Credit: Dave & Margie Hill / Kleerup, FlickrWalt Disney World Resort is quietly running very limited tests for a new queue system for Space Mountain, the indoor roller coaster in Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom Park. Here’s what Central Florida Disney Park guests need to know about the potential update to the 51-year-old attraction.
Testing at Space Mountain
On Wednesday, BlogMickey reported that Walt Disney World Resort is testing a potential single-rider line for Space Mountain. This isn’t the first time Disney has tested this feature for the Magic Kingdom Park attraction, but they appear to be trying a different system than in previous trial runs.
Typically, to avoid leaving any seats empty, Disney cast members walk past the first few dozen people in line and ask if anyone is riding solo, then pull them out of the queue. This makes for an “unofficial” single-rider system–solo riders board slightly faster, but don’t skip most of the wait.
But under the single-rider queue Walt Disney World Resort is currently testing, anyone traveling alone or willing to be separated from their party would save a lot more time.
According to BlogMickey, Walt Disney World Resort ran the test for only a few hours on Tuesday morning. There was no signage for the single-rider line, but Disney cast members at the Space Mountain entrance told guests one was available. Solo travelers or parties willing to be separated were told to speak with cast members at the Lightning Lane entrance.
At the Lightning Lane entrance, Disney cast members confirmed that parties of more than one were comfortable being split. Then they sent the single riders into the Lightning Lane queue and told them to inform the next Disney cast member they encountered that they were single riders.
Once guests arrived at the merge point between the Lightning Lane and standby queues, they informed the Disney cast member stationed there that they were single riders. From there, they were sent down a separate queue on the Omega side of the Space Mountain loading area.
There is no way for single riders to sneak into the Lightning Lane queue and ride together, because guests with paid Lightning Lane passes must scan their MagicBand, park ticket, or smart device at the merge point.
The Omega side of Space Mountain was exclusively being used for Lightning Lane guests, while the Alpha side was reserved for standby guests. During the test, single riders were used to supplement empty seats on the Lightning Lane side only.
Walt Disney World Resort hasn’t announced plans to continue testing a Space Mountain single-rider line. An official version of this system could clog up the Lightning Lane queue, so Disney would probably have to reconfigure the attraction queue before implementing anything permanently. It’s unclear whether any tests of this single-rider line are planned for the future.
Single-Rider Lines at Walt Disney World Resort
If Disney elects to make this single-rider line permanent, Space Mountain would become one of the few attractions at the Central Florida Disney parks with a separate queue for guests who are comfortable riding solo.
Others include Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park, Test Track and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure at EPCOT, and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith and Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Several other Walt Disney World Resort attractions were built with single-rider lines in mind, but have yet to be implemented permanently. Disney cast members occasionally open a single-rider line for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but the queue system hasn’t become permanent.
The queue for Avatar Flight of Passage at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park was designed to support a single-rider line, but Disney has never added one.
How would you run a single-rider line for Space Mountain at the Magic Kingdom? Share your ideas with Inside the Magic in the comments!