TRON Lightcycle Run is switching to standby, and the option to join a regular line will have huge ramifications on park strategy and itineraries for Magic Kingdom. This post covers when to do & avoid the roller coaster, with recommendations for Early Entry, rope drop, midday, ExEH, End of Line, and more.
In case you missed it, Walt Disney World announced that starting September 9, 2024, a standby queue will be available at TRON Lightcycle Run. A virtual queue will be in place for TRON Lightcycle Run from now through September 8, 2024.
This is the first time since Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure that a major new ride dropped its virtual queue. Obviously, this means major changes for how to approach TRON Lightcycle Run as well as other headliners in Magic Kingdom. The purpose of this post is providing tentative strategy, zig when they zag advice, etc.
For starters, we want to warn you. TRON Lightcycle Run is dropping its virtual queue in the heart of Walt Disney World’s off-season. Earlier this week, our latest wait times report covered the Lowest Crowd Level Month & Week at Walt Disney World Since 2021! Although it should be evident from the title alone, the parks are really slow right now.
That’s not going to change by September 9. But at the same time, there’s an ever-growing number of locals who want to be the first to experience anything, and that’ll include TRON’s standby line, for whatever reason. So that creates this weird dynamic where reporting on this switch will largely happen during the off-season, but also as high-knowledge locals rush to experience it for the first time.
What I’m saying is that day 1 of TRON Lightcycle Run’s standby line will be nothing like day 8, which will be nothing like week 8. Because of this, I have zero intentions of testing any strategy or publishing field reports for TRON Lightcycle Run’s standby line until the dust settles. The outcomes from September simply won’t be reliable for the holiday season or 2025. Instead, I’ll be waiting until mid-October and November, at which point I’d expect more representative results.
The good news, I guess, is that I spend way too much time doing and thinking about this stuff and already have a fairly good idea of how TRON Lightcycle Run’s standby line will play out. Here’s a rundown…
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure – The most obvious and immediate impact of TRON Lightcycle Run dropping its virtual queue is that the already competitive Tiana’s Bayou Adventure VQ becomes even more challenging.
We highly, highly recommend being up at 7 am for the first drop. Yes, there are times when the afternoon entry time is much easier and stays open for minutes or hours. But there are also times when TBA doesn’t open at all for the day until afternoon, and like 17 people total are able to join the 1 pm VQ. Gamble on this at your own risk.
Early Entry – Before Magic Kingdom officially opens for the day, there’s Early Entry, which is offers 30-minute access to guests staying in on-site hotels at Walt Disney World. (See our Guide to Early Entry at Walt Disney World for more info & strategy.)
Magic Kingdom usually opens at 9 am, which puts Early Entry at 8:30 am. Magic Kingdom is the most popular park at Walt Disney World, and this 8:30 start time does not present a ‘barrier to entry’ for most people. This means MK has the biggest crowds for Early Entry, rendering the perk practically useless for the most popular ride–up until now, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
Compounding this problem is the fact that, during Early Entry at Magic Kingdom, only Tomorrowland and Fantasyland are open, rather than the entire park. This consolidates the (larger) crowd to two lands of the entire park. It should go without saying, but more people and fewer rides is a recipe for larger crowds and longer lines.
To that point, there are two “starting points” at Magic Kingdom where crowds are held until Early Entry officially begins–the bridges to Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. Typically, there are exponentially more guests waiting on the Fantasyland Bridge–I’d say about 90% to 10% of the entire crowd (it’s really that imbalanced). And approximately 90% of that 90% are planning on doing Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
For now, it appears that TRON Lightcycle Run will not be open for Early Entry despite being located in Tomorrowland. My guess/hope/wishful thinking is that this will change, and soon. That Walt Disney World scrambled to make the virtual queue change (suggested by the less than a week between announcement and implementation) due to guest complaints about Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and TRON Lightcycle Run both using virtual queues. That they simply don’t have the Cast Members scheduled to open TRON during Early Entry, but that will change.
