The 1 pm drop requires you to be physically inside Epcot.
This is why you’ll see a bunch of people staring at their phones like zombies around this time.
The 6 pm drop is a special one. This is for resort guests applicable for
the Extended Evening Hours. You are allowed to get an additional
return time for this event even if you already got one earlier in the day.
When you enter the My Disney Experience app, there’s a section called Virtual Queues. You
then can click “Join Virtual Queues”. Go to the one for Guardians of the Galaxy. One hour
before the release times, you can go in to confirm your party. You want to make
sure everyone you’re visiting the park with is part of this group. Those are who will
get a boarding group when the time comes. If it’s incorrect, you can use the edit option.
I recommend setting 2 alarms. Set one alarm that is 1-2 minutes before the release time.
This is your signal to enter the Disney Experience app. Go to the Guardians virtual queue again,
hit Confirm Party again. At the bottom, you will see a button that says Refresh.
Your second alarm should be for the release time. The instant your alarm sounds and your
phone says 7, 1, or 6, start spamming the refresh button. It should turn into Join Virtual Queue.
Don’t read what it says, just click it quickly. On the next screen, click done
and it will tell you what your boarding group is and your estimated time until it’s called.
Boarding groups for the 7 am release can disappear in seconds. But using my method,
you can get an early return time. I’ve gotten Group 1 a few times. Times tend
to stick around a bit later after the 1 pm release, but you still want to grab
one as quickly as possible just to be safe. Especially if you’re visiting on a busy day.
Once your time is called, you officially have just an hour to return. If you return during this time,
your MagicBand or park ticket will scan green at the ride’s entrance.
If you arrive more than 15 minutes after your window ends, it will scan blue. At this point,
it’s at the discretion of the cast member if they’ll admit you. But from what I’ve seen and
heard, they will admit anyone with a boarding group as long as it had already been called.
I found that out first hand. On that note, the estimated return times can be inaccurate.
We had group 5 and the callback time was estimated at 100 minutes, which meant it
would have started 10 minutes after park opening. However, our boarding group was called a half hour
before the park officially opened. I’ve heard the ride has tended to open early most days,
so keep that in mind if you have an early boarding group. If you have a later one, just keep an eye
how the groups are progressing since that will tip you off when you will likely be called.
The wait times with the boarding groups are really short in the morning. I’ve waited just 15-20
minutes max in that first hour. But some of the afternoon times have had me wait 2-3 times that.
As I mentioned earlier, I suspect the virtual queue system will be eliminated soon.
The biggest reason it stuck around as long as it did with Rise of the Resistance was that ride’s
poor reliability, it was eliminated faster on rides like Ratatouille and Spiderman Web
Slingers that had high uptime. Guardians has been extremely reliable and it has
great capacity for a roller coaster. While I’m not a fan of the virtual queue,
it currently is the only free way to experience Guardians of the Galaxy and hopefully this video
helps you get a return time! If you enjoyed this informational video, I’d appreciate it
if you gave this video a like and you considered subscribing since there will be a lot more roller
coaster and amusement park videos here at Canobie Coaster. Thanks for watching!