Epcot Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind opening

I get a little motion sick on Space Mountain because it's so dark. At least this has lit up screens to light the way a bit. Though I wonder if that contrast between light and dark makes it worse?

I wonder if the ride films use the same motion perspective trick that Spider-man at IOA introduced? If it does, it's going to be naturally off sometimes because each train is going to have a different weight, and move at a slightly different speed each time, creating a difference between what is seen and what is felt in the inner ear, which will, you know, cause some people to get sick. Just a thought.

The ride doesn’t use 3D glasses, so squinching is not needed.

I'm not talking about 3-D glasses. I'm talking about the way the way the perspective in the film changes according to the predicted motion of the ride vehicle.

I could be totally off though. Recalling the POV I watched of the ride, I don't remember seeing any scenes that would use that effect.

I don't recall there being much trickery with the screens -- it's pretty obvious that you're on a coaster track with some videos playing in the background. (Not to discount the effects because it is very well done.)

Today is the official opening day for Guardians. I had an Epcot reservation so I woke up to try and get a Boarding Group in the Virtual Queue. Boarding Group Reservations opened at 7:00am, and they were gone before 7:00:03. I didn't get one. The Individual Lightning Lane purchases also apparently sold out prior to even being released for anyone not staying at an on property resort.

Guardians Virtual Queue Fills In 3 Seconds

A college thesis style instruction manual on how to (maybe) have a chance to ride the popular new ride at Disney World

Universal for the social media win once again

I imagine you're not the only one trying to get on it for opening day.

I have a little bit of a trick about how to get into the Guardians VQ (and rare ILL's and G+'s) consistently, but I don't want to publicly blast it. PM me if you're interested.

Don't use the park wifi is the first part when trying to get something via the app. Or do you not have to be in the park anymore?

For the 7am drop you don't have to be in. I did it from bed and was asleep again by 7:02. The 1pm drop requires you to be in park.

BrettV said:

I didn't get one.

Sucks.

Jeff said:

I imagine you're not the only one trying to get on it for opening day.

No, but if the only option is to play "fastest finger" and your margin of error is literally a fraction of a second, there are bound to be some unhappy tourists. I think VQ is great and also think they could (and should) charge way more for Genie+ and Lightning Lane. But I also think there should be a standby option for those willing to stand in it.

BrettV said:DA

But I also think there should be a standby option for those willing to stand in it.

People in a 3 hour (who am I kidding, it would be 10 hours) line don't buy stuff. It also becomes too difficult to manage (cue all the people who have to pee, need water, need to pee again, or who have a DAS pass, etc.)

There's no winning solution for the hottest ticket in the Theme Park world, so the best worst option is to do VQ until such time that a standby line self levels at under 2 hours.

I think the goal is to avoid the 10 hour Hagrid line “at all costs.” It was especially important for Rise which breaks down all the time, but I think it still makes sense for newer rides that are high demand and would command multiple hour lines.

From what I am reading Day 1 has been a great day operations wise. Apparently they already have gotten close to cycling through all of the 7am Boarding Groups. I guess this thing is a capacity machine. Which bodes well for additional groups and/or a short lived Virtual Queue only experience.

It's absolutely well designed, and most of the blocks were not immediately obvious to me. It's so good.

BrettV said:

I guess this thing is a capacity machine.

or they could have released very few boarding groups at 7:00, which magically took them to just after 1:00 PM ET for the second tranche. No way to honestly judge.

I will bet that the data nerds at e.g. TouringPlans will be counting people leaving the attraction to get a sense for real-world hourly capacity once it is on firm footing.

You don't need to nerd very hard. We saw trains dispatching as fast as every 30 seconds, which is 2,400/hr. Even if it was every 45 seconds, that's 1,600.

With dual stations, they need to dispatch a train every minute on each side. They park super fast, and each of four operators has to visually see 5 people push up on their lap bar. It's totally doable.

My family is heading to WDW this week, so we plan to make an effort to ride Guardians. We are complete Disney noobs, although we have been doing a lot of research in the last few months.

ApolloAndy, I sent you a PM (not sure it went thru or not). I'll take all the advice I can get. =)