Disney just announced that Tron Lightcycle Run at Magic Kingdom will drop its virtual queue (VQ) system starting on September 9, 2024, and having a standby line for the attraction for the first time. At first glance, I wasn't sure if I needed to make a post about this (small?) change, but the more I thought about it, the more I had to say. So this post will look at why it's being done, compare it to the other VQ rides that are currently in existence and try to speculate about how this will affect crowd patterns going forward.
If you are unfamiliar (though I suspect that's not the case if you're reading this), a VQ is one of the (many) ways in which you can experience attractions at Walt Disney World. The first one was Star Wars Rise of the Resistance way back in 2019, and most new rides debut with a VQ, at least for a little while. Essentially it's just what it says it is - a virtual queue is where you can have your place in line held for you until your return time, while you are free to experience other attractions at the parks. It amounts to a "free" ride in the future, as there is no cost for the VQ, either in money or time spent (except perhaps trying to secure one at the start of your day).
Until this change, there were three current attractions at Disney World that used a VQ - Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind at Epcot, and Tron and Tiana's Bayou Adventure at Magic Kingdom. Both of these are interesting case studies now that Tron is dropping its VQ. For Guardians, the VQ hasn't been strictly necessary in quite some time. Guardians opened almost one full year before Tron and once the "new ride smell" wore off, there was really no reason to continue to have a VQ here. Yet it persists as of this writing.
Tiana's Bayou Adventure is actually the more interesting and relevant as it relates to Tron. Tiana's is the newest attraction to open at Magic Kingdom, and while it is a re-theming of Splash Mountain, it's still new in its current form, and anything new at Disney is a big deal. Even Journey of Water Featuring Moana at Epcot had a (very brief) VQ window to help control crowds. Tiana's was always going to be more popular than that, but Disney seemingly did not intend for the VQ to still be active today, as their press materials at the time used phrases like "the attraction's initial opening days" when referencing the VQ. This implied that they planned on using it for the high demand upon opening but planned to quickly drop it back to standby status. This can be confirmed by the tier that Tiana's occupies in the paid Lightning Lane service - it was immediately placed into Lightning Lane Multipass (LLMP) rather than Lightning Lane Single Pass (LLSP) like Tron and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
But this isn't what happened. This mostly relates to Tiana's reliability, which has been, to put it charitably, "very bad." Whether the attraction opened too early (remember, they moved up the opening time frame) or whether the animatronic sequences were more complicated than expected, causing shutdowns, it's mostly irrelevant. The ride doesn't function well on most days, creating a giant headache for operations.
In any case, the reliability (or lack thereof) for Tiana's at this point all but ensures that a VQ is still necessary. It's a bad spot to be in, but it would be much worse if the standby line were open and people had to wait around for an hour or more just to have the queue dumped. I mentioned Rise earlier, and that attraction was also plagued with reliability issues for months upon opening, a situation which has now basically been resolved. There's no reason to expect that Tiana's is unfixable, but for as long as these issues continue, they can't really drop the VQ here.
This is just speculation, but I suspect that Tron's VQ would not be dropped if Tiana's had been. I only have to point to Guardians again, which still uses a VQ more than two years after opening. But I think having two VQ in the same park was not a great idea, and certainly not the plan long term. I'll implore readers of this blog once again to embrace the virtual queue; if you are savvy enough and quick enough, it's just a free ride, and another way to "beat" the system at WDW. We had an opportunity to try for the VQ six times on our last trip and we got a boarding group each time.
I mention all of this because I (and you) are not the average visitor. Many guests don't understand all of the different levels of complexity it takes to ride attractions when they visit. It becomes overwhelming and they simply opt out. Having two rides at Disney World's flagship park be accessible only by VQ or LL (in other words, not having the opportunity to simply stand in line) is not a guest friendly practice on the whole and this is a step to correct that. I disagree, but I understand their way of thinking here, and I think that had a lot to do with this decision.