Regardless of whether that’s true, TRON Lightcycle Run will absolutely change the dynamic during Early Entry. This will happen even if it’s not operating! That’s because TRON Lightcycle Run will be the #1 priority for many guests, and there’s the realization that 30 minutes isn’t enough time to do both Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and be at the front of the pack for TRON. So right off the bat, that 90% number is dropping to 75%, perhaps less.
The biggest impact in the near-term is a slightly larger crowd for Space Mountain. On normal day, it is possible to be in and out of Space Mountain in under 30 minutes during Early Entry (our average is about 15 minutes–it takes a bit to walk the queue), so we’d expect that to inch up with more people heading this way. But in all likelihood, a lot of guests aren’t going to do anything during Early Entry. Paradoxically, they’re going to race to Tomorrowland to do nothing but rope drop TRON. (“Hurry up and wait” as my military-man father loves to say.)
We know this because we’ve witnessed precisely this behavior with Radiator Springs Racers in Cars Land at DCA during its Early Entry. A lot of guests make no effort to do anything–or even arrive at or before the start of Early Entry. They simply stroll up around 15 minutes into the perk, head to Cars Land, and wait. It might seem like a waste, but it’s honestly sound strategy–and it’ll undoubtedly be replicated at TRON Lightcycle Run if the ride isn’t open for Early Entry in the longer term.
If or when TRON Lightcycle Run does operate during Early Entry, we’d expect closer to a 50/50 mix. Despite TRON being the newer attraction, there’s a floor under Seven Dwarfs Mine Train by virtue of its more family-friendly nature and the target demographic of Magic Kingdom. Meaning that many guests simply cannot or will not do TRON, so they’ll stick with SDMT. Still, everyone wins in such a scenario. Spreading out the crowd should make the dreaded SDMT Shuffle a little less unbearable–guess I’ll have to come up with a new “clever” name for it.
Rope Drop – Otherwise known as official park opening time, when a rope is dropped allowing regular guests to access all the lands of Magic Kingdom, rope drop (obviously) occurs after Early Entry. This means that on-site guests will already be in Tomorrowland, and closer to TRON Lightcycle Run.
No matter what the roller coaster’s eventual Early Entry status, rope drop will be an objectively poor time for off-site guests to do TRON Lightcycle Run. The simple fact is that they’ll be behind resort guests one way or the other. We have countless examples of how this works in practice, with wait times peaking for headliner attractions within the first hour of the day–particularly at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. (Slinky Dog Dash is an imperfect, but still pretty good proxy for TRON Lightcycle Run.)
Keep in mind that there’s also the opportunity cost of rope dropping TRON Lightcycle Run. Which is to say that even if you can hit it at rope drop with a 90 minute posted wait time as opposed to a 120 minute wait later in the day, you’re sacrificing Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Big Thunder Railroad as walk-ons and will instead be doing those later in the day when their posted wait times are much higher. Suffice to say, off-site guests should continue targeting Adventureland and Frontierland rather than being tempted by the siren’s song of TRON. It won’t be worth it.
Midday Magic – There will be a lull at some point for TRON Lightcycle Run during the middle of the day. There always is for these headliners. The “when” of this is actually the most difficult–actually, impossible–prediction to make of anything on this list. It varies for other top tier attractions, and we’d expect the same here.
For the most part, the lull occurs sometime between mid-morning and lunch. It occurs as a bit of an accordion effect, as people start seeing the posted wait time imbalance and avoiding the attraction in question. And then suddenly, it drops dramatically. (For example, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train will have a 90 minute wait at 9:30 am while almost every other attraction is at 30 minutes or less. The logical guest thus avoids SDMT and does something else. That happens en masse, producing the aforementioned dynamic.)
