Guardians of the Galaxy Still Virtual

[DavidNYC]

For the new ride, all I'm asking for is availability well beyond the microscopic 7:00-7:01 a.m. sliver of time. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.

Um . . . they did. There are two VQ opening times for exactly that purpose. And the 1pm one lasts a significant amount of time. So what exactly are you asking for since Disney has already done what you proposed?

The only way to make the initial 7am drop last longer would be to actually turn it into a lottery where everyone is subject to computer timing which was exactly what you complained about in a prior post. Or they would have to make more drops during the day with much smaller numbers getting into each drop making people continually having to be on their phones even more for multiple attempts. The two drops does exactly what you propose while minimizing the need to have to keep trying multiple times during the day.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Not particularly - it's still first come first serve. There is no systematic randomness to selecting it. You just want the method of first come first serve that fits you as opposed to the method that fits others. As others have pointed out - getting the VQ takes a few seconds so even if they only last 30 seconds you can get one. Especially at 1pm. This system gives more people a chance to ride without having to spoil half their day waiting on line. Some people get the short end of the stick under any system. You cannot name a system where everyone is happy. I can point out tons of types of people who are, as you say, SOL under a pure standby system for rides like Guardians. And saying "that's for them to decide" is not a valid response since it's based on the assumption that certain people should have priority over others due to their circumstances. All in all - the VQ saves many many people hours of time in line while offering a relative fair distribution of the daily available spaces. The number of people who can ride any ride each day is a fixed number - the hourly capacity of a ride is set. Changing how you determine who gets to ride doesn't allow more people to ride, it just shifts some of those slots from one group to another - and most complaints can be summed up as people who want slots shifted in a way to benefit them.

This is an excellent post, well said.

 

[pens4821]

Um . . . they did. There are two VQ opening times for exactly that purpose. And the 1pm one lasts a significant amount of time. So what exactly are you asking for since Disney has already done what you proposed?

The only way to make the initial 7am drop last longer would be to actually turn it into a lottery where everyone is subject to computer timing which was exactly what you complained about in a prior post. Or they would have to make more drops during the day with much smaller numbers getting into each drop making people continually having to be on their phones even more for multiple attempts. The two drops does exactly what you propose while minimizing the need to have to keep trying multiple times during the day.

While the second drop is nice and it lasts longer, they should move it until 3 for the people who park hop. Or let you park hop at noon.

I truly don’t know what the answer is, but I agree it shouldn’t last a second either. Actually the answer is just getting rid of the VQ, but I understand others like it (just like I like genie+ and other hate it). That way you can choose to wait in a huge line, or get there first thing or last at night for lower waits.

 

[raidermatt]

Yeah, most families would rather wake up at 7 (a time when families with children are usually up anyway) versus standing in a 4 hour line. This poster is in the minority.

You would not have to stand in a 4 hour line, the ride would be available to book in G+. If you choose not to pay for G+, then that answers the question of why free VQ's always go away at some point.

That said, if most families would rather wake up early and get into the parks early, why are the parks so much more crowded later in the day and in the evening? The reason there is an advantage to arriving early (shorter lines) is because most people do not want to get up early and arrive early.

 

[Davey Jones II]

Um . . . they did. There are two VQ opening times for exactly that purpose. And the 1pm one lasts a significant amount of time. So what exactly are you asking for since Disney has already done what you proposed?

The only way to make the initial 7am drop last longer would be to actually turn it into a lottery where everyone is subject to computer timing which was exactly what you complained about in a prior post. Or they would have to make more drops during the day with much smaller numbers getting into each drop making people continually having to be on their phones even more for multiple attempts. The two drops does exactly what you propose while minimizing the need to have to keep trying multiple times during the day.

What does "significant" mean in this case? Are we naive enough to think that a brand new E Ticket will last longer than 1:00-1:01? Maybe that's significantly longer because the 7 a.m. drop will be gone in a second. Another sliver of time that will favor those who are faster/more experienced with smartphones, and with Disney's system. Unlike half the population today, I don't live on those gizmos.

Again, we will be there for ten days, plus a Halloween Party. And with this new system, it's very plausible that we won't get to ride even once. That would never happen under FP+/standby. I know because we always rode everything, even the first year a hot new ride opened. on all our previous trips. I intend to try to maximize the hell out of G+, ILL and VQ, even if it costs us thousands more for our vacation (it will, that I have no doubt). I do have tremendous doubts that this new tech boondoggle will be worthwhile and help us ride everything.

