Rumor Disney may be about to expand the use of virtual queue boarding groups at Walt Disney World

[easyrowrdw]

Actually, very hard to figure out.

To keep social distancing in place, they have had to shut down the FP lines. You can't have to side-by-side lines of people.

And to keep standby lines from becoming insane, with the social distancing requirements and limited capacity, they would have very few fastpasses to give out.
Basically... all fastpasses to all attractions would be booked solid by 7:01 am 60 days out.

They have side-by-side lines of people now with switchbacks. They attempt to stagger the markers to keep people from being directly next to each other, but it's not 100%. They have also added plexiglass to a number of queues to add physical barriers between the switchbacks.

But if you the fastpass doesn't actually have priority, then I agree that it would get quite complicated to manage people being sent to both lines.

 

[UNCgolf]

Of all things, I think DHS (more so pre-COVID) and Animal Kingdom would be the perfect parks to pilot a Volcano Bay-sequel “everything is a Virtual Queue” system. Out of the actual rides, almost every attraction in those parks are E-Tickets with a strong pull, making it to where almost all of them would likely get some people to sign up at the beginning.

There is a point at which, if Slinky has a 60 min VQ while Rise has a 200 min VQ, people will start choosing Slinky or other attractions with much lower waits. Plus, these two parks have enough supplemental material (shows, exhibits, animal trails in AK’s case) to keep guests relatively occupied while they wait.

Where would all of those people go, though? DHS isn't a very big park. If no one was waiting in lines anywhere, the walkways and shops would all be so packed that it would be almost impossible to even move around.

AK would be better, but I think it would still be an absolute nightmare. You'd be adding thousands and thousands of people to all non-ride areas.

I think that Volcano Bay, as a water park, is fundamentally different from a standard theme or even amusement park.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

I wonder where the breaking point is for the average guest? Having to be at rope drop to reserve a digital space for the jungle cruise?

 

[Surferboy567]

I wonder where the breaking point is for the average guest? Having to be at rope drop to reserve a digital space for the jungle cruise?

This is exactly my question. The value proposition seems lower, maybe their is a way to make the groups easier to receive?

 

[MisterPenguin]

And will Minnie ever get Mickey to give her a ring?

They're married.

On-screen, they often play roles as if they were just meeting or actively dating.

 

[havoc315]

I wonder where the breaking point is for the average guest? Having to be at rope drop to reserve a digital space for the jungle cruise?

That's NOT how it would work. Having a Virtual Queue does not mean Ride of the Resistance. The problem with ROTR is the capacity issues of the ride itself (coupled with high demand).

Universal does several virtual queues. You don't have to get in line at rope drop. You can reserve your space almost any time of the day, and get your "callback" within an hour or 2. That's how it would work for an attraction like Jungle Cruise.

 

[MisterPenguin]

No but this is what Disney wants. They want you to spend $100 a day to get there at the crack of dawn to miss out on 90% of the ride boarding passes.

Is 10 AM "crack of dawn"?

 

[havoc315]

They're married.

On-screen, they often play roles as if they were just meeting or actively dating.

They do have the same last name. So if they aren't married...... that might be pretty icky.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Is 10 AM "crack of dawn"?

It’s not an exaggeration though, I watched the sun rise while waiting to ride slinky dog after getting my boarding group number.

 

[Tom Morrow]

I was at the parks all last week. Now that the crowds are returning, yet the attraction capacities remain limited, my two biggest gripes were not the wait times, which were almost entirely manageable and pleasant, but rather that the parks are not open long enough to do everything (particularly MK) and 2, many of the queues extend far beyond the entrance which means an awful lot of standing in direct sunlight. I can understand adding boarding passes for some of the attractions because there just isn't enough space for the socially distanced queues combined with limited capacity.

I don't think boarding passes are the answer, but I'm curious to see how this will go. For instance, people are willing to line up for a posted 90 minute wait for MMRR (which typically ends up being about 60 minutes). But, when you give everyone the ability to wait in line with some taps on their phone, everyone does it, which filters out those who are not willing to stand in long lines, which means the boarding passes fill up significantly faster than a physical queue.

Sooner or later, social distancing will be removed. The queues will not need to be spaced out, and every seat can be filled again. I hope that we can see this happen before re-instating Fastpass. But until then, Magic Kingdom absolutely needs to be open later than 6 PM.

 

[MisterPenguin]

It’s not an exaggeration though, I watched the sun rise while waiting to ride slinky dog after getting my boarding group number.

Since the pandemic re-opening?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Where would all of those people go, though? DHS isn't a very big park. If no one was waiting in lines anywhere, the walkways and shops would all be so packed that it would be almost impossible to even move around.

AK would be better, but I think it would still be an absolute nightmare. You'd be adding thousands and thousands of people to all non-ride areas.

I think that Volcano Bay, as a water park, is fundamentally different from a standard theme or even amusement park.

Even Volcano Bay has things like the rivers and wave pool to fill time between slides. You don’t have that in the Disney theme parks.

They do have the same last name. So if they aren't married...... that might be pretty icky.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s maiden name was Roosevelt.

 

[UNCgolf]

Even Volcano Bay has things like the rivers and wave pool to fill time between slides. You don’t have that in the Disney theme parks.

Right, that was my point. It's why a water park is fundamentally different. People can still get in the water and enjoy themselves while in the VQs; they're not just kind of aimlessly milling about and browsing shops.

 

[havoc315]

Even Volcano Bay has things like the rivers and wave pool to fill time between slides. You don’t have that in the Disney theme parks.


Eleanor Roosevelt’s maiden name was Roosevelt.

Yes..... and Eleanor and Franklin were cousins...

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Since the pandemic re-opening?

Of course not.

 

[M:SpilotISTC12]

Is 10 AM "crack of dawn"?

Back in January we got up at 5 am to make a 6 am, if I remember correctly, opening of DHS to get RotR boarding pass. We arrived to our hotel somewhere around 1 am due to numerous flight delays (Thanks United). Luckily we got to ride at 430pm. So I don't really want to have to do that every park day. If that is the case I'm out.

 

[FeelsSoGoodToBeBad]

I had another DHS “E-Ticket” hinted to me about adding VQ yesterday, but Smuggler’s Run would not have been my guess. Sure the queue gets a little unwieldy in the morning, but it usually gets under control by noon at the latest.

IMO, a really interesting test would be to put everything in DHS on VQ except for one or two things (like Star Tours and Mania) with one queue allowed at a time.

I don't think this would work, mainly because you'd VQs assign times depending on your place in the apps requests for the spot, correct? Assuming that's the case, you could have ride times all over the place in the different lands, necessitating a LOT of unnecessary walking.

My family already has coined the term, "My feet hurt like Disney!" This would take even that to a whole other level.

 

[Hcalvert]

I suspect they are concerned about what it would do to guests that need a DAS, get guest recovery, etc. and trying to figure out the best way to balance the crowds on that side with reduced capacity.

When I was there in July, they were using the FP line for DAS and rider switch.

 

[ppete1975]

Getting people out of queues just creates crowding elsewhere.

in gift shops.. WHERE THEY BELONG

 

[larryz]

To bad Disney doesn’t have access to talented entertainers that could entertain guests in the parks. Like live musicians, acrobats, actors, etc.