Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind - General Discussion

[Tobias]

I appreciate the gloves off mentality you’re taking lately!

Theory: Some Disney Exec. knocked @Alicia pet Banshee off her shoulder.

I have a better theory, and I think it's pretty crystal clear, this is what happens when you close PizzeRizzo. When you take away one of her most precious things, @Alicia is taking her gloves off. (All in good jest, of course.)

 

[Jake S]

I don’t think the virtual queue is a problem for the vast majority of guests, who aren’t interested in getting multiple rides on an attraction while on vacation no matter how much they enjoy it.

 

[HandsomePete]

That just isn't true. I'm pretty sure Tron has even less queue space than Guardians and it's off virtual queue now. Even if that were true, there are numerous days at Epcot where it wouldn't have too long of a line because of low crowd levels and they still keep it on Virtual Queue. If they really need the virtual queue because the queue space isn't long enough I think the best option would be to disable it on low crowd days just like the Nintendo World virtual queue

This just seems like the lie we’ve been fed by people defending the international conglomerate’s decisions. I remember people saying Tron could never have Standby because it would be 10 hour waits. Rise of the Resistance could never have standby because it’s not reliable enough. And yet those somehow are surviving.

If there’s not enough queue, they could just cut off the line when it gets too long. So I’m not buying it.

If there’s not enough queue, they could route it through the exterior walkways like Universe of Energy did in the early 1980’s. I’m not buying it.

When queues are long they self regulate. If you post 3 hours on the sign, less people will get in line. If people see a line spilling out a building, they’ll be less likely to jump in. The problem will most likely solve itself.

And if they didn’t build enough queue, it really calls into question why they could build a building that holds the volume of 5 spaceship earths and not think to save or expand the entire previous attraction’s building to hold a little more queue for their new upcoming, highly anticipated—first Marvel at WDW and first roller coaster at EPCOT—attraction.

(This isn’t directed at anyone in particular, I just don’t see how Virtual Line-only is necessary beyond the opening day, or maybe even opening week, let alone several years later.)

That’s what shovels are for.. They’ve had years to fix this if that was the issue, but it’s not. It’s pure corporate greed and with Disneys financial ignorance the last 2-3 years they’re doing it for profit pure and simple.

All valid points, but if park leadership doesn’t want people spilling out of the building and doesn’t want to build the business case to get the capital to do something about it and wants to run Virtual Queue, it stays. It could all change in a day if they swapped the park VP and the new person wants it gone. It’s going to make the same amount of money as a paid Lightning Lane attraction whether it has a standby queue or virtual queue.

Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that they took a building that housed an entire, very large attraction and couldn’t build enough space inside to hold a two hour wait.

I just don’t see how Virtual Line-only is necessary beyond the opening day, or maybe even opening week, let alone several years later.

I’ve said this before but it’s worth reiterating why this happens…

When a new attraction opens, there’s near daily guest satisfaction reporting that goes all the way up the chain. Virtual queue for RotR was a necessity for reliability etc. but another consequence of virtual queue is that nobody is waiting the typical 2-3 hours that a new attraction would bring in. Obviously the only people rating the ride are the ones who go on it, and all of those people aren’t having to wait that long to do so, which results in inflated satisfaction scores since people generally do a price value-ish approach when responding to surveys. Virtual queue on Moana, obviously overkill but will still result in higher ratings in those reports.

This above only speaks to the opening period, but there’s a data science argument that aggregate satisfaction is higher with [people going on Cosmic Rewind after a 30 minute wait] + [those people getting to do a second thing in the time they didn’t spend waiting like 90 minutes for Cosmic Rewind] - [people upset that they were locked out of Cosmic Rewind] than just running it with a standby queue.

 

[Alicia]

I don’t think the virtual queue is a problem for the vast majority of guests, who aren’t interested in getting multiple rides on an attraction while on vacation no matter how much they enjoy it.