My guess is that sweet spot with TRON Lightcycle Run will occur between 10:30 am and 11 am most days. But this is just a guess, and I’m far less confident in this than anything else. One thing I am certain about is that the daytime parade won’t have much, if any, bearing on TRON Lightcycle Run wait times. Again, the demographics are different.
All-Day Wait Times at Other Rides – One of the great underrated things about virtual queues ending is that wait times should decrease all around Magic Kingdom’s other attractions. It’ll be very slight, but it will happen.
This is because every virtual queue system (or comparable–like FastPass/Lightning Lanes/DAS/etc.) allows guests to be in two places at once. With standby lines, when you’re in line, you are always physically standing in line–occupying only one spot in the park.
When guests use virtual queues, they aren’t simply skipping the line. The more accurate explanation is that a “phantom version” of the guest is waiting in a virtual line for their turn to ride. The real version of the guest is doing something else. TRON dropping the VQ means those guests are no longer waiting virtually for it.
It probably won’t seem like wait times have decreased for other Magic Kingdom attractions once mid-October rolls around and fall break is in full swing. Just keep in mind that you aren’t experiencing the counterfactual, and that things can always be worse. (In some ways, that’s been the mantra of Walt Disney World for the last few years.)
Post-Fireworks – The plaza around TRON Lightcycle Run is a fun and immersive location for fireworks viewing. This is not as good as the middle of Fantasyland, but it’s new and unique, with TRON’s lightcycles whizz by overhead and the dancing lights of the Upload Conduit canopy. While we don’t recommend it for your first or only viewing, it’s one of our favorite “secret” or “low-stress” locations for fireworks viewing in Magic Kingdom.
Towards the end of the fireworks, we recommend moving towards the nearby TRON Lightcycle Run entrance. Disregard the posted wait time–it’s reactive and very few people are getting in line for the roller coaster during the fireworks. Again, we know this thanks to the precedent set by Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It’s often the case there that the posted wait time will be 60+ minutes, and the actual wait around then will be 15-20 minutes–sometimes less!
End of Line – Similarly, there’s the tried and true approach for any headliner attraction: 1 minute before park closing. This is like the reverse rope drop, or ‘rope rise’ option. (We like to think of it as the “buzzer beater” approach.)
Walt Disney World doesn’t stop lines for attractions until park closing, which means you can queue up right until the clock strikes midnight (or usually in Magic Kingdom’s case, 10 pm or 11 pm). This effectively extends your day and is when the actual wait time is lowest for TRON Lightcycle Run.
Again, you will want to ignore the posted wait time. Not only is it reactionary, but also because Disney deliberately inflates wait times at the end of the night to discourage guests from getting in one last ride. The more people who jump in line for the buzz beater approach, the longer it takes to clear the park, which means more $$$ for Disney in staffing.
We have done the ‘buzzer-beater’ approach to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train dozens and dozens of times. Almost every single night we do Magic Kingdom, in fact. There have been a handful of times that we’ve waited 20 minutes or more, but the overwhelming majority of the time, our actual wait time has been between 10 and 15 minutes. There have been times when it’s a walk-on!
DO NOT EXPECT THIS WITH TRON LIGHTCYCLE RUN. Sorry for screaming that, but we fear fans will have unrealistic expectations. The buzz beater approach is an open secret among Walt Disney World diehards. It’s not some bold strategy that only readers of this blog know about.
The reason it works is largely because of guest demographics. Once again, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is family-friendly, and skews much younger than TRON Lightcycle Run. Children tend to have earlier bedtimes, so even the best laid plans for beating the buzzer on SDMT often results in failure.
That will not be nearly as true with TRON Lightcycle Run. It skews significantly older. Teens and other young adults who skip Seven Dwarfs Mine Train because it’s “a baby coaster” will absolutely be trying to beat the buzzer on TRON Lightcycle Run. Again, a better comparison here is Slinky Dog Dash, but even that is highly imperfect because crowds clear out at DHS in the last few hours of the night. That does not happen at Magic Kingdom.
