As of this weekend it is now impossible to ride every ride in Magic Kingdom with just an entry ticket. You will need to pay for a Lightning Lane on top of your admission price.
The Reason
The grand opening of Disney’s Tiana’s Bayou Adventure on 28th June 2024 has brought about this change. Now the ride is officially open to all guests there is only one way to ride it for free: use the virtual queue system. This means that guests need to grab a slot at 7am or 1pm using the My Disney App.
The problem is you can only use the virtual queue system for one ride a day. In Magic Kingdom two rides now use the virtual queue system. This means you have a choice to make: do you want to ride Tron or Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
If you don’t want to make that choice, and why would you? You will need to pay more to purchase a Lightning Lane. Remember though, virtual queues are not guaranteed, so if you need that guarantee you will have to pay for two additional Lightning Lanes on top of your ticket price.
Was it possible to ride every ride before?
It was possible to ride every ride at Magic Kingdom before the 28th June. The likelihood of that happening is a different to the possibility. But, it is the possibility of endless imagination that Disney promotes that has been shattered with this queue system.
The virtual queue system
Only three rides use the virtual queue system which operates across Disney’s oldest two parks, Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. The three rides:
1: Guardians of the Galaxy in EPCOT
2: Tron in Magic Kingdom
3: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in Magic Kingdom
The virtual queue system operates by letting people bid to join through the app at two different times. Queues open at 7am and close when full, and again at 1pm, closing when full. You can use one virtual queue a day, even if you are park hopping or have completed your ride by the time queue lines open for afternoon ride access.
This means that 33% of the rides using a virtual queue system are inaccessible if you visit Magic Kingdom. That’s a big number, which may make you wonder if there is any benefit to the virtual queue system at all.
The benefits of virtual queue systems
The virtual queue system is a great way to mitigate very long queue times for a new attraction, and we can see the benefits of having one.
- better crowd control.
- preventing very long queue times.
- people can spend their day enjoying what Magic Kingdom has to offer rather than spending it in one large queue.
- keeping people safe. Queueing for very long periods can cause people to become unwell.
Any queueing benefits arising from using a virtual queue system for new rides is lost by failing to adapt rules for the benefit of paying guests. We are left wondering why Tron could not be removed from the virtual queue system to make way for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure?
With a stand-by lane ready and waiting, guests eager to enjoy the experience, and a new hot ride for the park it would have made sense to make the switch. Instead there is now a gaping flaw in the system.
Virtual queue system is flawed
Disney’s virtual queue system has a few flaws.
- The major one is that you can only apply for one ride using the virtual queue system a day.
- Virtual queues are not guaranteed it is a lottery. There is a chance that if you go to Magic Kingdom you won’t be able to ride any of the new ‘hot’ attractions.
- On 28th June, Magic Kingdom, placed two rides under a virtual queue system: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Tron.
- If virtual queue systems are meant to benefit crowd levels for new rides, why leave a ride which opened on 4 April 2023 in the system in a park with a newer ride?
For those guests who like to maximise their park days and who try to ride as much as possible during a Magic Kingdom day, it is deflating to know you can’t possibility ride everything in one day.
The future for virtual queues at Disney
The future of the virtual queue system in Disney is not in doubt. It will be used in the future. The limiting capability it brings for guests is something that Disney can look to improve in the future, without adding extra costs to tickets. Virtual queues provide a great way to manage times for queue lines and allow guests the opportunity to get more out of their day.
For now, this method of queue management leaves guests with a choice, pay more, chance the virtual queue after making a choice, or don’t ride.
A choice to make
If you are visiting Magic Kingdom and only want to pay for admission, you are going to have an early start to try for the virtual queue. You’ll also have a choice to make before you try: Tron or Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Currently the choice would obviously be Tiana’s Bayou Adventure as it is a newly themed ride experience. However as time goes on, if Disney do not make changes, this will be the conundrum guests face.
We think we would most likely choose Tiana’s Bayou Adventure for one reason: the ride is longer. Tron is a wonderful rush of adrenaline. It is however over so fast that it takes longer to get in the virtual queue than it does to ride it. Obviously, as we get more ride experiences on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, we may change our minds, but for now that’s what we would choose. How about you?
Lightning Lane changes
If you want to ride both, you need to be willing to pay and that leads us to the other news this week. The genie is being put back in the Disney lamp. The announcement that Genie + is retiring on 24th July came as a surprise for many. It is also interesting that this announcement predated the opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure by only a couple of days.
Did someone say decoy announcement? With the outright uproar that this announcement has created in the Disney community, many may have overlooked this sneaky virtual queue development. The use of a Lightning Lane is now the only way to bring back the magic of the possibility. Using Lightning Lanes will be the only way to ride every ride in a day at Magic Kingdom.
Possibilities
We accept that Disney will always have paid queue lines for rides moving forward. We do however think that Disney should review this latest decision to limit ride capability without additional cost. Stealing possibility from the magical experiences parks deliver, the current virtual queue system needs revision.
What does the future look like at Magic Kingdom Park?
Park tickets obviously never guarantee a ride on any attraction, but to not have the possibility to ride everything is a limiting and underhand move. We hope that this is not telling of the future of Disney Parks and that it is a temporary oversight.
We are hopeful that with the Lightning Lane rebrand their may be a change in status for Tron. Queueing for Tron would be a solution the virtual queue problem in Magic Kingdom. It is also a way to open the Lightning Lane rebrand in a more positive light. This is particularly true UK guests facing uncertainties about the impending changes.
Conclusion
The future at Magic Kingdom is a little bleaker this weekend. For guests looking to enjoy all Disney has to offer, riding every ride in one day may just be a dream. It is a dream however, that the heart can wish no more. Unless you want to pay for it.