As a group of seven, we will be investing well north of 10K (staying at an All Star, not a deluxe) and twelve days to try to do (almost) everything that the parks have to offer. But, unlike in the past, we might get shafted out of the big new ride. I stand by my statement: that sucks. Call me old fashioned, but if a new ride is on offer at WDW, and you put in that kind of time and money at WDW, you should get to ride it at WDW. Why do repeat visitors like us (eight 9-10 day visits and counting) keep coming back? Primarily for the NEW STUFF.

After the trip, if I'm proven wrong, I'll be happy to eat crow on these boards. But if I'm proven right? I can just hear it now:

"stop bellyaching, you got a vacation"...
"you must've done something wrong"...
"the system didn't fail you, you failed the system"...
"we got to ride, I don't know what you did wrong"...

 

[PrincesCJM]

I'm very interested to see if Gotg will still be a VQ when Tron opens. I'm actually hoping that it's not on a VQ for the deluxe extra hours so that my oldest and I could, in theory, ride it several times that night.

 

[raidermatt]

Not particularly - it's still first come first serve. There is no systematic randomness to selecting it. You just want the method of first come first serve that fits you as opposed to the method that fits others. As others have pointed out - getting the VQ takes a few seconds so even if they only last 30 seconds you can get one. Especially at 1pm. This system gives more people a chance to ride without having to spoil half their day waiting on line. Some people get the short end of the stick under any system. You cannot name a system where everyone is happy. I can point out tons of types of people who are, as you say, SOL under a pure standby system for rides like Guardians. And saying "that's for them to decide" is not a valid response since it's based on the assumption that certain people should have priority over others due to their circumstances. All in all - the VQ saves many many people hours of time in line while offering a relative fair distribution of the daily available spaces. The number of people who can ride any ride each day is a fixed number - the hourly capacity of a ride is set. Changing how you determine who gets to ride doesn't allow more people to ride, it just shifts some of those slots from one group to another - and most complaints can be summed up as people who want slots shifted in a way to benefit them.

While I do not agree with every point the other poster is making, you are being overly dismissive of his overarching point. This is not his one opinion vs. thousands of others. The parks become much more crowded as the day goes on. This indicates there are still MANY people who are not interested in getting up early for booking things or arriving for EE/RD. There is not much point in debating the size of each group, but we do know neither is insignificant.

Further, VQs are always discontinued at some point, and often it happens when the ride is still extremely popular. So its clearly not the cut and dried situation many on this thread are making it out to be. Of course the situation is complicated by the fact that VQs are free, while G+ and paid LL's are not, which means VQs will always be removed before fans of them would like.

 

[Davey Jones II]

While I do not agree with every point the other poster is making, you are being overly dismissive of his overarching point. This is not his one opinion vs. thousands of others. The parks become much more crowded as the day goes on. This indicates there are still MANY people who are not interested in getting up early for booking things or arriving for EE/RD. There is not much point in debating the size of each group, but we do know neither is insignificant.

Further, VQs are always discontinued at some point, and often it happens when the ride is still extremely popular. So its clearly not the cut and dried situation many on this thread are making it out to be. Of course the situation is complicated by the fact that VQs are free, while G+ and paid LL's are not, which means VQs will always be removed before fans of them would like.

Right. Because THEY like to get up early and participate in the 7 a.m. smartphone wars and early entry, they're assuming that most Disney visitors are the same. That's simply not true. As you point out, many, many more people arrive at the parks later in the day, and thus were not awake at the crack of dawn.

 

[Davey Jones II]

I'm very interested to see if Gotg will still be a VQ when Tron opens. I'm actually hoping that it's not on a VQ for the deluxe extra hours so that my oldest and I could, in theory, ride it several times that night.

I have it on good authority that Guardians will be off the VQ, and finally get a standby line-- THANK GOODNESS! See, then I know for sure that we'll actually get to ride it!

I remember people posting that maybe ROTR will never get a standby line. Cuz, you know, it's just soo incredibly popular. But it has had one for a while, and it works.

FOP had a standby line from day one. Last time I checked, the earth did not fly off its axis.

 

[Dug720]

You would not have to stand in a 4 hour line, the ride would be available to book in G+

I'm not sure what they do with Rise since I have no interest in it, but I don't think it has G+ AND ILL - I think when the VQ went away they just went to stand-by and ILL.