The rest of this post is largely speculation (for now) but this is where my mind goes when something like this happens - the ripple effects. One hidden dynamic change will be in the overall wait times at WDW, as reported by sites such as Thrill Data. Crowd levels are based on wait times, and wait times come from the My Disney Experience app, which Thrill Data aggregates. Up until now, Tron did not factor into wait times, because there WAS no wait time listed in the app. This will change, and Tron will likely average the highest wait time in the park. That skews things in the overall wait time - the park is likely to be just as busy (or not) as it had been the day before, but there will be a "spike" in wait times due to Tron being factored in. How does this affect your day? Probably not much, but if you're looking at historical crowd calendars, you might wonder why Magic Kingdom was suddenly "busier" and it won't make sense without this context.
The more important thing that will change here are crowd patterns and dynamics, most notably at rope drop. To bring this full circle, I mentioned earlier that there had been two VQ at Magic Kingdom, which is now not the case. But there ARE still two LLSP attractions - Tron and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Up until now, there was a way to easily do both of these in one day without paying extra - grab a VQ in the morning and deal with Mine Train once you were in the park.
Our recommended strategy for Magic Kingdom had been to go against the grain and to NOT attempt to ride Mine Train at rope drop (something Tom Bricker from Disney Tourist Blog affectionately calls the "SDMT Shuffle"). Instead, we recommended waiting until the end of the night to get on Mine Train, either during the fireworks (preferably if you had already seen them and this was your second day at Magic Kingdom) or right before park close (during Extended Evening Hours was the best method, but not everyone was eligible for those).
Now there is a conflict - how can you do both Tron and Mine Train right at the end of the night? You can't, meaning your options are to purchase one, ride one at rope drop or just wait it out and hope for the best (not often my preferred choice). I won't tell you what to do with your money, but at most parks, if you're going to pay, I would choose either LLMP or LLSP, not both (Hollywood Studios is a possible exception to this, depending on crowd levels and your wallet level). At Animal Kingdom, LLMP is not worth it, but spending a few bucks on the LLSP for Flight of Passage might be a good investment. At Epcot, you can still get the VQ for Guardians so there's no need to pay for that separately but LLMP can make some sense.
At Magic Kingdom, LLMP is put to its best use; we would almost always recommend it at this park, above all else. But now you have two LLSP rides that you have to work around, and there is no VQ to help you out. I would like to think that Mine Train will move to LLMP at some point - it is over a decade old by now - but the cynic in me thinks that Disney won't go this route for a while, as the ride is still very popular (two VQ may be too confusing but two LLSP is just business).
My suspicion is that Mine Train is the biggest beneficiary of the change to Tron, and that riding it at rope drop might become a viable option. When I say "rope drop" here, I mean during Early Entry for resort guests - if you're not there, you'll be too far back to make this a good strategy. Remember, Magic Kingdom is unique in that during Early Entry, only the "right" half of the park is open (Fantasyland and Tomorrowland) so your attraction selection is limited to those areas.
Up until now, most guests did the SDMT Shuffle, despite it being an objectively bad experience. The better options were to either go to Peter Pan's Flight or Space Mountain, depending on what had a better line or just what you wanted to do afterwards. My guess is that this now becomes the Tron shuffle, with most guests heading that way, pushing those other rides down one rung on the importance ladder.
Don't get me wrong - Mine Train will still probably be a tough wait if you're not at the park early enough. But right now, the crowd at Fantasyland is much bigger than the crowd at Tomorrowland at rope drop, and I think that flips once Tron goes to standby. My tentative recommendation (until we have real proof of anything) is to do Mine Train early and save Tron for later (it looks fantastic at night anyway).
So this was mostly a rambling post speculating on what happens after this change is made. Again, though, the VQ is good for savvy guests and losing one changes the landscape of how to approach this park. While Guardians certainly should have dropped its VQ by now, I for one am pleased that this hasn't happened, because the change to Epcot's landscape will be even more pronounced than Magic Kingdom, once it happens.
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