Some of the most popular rides in Disney World don’t have a standby line AT ALL. So HOW can you ride them?

The answer is virtual queues! For TRON Lightcycle / Run and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, you cannot physically stand in line — you must either use the virtual queue or purchase an Individual Lightning Lane. If you’re going to go with the FREE option (the virtual queue), there are four important rules that you need to know!

First, let’s go over the basics of virtual queues, and then we’ll get to the rules.

What Is a Virtual Queue and Where Do I Use Them?

Disney World uses virtual queues to manage high demand for super popular rides and experiences. Basically, you’ll join a queue on the My Disney Experience app instead of actually standing in line in person.

When you join a virtual queue, you’re virtually reserving your space in line, and that reserved space is referred to as a boarding pass, which is used within an assigned boarding group. So you might be assigned boarding group 72, and you’ll be called back to go to the ride as part of boarding group 70-79.

If a ride has a virtual queue, that means there is NOT a traditional standby line. Getting that boarding group is super important!

You can only get in a certain ride’s virtual queue ONCE. You can get in the virtual queue for multiple rides, but not twice for the same ride. You can also only be in one virtual queue at a time; for example, you couldn’t be in both the TRON virtual queue and the Cosmic Rewind virtual queue at the same time. You have to wait until you’ve ridden one to book the other.

Currently, only Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at EPCOT and TRON Lightcycle / Run at Magic Kingdom use virtual queues, but we have also seen virtual queues used for seasonal offerings, such as runDisney Race Weekend merchandise at the Fitness Expo and other select merchandise events, and even Meet-and-Greets with Santa Claus during the Holiday Season!

How To Use Virtual Queues

First, make sure you’ve got your account set up on the My Disney Experience app. You must have your admission tickets linked on the app (along with park pass reservations if you don’t have a date-based ticket), and make sure you’re linked to any family and friends who are visiting at the same time and want to join the virtual queue together with you.

There’s a very important step you should take BEFORE it’s time to join the virtual queue. Up to an hour before the virtual queue opens, you can confirm your party in the app. This will make things go faster when it’s time to join!

Starting at 6AM, you can go to the virtual queue section in the My Disney Experience app and confirm your party so that you don’t have to worry about that when the virtual queues open at 7AM and 1PM. You’ll pick the ride you want, click “join virtual queue,” and then click “confirm your party.”

At this point, you can choose from the list of family and friends who are linked to your account. Make your selections and then click “confirm party.”

The first virtual queues open at exactly 7AM EST. You do NOT have to be inside the park to join the 7AM queues. Click the “join virtual queue” button on the home screen of the app. (Or, if you’ve already confirmed your party, you can just refresh that screen.)

You’ll be directed to answer a few questions, and then you can join the queue and secure your boarding pass. Boarding passes often run out in under a minute, so make sure you’re ready to join at EXACTLY 7AM. The app will let you know right away if you’ve successfully joined the virtual queue, and it will tell you your assigned boarding pass number.

Throughout the day, you can check to see which groups are currently boarding so you get a better idea of when your group might be called back to go on the ride. You will get a push notification from the app once your group is called, as long as you’ve enabled notifications for the My Disney Experience app. You might also see an estimated return time on the app.

Once your boarding group is called, you will have one hour to return to the attraction. Disney is sometimes very strict about those return times, so make sure you have a plan to be on time. Keep in mind that you will still have to wait in line once you return with your boarding pass — that line will be made up of everyone in your boarding group and can still take about an hour or even more on particularly busy days.

If the 7AM virtual queue fills up too quickly for you to grab a spot, try again at 1PM. Additional virtual queue spots open at that time, but you must be INSIDE the park to join this virtual queue. For Cosmic Rewind, you must be inside EPCOT, and for TRON, you must be inside Magic Kingdom.

Here’s a bonus tip! Virtual queues open at 7AM and 1PM for all guests, but there’s a THIRD opportunity for any guests who are eligible to attend Extended Evening Hours on select dates in EPCOT and Magic Kingdom. This third virtual queue opens at 6PM, and you do NOT have to be inside the right park in order to join.

So, to sum up, you DO have to be inside the correct park to join the 1PM virtual queues, but you DON’T have to be inside the park for the 7AM or 6PM virtual queues.

If the virtual queues don’t work out for you or if it just sounds too stressful, you can purchase an Individual Lightning Lane through Disney Genie+. This is a pay-per-ride service that allows you to bypass the virtual queue line and enter the Lightning Lane instead. This system secures your spot and gets you on the ride faster than the virtual queue does, but unlike the virtual queue, it is not free.