Then you’ve never been standing near greeter in the afternoon and see a family turned away from a ride because they didn’t know they needed the virtual line to ride. It’s even more frustrating when you go in the last few hours of the day and see mostly empty trains leaving the station. There’s room for those guests, they paid to be here today, and yet they won’t be riding. And they’ll remember that forever.

For Tron, EVERY time I rode when it had virtual line I heard guests in line around me complaining they had to wait an hour even though they had a virtual line reservation. “What was the point of virtual queue if I still have to wait in line” is something I’ve heard from strangers on multiple occasions.

I don’t think virtual queue is a huge problem for the vast majority of guests, I think it’s poor guest experience. But it’s Disney World, so what can they do. You jump through the hoops to make the best vacation for your family.

But this, for me, is one too many hoops to jump through.

 

[Tbad556]

Then you’ve never been standing near greeter in the afternoon and see a family turned away from a ride because they didn’t know they needed the virtual line to ride. It’s even more frustrating when you go in the last few hours of the day and see mostly empty trains leaving the station. There’s room for those guests, they paid to be here today, and yet they won’t be riding. And they’ll remember that forever.

For Tron, EVERY time I rode when it had virtual line I heard guests in line around me complaining they had to wait an hour even though they had a virtual line reservation. “What was the point of virtual queue if I still have to wait in line” is something I’ve heard from strangers on multiple occasions.

I don’t think virtual queue is a huge problem for the vast majority of guests, I think it’s poor guest experience. But it’s Disney World, so what can they do. You jump through the hoops to make the best vacation for your family.

But this, for me, is one too many hoops to jump through.

This.

I, a giant nerd on a theme park board, have never had trouble getting a boarding pass for GoTG, but not everyone is that lucky. WDWMagic has a thread tracking the Virtual Line times daily. On 12/15, for example, the 7am passes were gone in 4.8 seconds and the 1pm in 5 seconds. That's completely unacceptable customer service that greatly benefits those who know the parks (locals) and know technology.

It's been nearly 3 years. It's loooong overdue.

 

[HandsomePete]

I think though people should allowed to disagree about something here without being told that their point of view is invalid because they haven't seen something that they probably have indeed seen.

I like VQ because I've gotten to go on this ride a lot more than I would have otherwise. I also don't like VQ because I've only been on Tiana's once because it's too much of a hassle to play the lottery and then have to plan on being in MK sometime between 9 and noon, or by 1pm to then hang around.

And perhaps I don't see the greed side as much as others because I have a rough idea - through doing my own napkin math on numbers I was told - of just how much money they gave up by removing the option of buying Genie+ as part of the vacation booking process. Like... without 2022 being the year the international parks bounced back after Covid, I don't know how they could have avoided it on the earnings call levels of huge.

 

[Freak]

I think though people should allowed to disagree about something here without being told that their point of view is invalid because they haven't seen something that they probably have indeed seen.

I like VQ because I've gotten to go on this ride a lot more than I would have otherwise. I also don't like VQ because I've only been on Tiana's once because it's too much of a hassle to play the lottery and then have to plan on being in MK sometime between 9 and noon, or by 1pm to then hang around.

And perhaps I don't see the greed side as much as others because I have a rough idea - through doing my own napkin math on numbers I was told - of just how much money they gave up by removing the option of buying Genie+ as part of the vacation booking process. Like... without 2022 being the year the international parks bounced back after Covid, I don't know how they could have avoided it on the earnings call levels of huge.

I guarantee you’ll be in favor of virtual queue up until you have to fly across the country to ride Guardians, try to snag a VQ only to be locked out for the first attempt, get one for the last one, not be called into the park is nearly closed, and then being forced to pay $20 because it is a “peak” time slot. That happened to me the last time I ride it.

I understand VQ if we’re in the first month of opening, but there is absolutely no reason at all this should still be going after 2 1/2 years of operation. It’s a piss-poor customer service move. It’s purely a money grab.

