Walt Disney World has announced that the virtual queue for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure will end on January 10th and the ride will move to a standby queue. This change will come on the heels of the holiday season and marathon weekend crowds leaving. In this post, we’ll cover the the news before we add in our commentary.

First, the announcement from the Disney Parks Blog:

“Guests may experience Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure using a standby queue instead of a virtual queue beginning Jan. 10, 2022. With this change, Epcot will end the use of virtual queue for now for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. Guests also have the opportunity to purchase access to a Lightning Lane queue at this attraction. 

Virtual queues continue to be helpful with the launch of popular attractions and the debut of new experiences and offerings, so we may use it again from time to time for select attractions in the future.”  

There’s more to the post but it mainly has to do with Disney Genie, the new app service used in Disney Parks, and doesn’t seem all that relevant. I guess the relevance does come in the form of the new attraction does take part in Lightning Lane, the paid service to skip part of the line at attractions. We don’t have our full Disney Genie review out yet, or Genie+ in this case, but we do not recommend paying extra for this attraction.

At this point, there are no more virtual queues in any Disney Park stateside. That will likely change in the future when something new debuts but there aren’t any active at this time. I’m of two minds on this. On one hand, I do think that the virtual queue can overcrowd the rest of the park as it’s taking away any potential capacity with guests being in two lines at once. In a similar vein, the cynical part of me thinks that virtual queues will come back once Disney figures out how to run Lightning Lane in correspondence with a virtual queue.

I could be off base with that assertion. To their credit, Disney World did keep the virtual queue up through the busiest time of year when they probably could have banked a good amount of money from people paying to skip the line at Remy’s. Running a Lightning Lane along with a virtual queue doesn’t make a lot of sense as they are essentially doing the same thing.

All that said, I do like virtual queues and it can clean up the park experience. It worked wonders when Rise of the Resistance debuted, despite some being angry with the way it was implemented. Those that took part in the virtual queue saved literal hours in their park day thanks to that system. There were certainly flaws in the system but I hope virtual queues will be used in the future when an attraction debuts until the madness subsides.

As for this specific attraction and how to adapt to a standby queue, our strategy will remain the same as other marquee attractions – be there for park opening or do it as the last ride of the night. That is the way to avoid lines at every ride in the park but that is exacerbated on the marquee rides.

What makes Epcot unique in this aspect is that the nighttime spectacular, Harmonious, generally plays at park closing time. Even after factoring in my disdain for that giant alien spaceship in the middle of World Showcase Lagoon and the lack of vision the show has, you should see it. The fireworks in the show are wonderful and there are some Disney bops that will have you, at worst, tapping your foot or, at best, full on raving. Depending on how crowded Epcot is that day, you’ll want to stake out a spot for the show half hour to an hour before it begins. That gets in the way of ride time!

There are days where the park is open after Harmonious. If that’s the case, then that would be the best time to go. If not, and you didn’t go at park opening, I’d recommend getting in line for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure about an hour and a half before Harmonious. That should give you plenty of time for both unless it’s just absolute chaos.

I’m curious how this will affect Epcot as a whole. While we weren’t blown away by the attraction, I do think it’s in the top 5 of Epcot’s attractions. If I had to guess, and clearly that’s what this whole blogging thing is about, I think the ride will end up having a similar wait time to Frozen Ever After. Frozen has a bigger following and lower capacity so it may settle in below that but this attraction is better. I think waiting for over an hour probably isn’t worth your time but if you go early or late that shouldn’t be an issue!

What do you think of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure switching to a standby queue? Let us know what thoughts you have, along with any questions, in the comments below. If you are planning a trip to Disney World, then check out our planning guide. If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. You can do all of that on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!