Since it was announced at the D23 Expo 2017, very little has been said about the Guardians of the Galaxy attraction coming to Epcot, other than that it will be a roller coaster ride. Well, thanks to some internal documents, we now have a better idea of what this attraction will be like…
Guests will enter where they once did, but this doorway will now take them into the Welcome Gallery. This area consists of ramps leading upwards towards the next part of the queue. The building appears to be on multiple levels, with guests climbing upwards as the queue progresses to reach the elevated load platform for the roller coaster.
The second queue room is the Xandar Gallery, likely to feature relics from the Xandarian culture (prominently featured in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie). This then leads the the merge point and the first pre-show, labeled in documents as “singularity”. You may recall that the Infinity Stones are referred to as singularities by The Collector in the first Guardians film. They are also a source of energy (wink, nudge). Regardless, we’re just speculating that the Infinity Stones will be the connection here, but something completely different could be happening in this room.
The secondary pre-show, the transformation room, is what you see above. There will be two of these for added capacity. Inside, some sort of transformation will take place for guests involving the red cannon-like device above Rocket Raccoon and Groot. The characters and the Milano ship will be projections. The attraction does not appear to have any audio-animatronic characters.
After this, guests then head down a hallway and upstairs to the load area. The attractions features a dual-load and unload, meaning two trains at a time. Coaster trains for the ride feature 5 cars that hold four guests each with a two-by-two seating configuration. In case you don’t want to do math, that means a train can hold 20 guests.
After loading and being dispatched, the trains take a quick trip around the load area and head into the launch tunnel, where they are then shot into the added building behind the old Universe of Energy. This building is 133 feet tall, so 12.2 stories in height. To our surprise, the coaster itself has no inversions and appears to be fairly family friendly. Think of it as a modern take on Space Mountain. The track layout consists of many tight turns and long straightaways that will likely be accented with projection effects. It’s hard to tell in the documents if there will be any physical show scenes, but there really doesn’t appear to be, other than some abstract lighted walls that the trains pass through at a few points in the ride. After the lengthy coaster ride, the trains travel back to the old building and unload station, allowing guests to go downstairs and exit through a store and out the right side of the facade.
Details of the storyline and what exactly is going on in this attraction are scarce, but the layout and ride specifications shared above are confirmed to be accurate.
Disney has still not set an opening date for the Guardians of the Galaxy roller coaster at Epcot.
Awesome! I love Guardians of the Galaxy in Epcot it will be awesome biggest fan like me! And I hope it will have a gift shop in the exit to the ride!
Based on what we saw, there doesn’t appear to be, but it could have just been hard to see.
No gift shop!!! I highly doubt it! It’s still Disney ????
Universe of Energy lacked a gift shop, so did basically every other EPCOT Pavilion when they opened
Yes, but NOW a days under Bob Iger, guests don’t matter. Only their money does! This is the first significant ‘anything’ at epcot in more than a decade. And it’s further departure to just put in rides that will promote movies. It’s all for advertising. Not your experience. There will be a gift shop. Guaranteed. More important than the ride!
In the totally wrong park — it belongs in DHS. EPCOT’s Future World is supposed to be about science, not science fiction.
Dual load and unload, but does this mean no dual tracks? Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom has dual tracks. Perhaps the 20 person train makes up for increased capacity since each Space Mountain car hold 8 persons in 2 tracks. Using math, that’s a 125% capacity improvement (20 / 16).
Dual load and unload like Thunder Mountain, California Screamin’ (DCA), and (soon to be) Tron, but one single track… remember that Tron only seats 14 per train, but they launch trains pretty frequently. I’m guessing this will be the same way…
I’m still excited about it but a little bummed that there don’t seem to be any AA figures. The ride design doesn’t sound too interesting either. Do we really think it’s just a modern space mountain with some walls and lighting effects? I guess we’ll have to wait for more info.
Agree with you Kyle. I really hope it’s not just a “twist” on an existing type of coaster. And I know that Epcot (and WDW) is a “family” place in general, but the last two coasters (Minetrain and Slinky Dog) are “family friendly” coasters… hoping for something with a little more excitement to it.
does anybody know why they are not using the wonders of life pavilion? It’s current use is just a waste of space.
From what I’ve heard, the Wonders of Life pavilion makes Disney a ton of money for special events.
You mentioned a track layout. Have you seen it? Is it somewhere online?
If only they could just clone an existing Rocket animatronic for this queue, but of course such a thing does not and could not ever exist. Impossible, I tell you!
Screens, we can do it with SCREENS… ;-)
I hope it isn’t just projections… I’m a nostalgic sucker for physical show scenes. A good example of making me think an attraction is competent with physical is Mission Breakout at DCA. Yes, the ride is all projections, but it (partially) redeems itself in my eyes with the Rocket animatronic.
How do you get this information? It seems proprietary.