 

[champagne&disney]

One of the major sites announced that Disney said GOTG will stay on a VQ alongside Tron.

I personally prefer this and am relieved - I love being able to ride 2x a day without a multi-hour wait. I’ve been able to get a slot every time I’ve tried and that 1pm drop stays open for a while for folks who want to be late starters to Epcot. (I used both options just last week!)

It is a luxury to estimate what time I’ll be called as I can go back to bed or eat breakfast at my hotel or go to the park and do other things. Whatever I want! Last week my 7am VQ slots were both in the 90s so they were called after 2pm - easy to relax in my room and not rush.

 

[Dug720]

One of the major sites announced that Disney said GOTG will stay on a VQ alongside Tron.

I personally prefer this and am relieved - I love being able to ride 2x a day without a multi-hour wait. I’ve been able to get a slot every time I’ve tried and that 1pm drop stays open for a while for folks who want to be late starters to Epcot. (I used both options just last week!)

It is a luxury to estimate what time I’ll be called as I can go back to bed or eat breakfast at my hotel or go to the park and do other things. Whatever I want! Last week my 7am VQ slots were both in the 90s so they were called after 2pm - easy to relax in my room and not rush.

Ugh. I mean, it's a clickbait site, so... (at least the one place I found it is uber clickbaity)

But really? After MDE crashed today without 2 VQs going they think this is a good idea??

Screen shot EVERYTHING when you're trying so that when it crashes you can go to Guest Services and show them how you were trying when the system crashed.

 

[parasail_of_congress]

One of the main reasons those hundreds, if not thousands, of families enjoy being up early is the parks are not nearly as crowded as they become later in the day and evening. Which of course means there are many families who do not want to be up early. If the true ratio were 1 to hundreds or thousands, then everyone would be up early and in the parks and they would not become some much more crowded later.

I think you might be misunderstanding my post or possibly how the VQ works. Currently for Cosmic Rewind, you don't have to be in the park to get a VQ spot. In fact, you can get a spot and then ultimately use it really anytime during the day. You can even get the VQ and go back to bed if you want.

Also, I never said anything about families enjoying being up early.

So yes, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people, who use the VQ daily and are not complaining (at least, not on this board) about it.

 

[scrappinginontario]

You would not have to stand in a 4 hour line, the ride would be available to book in G+. If you choose not to pay for G+, then that answers the question of why free VQ's always go away at some point.

Sorry but this is incorrect. When an attraction has ILL$, the only other option is standby. They do not offer G+ LL for ILL$ options. It would make it an extremely long SB line, hours long the majority of the time.

 

[scrappinginontario]

One of the major sites announced that Disney said GOTG will stay on a VQ alongside Tron.

I personally prefer this and am relieved - I love being able to ride 2x a day without a multi-hour wait. I’ve been able to get a slot every time I’ve tried and that 1pm drop stays open for a while for folks who want to be late starters to Epcot. (I used both options just last week!)

It is a luxury to estimate what time I’ll be called as I can go back to bed or eat breakfast at my hotel or go to the park and do other things. Whatever I want! Last week my 7am VQ slots were both in the 90s so they were called after 2pm - easy to relax in my room and not rush.

I have heard, from an insider, that GOTG will be getting a standby line as soon as Tron goes on the VQ. Great news, because I trust this "here one second, gone the next" VQ system about as far as I can throw it. We don't plan to be up at the crack of dawn.

I'm just praying that we can get ILL for Tron, at least once. But if that's gone in a flash, too, this system truly sucks. We'll be in WDW for ten park days, plus a Halloween Party. If we don't get to ride the new E Ticket even once during that span, then, IMHO, this system doesn't work.

Disney has not made any announcements yet and now we have 2 ‘reliable’ sources stating polar opposite information.

Until Disney makes their formal announcement, we don’t know.

 

[CanucksRock]

We rode Guardians multiple times in September by Hopping to the park after 1:45 with no issue getting a VQ. So for those claiming you need to get up early…you don’t.

 

[raidermatt]

I think you might be misunderstanding my post or possibly how the VQ works. Currently for Cosmic Rewind, you don't have to be in the park to get a VQ spot. In fact, you can get a spot and then ultimately use it really anytime during the day. You can even get the VQ and go back to bed if you want.

Also, I never said anything about families enjoying being up early.

So yes, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people, who use the VQ daily and are not complaining (at least, not on this board) about it.