 

[jwbitterman]

1000% bs to have this scheme still in place. They want people to pay for a ride they’ve already paid for. One of the many reasons I prefer universal - the rat king is a greedy SOB.

 

[HandsomePete]

I guarantee you’ll be in favor of virtual queue up until you have to fly across the country to ride Guardians, try to snag a VQ only to be locked out for the first attempt, get one for the last one, not be called into the park is nearly closed, and then being forced to pay $20 because it is a “peak” time slot. That happened to me the last time I ride it.

I understand VQ if we’re in the first month of opening, but there is absolutely no reason at all this should still be going after 2 1/2 years of operation. It’s a piss-poor customer service move. It’s purely a money grab.

I guess my take is that keeping VQ is not actually the money grab when the paid LL slots would also sell out if it went to standby, they're just getting money from the people who really want to go on the ride and can't (or ride twice) as opposed to the people who just don't want to spend time waiting in line.

Going back to my original point about the underbuilt queue... it's pretty obvious that they planned on using the left side of the building as exterior queue and then ran into some sort of issue, probably either related to emergency egress or fire truck access. The sad attempt at core-drilling stanchions over there looked like they couldn't either get close to the building or cross that alley.

 

[Alicia]

I guess my take is that keeping VQ is not actually the money grab when the paid LL slots would also sell out if it went to standby, they're just getting money from the people who really want to go on the ride and can't (or ride twice) as opposed to the people who just don't want to spend time waiting in line.

Going back to my original point about the underbuilt queue... it's pretty obvious that they planned on using the left side of the building as exterior queue and then ran into some sort of issue, probably either related to emergency egress or fire truck access. The sad attempt at core-drilling stanchions over there looked like they couldn't either get close to the building or cross that alley.

Smugglers Run extended queue overflows into emergency vehicle backstage entrance on right of the Falcon. It even goes backstage to show unthemed backsides of buildings.

EDIT to add, Flight of Passage extended queue flows into the land, across the path, and all the way down the bridge to Africa, so certainly in some circumstances outdoor overflowing queues are somehow acceptable. Universe of Energy in the 1980s would extend out the front and into the garden path areas between attractions. It could do that now, with a gap crossing paths like FoP, and not block the backstage gate.

 

[Eckert]

When will they offer a service to skip the preshows?

 

[TheCodeMan95]

If there’s not enough queue, they could route it through the exterior walkways like Universe of Energy did in the early 1980’s. I’m not buying it.

Or what nearly every ride had to do in 2020 lol

 

[UniversalRBLX]

It's all greed & creating a false sense of scarcity that pushes people to VQ and then lightning lanes. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I echo Alicia's earlier comment that they've been sending out empty trains in the first hour or two of park ops. That's at least 1,000-2,000 (assuming half are empty) seats being sent out empty on an operating day that normally would be filled if they operated the thing like normal.

As for the queue not being long enough, it's a mix of reasons. It's a decent sized queue that can handle a good amount of guests... if it weren't for the ridiculous standby to LL ratios. Also, like any other ride, Disney could always exaggerate posted waits to discourage guests. Astro Blasters at MK has a ridiculously short queue that tends to exaggerate its wait time in order to dissuade guests from joining in.

When it comes to why Tron went VQ first before GOTG, they might be seeing less demand comparatively to GOTG... which makes sense. Epcot doesn't have as much "ride options" as MK.

 

[HandsomePete]

Smugglers Run extended queue overflows into emergency vehicle backstage entrance on right of the Falcon. It even goes backstage to show unthemed backsides of buildings.

EDIT to add, Flight of Passage extended queue flows into the land, across the path, and all the way down the bridge to Africa, so certainly in some circumstances outdoor overflowing queues are somehow acceptable. Universe of Energy in the 1980s would extend out the front and into the garden path areas between attractions. It could do that now, with a gap crossing paths like FoP, and not block the backstage gate.