There’s also the reality that TRON Lightcycle Run is widely recognized as being better at night. Even the average guest knows this. The result is that a good number of people won’t even attempt to ride TRON earlier in the day, and instead will wait until evening. And once they see triple digit posted times at 7 pm, many will be incentivized to wait even longer, until after fireworks.
Accordingly, our expectation is that TRON Lightcycle Run will see 45+ minute actual wait times with the buzzer beater approach on average days. It’ll be longer during the peak season, and could eclipse an hour. Walt Disney World really won’t want this, so expect to see a strategy of massively inflating the wait time and stacking the queue outside the attraction entrance as even more of a deterrent.
Even though it remains to be seen how the ‘End of Line’ strategy will play out with TRON Lightcycle Run, we’re inclined to recommend queueing up ~15 minutes before park closing. The rush at the very last minute could make that the optimal approach. (This is informed by several years ago at Avatar Flight of Passage–long before the COVID closure.)
Extended Evening Hours – There’s really not much difference with Extended Evening Hours and regular park closing. Based on what we’ve seen elsewhere, my expectation is that this will have a similar dynamic with really long lines at the very end of Extended Evening Hours. This is a perk for night owls, and they won’t be discouraged by the later hour.
Nevertheless, you should absolutely jump into line for TRON Lightcycle Run at the very end of Extended Evening Hours. Even if the line is shorter earlier in the event (and it probably will be!), opportunity cost is once again the name of the game. Doing TRON in the first hour of ExEH will consume a ton of time–time that could be spent walking onto other attractions. Instead, jump in line at the bitter end, effectively extending Extended Evening Hours and pushing your wait–whatever that might be–beyond the end of the offering.
What Would Tom Do? – Glad you asked, means a lot to me. As you might know, I’m an aggressive gambler when it comes to park touring strategy. So although I may not recommend this in our “official” itineraries, I’ll let you in on my intended approach with a standard “do not try this at home in Magic Kingdom with slow or risk averse people” caveat.
Magic Kingdom is currently open until 10 pm on normal nights with Happily Ever After at 8:30 pm. This means that, by 8:50 pm, you could be in line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It is more than reasonable to expect you could be done with that by 9:15 pm. From there, you maybe have time for Peter Pan’s Flight, but even if not (probably not–it sees a huge rush post-fireworks and you’d be behind that crowd), there’s definitely time for Space Mountain. After doing that, I assess the situation, potentially doing a lap or two on the TTA PeopleMover. Only after that do I get in line for TRON Lightcycle Run, ideally with no more than 10 minutes left before park closing.
I am almost positive this is not the optimal approach for TRON Lightcycle Run. That getting in line immediately after the fireworks would be faster. But I’m not viewing this in a vacuum–I’m optimizing for the park as a whole and the last ~2 hours of the evening at Magic Kingdom are far and away the most valuable of the day. If I spend most of that time in line for TRON, it’s a waste. So instead, I push TRON until the End of Line, say “who cares about the wait time” since it’s primarily after park closing, and backfill everything else I can fit prior to then. I don’t care about a slightly longer line if I’m in it after park closing, as that time is lower-value. I might feel differently if Magic Kingdom closed at 2 am, but I don’t want to go to bed this early.
I then exit the attraction to an empty Tomorrowland, enjoy the colorful neon and brisk air before heading onto Main Street to see the warm glow of the popcorn lights and nostalgic music filling the air. I’m reminded of why I fell in love with Walt Disney World in the first place, and feel that magic once more. Now that is how I do TRON Lightcycle Run, and while the specifics are still shaky, I’m 100% confident in the basic contours of that approach.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What’s your optimal approach and time of day to ride TRON Lightcycle Run? What would you recommend to Walt Disney World first-timers? Will you stick to standby at one of the ideal times or buy a Lightning Lane Single Pass for TRON? Do you agree or disagree with any of our strategy? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