Click here to learn more about Individual Lightning Lanes and how to use them.

4 Important Rules for Virtual Queues

Now that you’ve got the basics down, here are some of the most important RULES about virtual queues:

You Must Have Your Tickets Linked in the App to Join the Queue

To join a virtual queue, your information must be up to date in the My Disney Experience app. You can link your own tickets by logging into your My Disney Experience account on the app and then opening the menu by clicking the three stacked horizontal lines in the bottom right-hand corner.

From there, click “Tickets and Passes,” and then click “Link Tickets and Passes” (in the upper right-hand corner). Enter the ticket ID code from the confirmation email (which you should’ve received at the time of your purchase), click submit, and you’re good to go.

You must also be linked to any other people in your group who want to join the virtual queue with you. To do this, go to the main menu (those three stacked horizontal lines), scroll past the tiles, and click “My Profile.” Click “Family and Friends List” at the top, and this will pull up a list of people who are on your list already.

You can click “Add a Guest” at the bottom of that list and then either find their name, enter their name or age, or scan their linking code. Linking codes are found under “My Profile” at the bottom of that main menu.

You Must Be INSIDE the Park for the 1PM Virtual Queues

Of the three possible virtual queues at 7AM, 1PM, and 6PM (that 6PM one is only open to guests who qualify to attend Extended Evening Hours), the only one that requires you to be INSIDE the park in order to join is the 1PM queue.

For the 7AM queue, you can join from your hotel room or anywhere else, and the same goes for the 6PM one. For the 1PM queue, you must be physically inside the correct park, meaning you’ve scanned in at the entrance.

For the Cosmic Rewind queue, you must be in EPCOT, and for the TRON Lightcycle / Run queue, you must be in Magic Kingdom.

You Can Only Be in ONE Ride Virtual Queue at a Time

Although two popular rides have virtual queues in Disney World, you can only be in one queue at a time. You’ll have to choose either TRON or Cosmic Rewind to prioritize in the morning. You can get in more than one virtual queue in a day, but you can’t join the second one if you’re still in the first one.

So, if you get in the TRON virtual queue in the morning and get called back and ride the attraction before 1PM, you could hop over to EPCOT and join the 1PM virtual queue for Cosmic Rewind (don’t forget you have to physically be inside EPCOT to join at 1PM!).

However, if you join the TRON virtual queue at 7AM but don’t get called back by 1PM (so you’re still waiting in the virtual queue), you won’t be able to join the Cosmic Rewind virtual queue until after you’ve ridden TRON.

You CAN hold multiple boarding groups if one of them is for a non-ride experience. Disney sometimes has virtual queues for merchandise events, so when something like that is available, you could be in one ride virtual queue and one merchandise virtual queue at the same time.

You Must Be ON TIME When Returning Once Your Group Is Called

This is probably the most important rule when it comes to virtual queues. When your boarding group is called, you’ll have one hour to get back to the attraction to ride it. Seriously, make sure you’re on time!

If you’re a little bit late, you should still ask if it’s possible for you to get on the ride, and they might let you in, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll be let in if your return window has expired. The only way to make sure you get on is to be there on time.

So if you’re in a virtual queue, keep an eye on the updates in the app and plan to be close by when your group is called. An hour is enough time to get just about anywhere inside one individual park, but you won’t want to be all the way over in Animal Kingdom when your TRON group is called in Magic Kingdom — You likely just won’t have enough time to get back when you factor in the time it takes to wait for a bus, ride over, get through the entrance, and walk to the ride.

This can be kind of tricky because, when you join the virtual queue, you don’t get to know exactly when your boarding group will be called. Disney doesn’t give you a specific time because they don’t know exactly how long it’ll take either, but you can estimate based on which groups are being called at any given moment.

I have canceled dining reservations before when I thought it would be cutting it too close to my virtual queue call time because I wanted to prioritize the ride over the meal and didn’t want to miss my chance to ride. For that reason, I usually don’t make dining reservations in the middle of the day when I know I want to be in a virtual queue that same day. So when I want to ride TRON, I’ll make a dining reservation for later in the evening instead of lunchtime so that my availability is open for most of the day, just in case the virtual queue callback time is right around when my lunch dining reservation would’ve been.

The only way to schedule a specific time for Cosmic Rewind or TRON is to purchase an Individual Lightning Lane instead of getting in the free virtual queue. For those Lightning Lanes, you get to pick your return time.

Stay tuned to DFB for more updates on the latest news and tips for planning your next vacation!

Click here to learn about Lightning Lanes in Disney World.

Do you use virtual queues in Disney World? Let us know what you think of them in the comments!