Last year, Universal Orlando announced that its upcoming Volcano Bay park would feature no standby queues for its water rides. Instead, all boarding would come from virtual queues. When the park opens May 25, visitors will claim return times on rides by using a wearable device, called a TapuTapu, to "tap" into each ride's entrance to claim their place in "line." Think of it as a virtual Fastpass system, but with no app and no standby queues.
Today, Disney started testing its own virtual queue system at Blizzard Beach. It doesn't use Disney's MagicBands or My Disney Experience app. And instead of using a wearable device like TapuTapu, visitors just get a card with a printed return time to wear around their wrist. From the Orlando Sentinel's report, it also appears that the virtual queue is being offered as an option to the traditional stand-by queue, so this really seems a bit more like Fastpass 1.0 with wristbands and a narrower return window (15 minutes) than a true copy of Universal's new system.
But it's a test. The new system launched with the Downhill Double Dipper slide today and may expand to other slides at Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon over the next few weeks, according to the Sentinel. The test is expected to conclude sometime in April.
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I'm not sure if i'm looking forward to it or dreading it.
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Disney, why did you invest all that money to go back to 2010 standard practice?????
Love the Magicband for paying and hotel key, but rides, NO THANK YOU!
Until you implant chips into my body, this isn't any better than what is available now!