Next time you're over that way, take a tape measure to the lane they left between the end of the core-drilled stanchion and the exterior wall of what I guess would be Oga's and I'm guessing you'll find there's a vehicle width there. The set they drilled at Guardians is so comedically far from the building that it reeks of some Reedy Creek inspector marking a bunch of no-go areas.

I think there's a big difference between greed and lies and there being multiple mediocre options for how to manage something that would be much less of an issue if they had just... again... built like two hours of indoor queue in a massive building like they did for FoP. Yeah, they could route people all over the place toward the No Playing pavilion, but Ops has chosen to not do that.

Considering I currently can't buy a Tron paid LL for today, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday... VQ being kept out of greed makes literally no sense at all. Not everything they do that someone doesn't like is some sort of grand thesis on the state of The Walt Disney Company.

 

[Alicia]

Next time you're over that way, take a tape measure to the lane they left between the end of the core-drilled stanchion and the exterior wall of what I guess would be Oga's and I'm guessing you'll find there's a vehicle width there. The set they drilled at Guardians is so comedically far from the building that it reeks of some Reedy Creek inspector marking a bunch of no-go areas.

I think there's a big difference between greed and lies and there being multiple mediocre options for how to manage something that would be much less of an issue if they had just... again... built like two hours of indoor queue in a massive building like they did for FoP. Yeah, they could route people all over the place toward the No Playing pavilion, but Ops has chosen to not do that.

Considering I currently can't buy a Tron paid LL for today, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday... VQ being kept out of greed makes literally no sense at all. Not everything they do that someone doesn't like is some sort of grand thesis on the state of The Walt Disney Company.

I’d posit another theory that’s a bit more complex than just greed.

Disney prefers predictable staffing. And managed virtual line ensures the exact same daily capacity and crowds for this attraction regardless of how busy the park is.

And yes the extended queue for Falcon does route beside the main gate leaving room for vehicles, but then moves backstage for more room. But isn’t funny how every single other park doesn’t mind routing guests all over the place outside except this one? I’m sure it’s operational decisions. But if it really was that bad they could throw money at fixing it. They’re choosing the easier and cheaper option.

That could be considered greed. But maybe it’s just laziness.

But it’s sad when they can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the world’s largest indoor coaster, but then not spend any additional funds to correct an apparently so severe lack of queueing area in the 2.5 years following as to allow more patrons to enjoy this state of the art attraction.

Shame.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

I’d posit another theory that’s a bit more complex than just greed.

Disney prefers predictable staffing. And managed virtual line ensures the exact same daily capacity and crowds for this attraction regardless of how busy the park is.

And yes the extended queue for Falcon does route beside the main gate leaving room for vehicles, but then moves backstage for more room. But isn’t funny how every single other park doesn’t mind routing guests all over the place outside except this one? I’m sure it’s operational decisions. But if it really was that bad they could throw money at fixing it. They’re choosing the easier and cheaper option.

That could be considered greed. But maybe it’s just laziness.

But it’s sad when they can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the world’s largest indoor coaster, but then not spend any additional funds to correct an apparently so severe lack of queueing area in the 2.5 years following as to allow more patrons to enjoy this state of the art attraction.

Shame.

You can be greedy, and lazy, at the same time. They simply don’t care to fix the problem. Especially given how much money this park makes on merchandise and food alone (id assume certainly more than DHS or Animal Kingdom) it’s wild extra funding can’t be shipped here to solve this.

Regardless, what a fascinating thread this continues to be. IU posters think very thoughtfully about these subjects compared to any other forum I’ve participated in/read before and I respect discussions like these, and it’s why I love it here!

 

[Alicia]

Yea, we can go back and forth, where I suggest possible fixes to a possible lack of queue situation and there are likely reasonable reasons why they wouldn’t work, or be difficult to implement as compared to other parks. But at the end of the day this is one of the most profitable entertainment companies on Earth, and I suppose I hold them to a higher standard and expect they can work out a solution. Disney Parks are kind of known for their creativity after all.