If someone is going back to bead after the 7:00 VQ/G+/ILL sprint, they didin't want to be up in the first place but are only doing it because of the system in place. Also,, you have no control over your VQ return time, only an estimate that in my experience is nowhere near accurate. Many of those times will be in the morning, forcing these groups to head to the parks earlier than they wanted.

This is where I need to point out the number of people on these boards is a small fraction of the number of people visiting the parks. So extrapolating what is said, or not said, here is not going to match reality. Not even close. I make this point because I know the counter to my previous statement is Disney will let you into the VQ after your window. But most people do not know that because most people do not frequent boards like this.

And I never said there weren't hundreds, if not thousands, of people who use VC daily and are not complaining on these Boards. What I did say is there are MANY people who don't want to get up before 7:00 to play roulette on their phone. And if we are being realistic, there are more of these people than people who enjoy it. If you can't acknowledge that fact, there really isn't any point in continuing.

 

[nalabear]

What does "significant" mean in this case? Are we naive enough to think that a brand new E Ticket will last longer than 1:00-1:01? Maybe that's significantly longer because the 7 a.m. drop will be gone in a second. Another sliver of time that will favor those who are faster/more experienced with smartphones, and with Disney's system. Unlike half the population today, I don't live on those gizmos.

Again, we will be there for ten days, plus a Halloween Party. And with this new system, it's very plausible that we won't get to ride even once. That would never happen under FP+/standby. I know because we always rode everything, even the first year a hot new ride opened. on all our previous trips. I intend to try to maximize the hell out of G+, ILL and VQ, even if it costs us thousands more for our vacation (it will, that I have no doubt). I do have tremendous doubts that this new tech boondoggle will be worthwhile and help us ride everything.

As a group of seven, we will be investing well north of 10K (staying at an All Star, not a deluxe) and twelve days to try to do (almost) everything that the parks have to offer. But, unlike in the past, we might get shafted out of the big new ride. I stand by my statement: that sucks. Call me old fashioned, but if a new ride is on offer at WDW, and you put in that kind of time and money at WDW, you should get to ride it at WDW. Why do repeat visitors like us (eight 9-10 day visits and counting) keep coming back? Primarily for the NEW STUFF.

After the trip, if I'm proven wrong, I'll be happy to eat crow on these boards. But if I'm proven right? I can just hear it now:

"stop bellyaching, you got a vacation"...
"you must've done something wrong"...
"the system didn't fail you, you failed the system"...
"we got to ride, I don't know what you did wrong"...

If you intend to use G+,and ILL- you'll have absolutely no issue in getting onto all your rides; including Guardians.

FYI: Guardians 1pm last over 2 hours today. If someone in your group of seven is unable to grab that or find a guest service CM to assist during that time; or heck, any random teenager in the park to help, that is some black cloud you travel with over the 10 days.

Worst case; if you're having that serious troubles, Message me on your epcot day and I'll jump on your MDE to grab your VQ at 1pm.

 

[raidermatt]

Sorry but this is incorrect. When an attraction has ILL$, the only other option is standby. They do not offer G+ LL for ILL$ options. It would make it an extremely long SB line, hours long the majority of the time.

You are correct, I was wrong. Last trip was last summer and I should have thought that through before I said it.

As you state, this is what keeps the standby lines reasonable when the free VQ inevitably goes away.

 

[DavidNYC]

Right. Because THEY like to get up early and participate in the 7 a.m. smartphone wars and early entry, they're assuming that most Disney visitors are the same. That's simply not true. As you point out, many, many more people arrive at the parks later in the day, and thus were not awake at the crack of dawn.

You're still missing the point. Your whole argument boils down to "but I want it to be the way I want so I don't have to get up at 7am". I'd prefer not to get up at 7am either - I never said I liked getting up then. But you take that preference and then use it to try to prove the system is flawed. But it is in no way flawed - it's just a matter of you not liking it. Again - you don't have to get up at 7am - you can get the 1pm drop of the VQ if you want. You stated you wanted a way to not have to get up at 7am and I pointed out Disney already has that way. But you dismissed it because you seem to want not 7am but not as late at 1pm . . . basically - you want something tailored to you.

While I don't like getting up at 7am - I much prefer that to having to stand in line for 2-3 hours which it what Guardians would have been a good portion of the time since opening. There is literally no system you can devise where I couldn't give you your arguments right back at you as to how inconvenient it is for a whole lot of people.