A new queue operation has been seen testing at Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind in EPCOT, though it was removed later in the day as the park got more crowded.

Altered Standby Queue Experience

On the morning of September 28, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind was seen briefly testing an alternate system to the usual standby queue experience. The test was likely only temporary, as it was already gone when we returned to the attraction later in the afternoon.

In the first of a few changes, Cast Members had added stanchions in the first two pre-show rooms leading up to the attraction loading area.

In the first room, where both the standby and Lightning Lane guests are typically combined into a single group, a stanchion line had been placed down the middle of the room. The stanchions divided the space between the left and right hand sides.

The stanchion line only ran about halfway down the room, so it did not hit the doors on either side. In our line experience, Cast Members directed Lighting Lane guests to the right side and standby users to the left. Once the Lightning Lane queue was empty, standby was allowed to fill in the remaining space to the right.

When guests moved into the next pre-show room, everyone was told to stay on their respective side of the space, with all standby guests on the left side and mostly Lightning Lane guests to the right. Again, stanchions were set up from the front to about mid-way across the floor. Guests were asked to remain on their designated side and watch the preshow as normal.

Once the doors opened to the transport station, Cast Members directed guests on the right to begin filling up the room first; however, they were not lined up particularly close to the doors that open to the next hallway. By the time everyone was loaded into the next room, there did not appear to be a specific Lightning Lane advantage.

Once the walls came up during the pre-show, everyone was allowed to move about as normal. Notably, the middle set of exit doors were labeled with an “out-of-service” sign. This could be intentional to further control the crowd flow, or it could have been a totally unrelated maintenance issue.

Although the testing had ended by our later visit, the middle set of doors was still labeled out-of-service, hinting that it was unrelated to the test.

We do not know if these new measures are being tested to give guests with Individual Lightning Lanes an advantage, or to limit the amount of crowding and rushing that typically occurs from room to room. If it is the former, we personally didn’t notice any particular advantage for Lightning Lane guests, since they were not dramatically closer to the doors. However, we did notice there was a bit less shoving to get by particular sides of each room, so crowd control is a possible answer.

WDWNT will check back later to see if this type of queue separation continues to get tested, or if this was just a one-day trial.

In February of this year, stanchions were added to the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind queue located just outside of the last pre-show room shortly before the attraction’s standby line debuted.

You can watch our full Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind POV below, which includes a detailed look at the queue.

What do you think of these queue changes? Let us know in the comments and on social media.

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