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Pros: The virtual queue gives guests realistic expectations

Warning sign that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has reached capacity
Image: Jett Farrell-Vega

As mentioned, waiting in a twelve hour line is a pretty brutal way to spend a Disney day—but even worse would be waiting in a twelve hour line and not getting onto the ride. We’ve had this scenario happen to us many times with shorter queues at Universal Orlando Resort, and stories abound online of guests waiting through multi-hour waits only to not get onto a ride.

The idea of buying a ticket to visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios then not getting to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is pretty unpleasant—however, we have to give it to Disney that the virtual queues create a much more realistic expectation for if guests will be able to get onto the ride in the first place. The minute boarding passes disappear, even the parking cashiers know to tell guests straight up that the ride is at capacity. Signs instantly appear not just all over the park, but outside of it, at Skyliner stops, security checkpoints, and transportation hubs. While this can be an emotionally trying situation to work through, at least its one guests know about immediately rather than 6-10 hours into a wait.

While signage and warnings may not help guests who were already in the park, it does at least mean that guests arriving later have a realistic heads up that they won’t get on the ride and can choose another park to visit if they wish.

Pros: A viable alternative to Fastpass+

Family looking at stormtroopers on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
Image: Disney

Another positive in favor of Disney’s virtual queues is that they introduce a reasonable alternative to FastPass+.

FastPass+ is a great system, but it has its problems. For one thing, it sharply favors Walt Disney World resort guests who can log on 60 days ahead of time to secure passes. While this is fine in most cases, for an attraction as popular as Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, relying on FastPass+ would drastically reduce the chances of non-resort guests getting onto the ride. It can also present a false picture of how many guests will actually show up since you don’t have to be in the park to make a FastPass+ reservation—locals take advantage of cancelled FastPass+ slots all the time, but people don’t always remember to cancel their spots in time. On top of this, FastPass+ locks Disney into having the ride available at specific times of day—something that Disney would have a difficult time living up to due to frequent breakdowns on the complicated ride.

Adding a virtual queue creates something like a same-day FastPass+ option without Disney getting locked into specific reservation times—they get to as many groups as they can, estimating each day which groups are “guaranteed”. For the most part, boarding groups aren’t wasted because guests have to be in the park to get one. This also makes the virtual queue more even-handed than FastPass+ since everyone basically has the same shot to get a boarding group as long as you are in the park on time with a working device.

 
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Comments

We used the virtual queue for ROTR at Disneyland and I thought it was fabulous. I would honestly like to see virtual queues replace Fastpass. It left us free to do other things and once our group was called we waiting about 20 minutes.

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