From the queueGuardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind opened to the public on May 27. I was at Star Wars Celebration at the time. My first time riding Cosmic Rewind after the official opening was on June 2. Here is my Virtual Queue experience.
Before I start, this is not a review of the ride. If you’d like to read my spoiler-free review from my Annual Passholder Preview, you can find that here. I will say this, I loved Cosmic Rewind even more the second time, and that’s saying a lot. It is an incredible ride!
On June 2 I signed into the My Disney Experience App at 6:55. One flaw from the Rise of the Resistance days has been fixed. The app will now pre-select who is eligible in your party, and you can remove people in advance. That saves precious seconds, because that is how quickly the spots will be gone.
At 6:59 and 30 seconds, I went to the Virtual Queue and started to refresh. If you can’t find it, go to the three lines in the bottom right corner of the My Disney Experience App. On the next page, “Virtual Queues” is the third option in the right column. I hit “Join Virtual Queue” and then just kept refreshing by pulling down at the top of the page. There is also now a “refresh” button at the bottom, if that’s easier for you. I just did it the way that I’ve always done it.
When refreshing, keep your eyes open for the “join” button, because if you refresh again all the spots will be gone! We got group 83, and our estimated return time was 550 minutes. That was perfect, because we wanted to head to Epcot later in the day.
This is a beautiful screen!It didn’t take 550 minutes for our group to be called. It was actually closer to 2:30 in the afternoon, and we weren’t yet at Epcot. We never received notifications from My Disney Experience that our group had been called, so don’t rely on that! Keep checking yourself so that you don’t miss your ride time.
We ended up being late for our ride, but the Cast Members took pity on us and let us on. I’ve heard of people who were hours late who were allowed on, but don’t count on it! To ensure that you can ride this incredible coaster, arrive during your timeframe.
Even with the Virtual Queue, there was a long line. We made it to the first pre-show room in about 35 minutes, and it was about 55 minutes later that we walked off the ride. The queue is fantastic, so I didn’t mind having to wait. This is one ride that is worth waiting in a line for!
We had Everybody Want to Rule the World as our song again. I was hoping for a different song, but that one is perfect so I didn’t mind. It’s been stuck in my head ever since. Again, I don’t mind.
Overall, my first time using the Virtual Queue for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind went smoothly. I know that not everyone agrees with me, but I hope that they will continue to use this system for a while.
If you don’t get in on the first Virtual Queue, it opens again at 1:00. You need to be in Epcot to get a spot the second time that it opens. I’ve heard that people have better luck with the 1:00 time. If you’re eligible for Extended Evening Theme Park Hours, you can try again at 6:00 on Mondays.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is one of the best rides that I’ve ever been on. It may be stressful to grab a spot, but it’s worth it!