One day after doing what was arguably my most stressful morning ever at EPCOT to beat the crowd at Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, I returned armed with a new strategy that would prove to be the easiest plan of attack. This Early Entry report enters via International Gateway and runs through my approach to a ~30 minute wait time for the Marvel E-Ticket.
This field test was done on another busy day at EPCOT, when the park had a 9/10 crowd level and the peak wait time for Cosmic Rewind was over 2 hours. The park opened at 9 am to the general public and Early Entry began at 8:30 am. That’s par for the course, even on peak season dates like this–Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc. have not seen extensions. Even when Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios move forward their opening times, EPCOT rarely changes.
As noted above, this Early Entry report starts from International Gateway, as I was staying at Disney’s BoardWalk Inn. Skyliner and Crescent Lake Resorts arrive via this entrance between France and the United Kingdom, which is superior for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After. However, my plan was to make the long walk to the complete opposite side of the park for Cosmic Rewind.
Let’s start by dropping the pretense that this was a “plan” of any sort. If left to my own devices, this field test would’ve never happened. I came into this week with 3 different Early Entry at EPCOT approaches to test, and this wasn’t one of them. This run is “courtesy” of arriving on a red-eye flight the previous day, staying out late that night, and getting a grand total of ~8 hours of sleep over the course of two nights. I should be used to that as a new parent, but apparently my game is slipping.
After sleeping through my first alarm, I managed to catch the second an hour later and sprang from my bed to ride Cosmic Rewind. Away to the park I flew like a flash, forgoing a shower but making a quick coffee so I wouldn’t crash. I made it to International Gateway in record time, breezing through bag check and the entrance because there was no one in front of me.
I was inside EPCOT at around 8:40 a.m., which was roughly a full hour later than the previous morning. The checkpoint for verifying Early Entry eligibility likewise had no one waiting, so I had no wait there and was off to the races for Cosmic Rewind from the France bridge before 8:45 a.m.
A sane person might’ve taken the path of least resistance, mosied over to France, and done Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. But I am no such person, and I could see the overflow queue for the Rat Ride from the bridge. It would’ve been a bad option by this point. In fairness, the same might’ve been true for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, but I couldn’t see that queue, so I was about to find out!
At a regular pace, the walk from International Gateway to Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is probably going to take around 12-15 minutes. So if you’re thinking about trying the strategy here, you should arrive a bit earlier.
I made the walk in 10 minutes, which isn’t realistic for most guests.
In a perfect world, I would’ve arrived at 8:25 a.m. and taken a very leisurely walk around World Showcase, soaking up the exceptional ambiance of EPCOT in the morning. While I still savored the sights as I head towards the front of the park, my walk was anything but leisurely. Good thing I hadn’t bothered with a shower–I was going to need one, regardless, after this rope drop run!
After the stress of being held here for a half-hour in a sea of humanity and the blazing sun directly in my eyes, an empty Innoventions Breezeway was quite the site to behold.
Being in this area for only a fleeting few seconds while it was totally devoid of people almost alone made this approach to Early Entry “worth it” for me over the previous day.
Although very few guests were queueing up for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at this point, the morning protocol was still in use, meaning a longer walk past the attraction and through an extended queue. Here’s a look at that:
In the end, I made it into the line for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind by 8:55 a.m.
For reference, I was in the queue by 8:32 am the previous morning–so 23 minutes ahead of this despite showing up to the park over 60 minutes earlier. Of course, the question is whether I’d “pay for” that later arrival by virtue of a longer wait time at Cosmic Rewind and the cascading effect that might have on waits at subsequent attractions throughout EPCOT.
In the long run, the ~37 minutes I saved by not standing around waiting for Early Entry to start might cost me more throughout the rest of the morning.
Here’s a look back at the courtyard around Cosmic Rewind as I entered the outdoor overflow queue.
Note that there’s a lot of it, and it’s entirely empty. This photo was taken at 8:56 a.m.
It’s also worth noting that the extended outdoor queue was not even close to full.
I did walk through sections of this that I hadn’t done during the previous Early Entry, but there was far less queue in use on day two than during my regular test runs of Cosmic Rewind during the previous day and subsequent ones.
Another key difference is that the line was constantly moving outdoors. I’d end up inside the building within a matter of minutes.
Here’s that same line a couple minutes later, as the rope drop crowd descends upon Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Unsurprisingly, the posted wait time doubled from 45 minutes to 90 minutes almost instantly.
This photo doesn’t even begin to do the crowd justice. It extended for as far as I could see into the former Future World, winding around Mission Space and heading back towards CommuniCore Hall.
I would’ve taken a video if I weren’t in a moving line with other people between me and the rope drop arrivals, but suffice to say, it was like the running of the bulls or a zombie horde smelling fresh blood…if both were carefully controlled by Cast Members ensuring an orderly process.
As I was staying on-site, I never tested rope dropping Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. I only did it during Early Entry or later in the day.
However, there are a couple things I can fairly easily surmise based on my own experience with Early Entry and having been around the block a few times with this sort of thing.
The first is that the people at the front of this rope drop herd did not just show up at 8:50 a.m. and have a serene stroll to the front of the pack. They arrived much earlier–long before me and likely around the same time as the first Early Entry guests. So they already have waited a while for Cosmic Rewind, just prior to official park opening.
The second is that anyone who did arrive much later–and thus is at the back of this pack–is at a distinct disadvantage. There’s still a decent chance they’ll have an actual wait that’s lower than the daily average for Cosmic Rewind, but no guarantees.
That’s not the real issue, though. It’s the opportunity cost of rope dropping Cosmic Rewind from a mediocre position as opposed to another attraction from a strong spot. Rather than waiting over an hour for Cosmic Rewind, they could’ve walked onto Soarin’ and every other attraction on that side of the former Future World. And since this was done during spring break, all of those rides would have measurable wait times later in the day.
Point being, being at the back of the rope drop pack is not the same as being at the back of the Early Entry pack, like my run-through. A more comparable example would be hitting Cosmic Rewind during a mid-morning lull, as that’s essentially what I was doing–arriving after the initial rush of Early Entry.
I made it into the first holding area before the first pre-show by 9:17 am. (This is where I “stopped the clock” the previous day, which in hindsight I don’t think is the correct approach.)
This was poor luck on my part, as there was only one party ahead of me at the cutoff point. Regardless, this amounted to a pretty short and a consistently-moving standby line. That’s aided in large part by the lack of Lightning Lane returns at this point. (Note the empty left queue two photos above.)
I ended up making it into the main pre-show room, pictured above, by 9:25 am. Not bad at all.
I was seated in a ride vehicle by 9:38 am.
Even without checking wait times at this point, I already knew that Frozen Ever After was off the table for ride #2 of the day. However, as you might recall, it was also off the table during my previous Early Entry run, when I arrived an hour earlier!
That won’t always be the case, though. Again, these were back to back 9/10 days during spring break. On a more moderate crowd level day, Frozen Ever After would’ve been feasible on my first day with manageable wait but probably not my second. So that’s worth noting.
Also worth noting is that the posted wait time for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure had gone down.
It was 60 minutes when I entered the park shortly after the start of Early Entry and 55 minutes as of ~9:40 am. It’s normal for this attraction to have a lull like this, and is a byproduct of most guests from International Gateway prioritizing it during Early Entry, along with too many from the front of the park.
This results in Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure spiking fast, and regular rope drop guests making the very rational decision not to race to the back of the park to be at the end of an already long line. (Early Entry guests coming from the front shouldn’t be doing this, either, but they often don’t have the benefit of seeing the posted wait time when they start their trek.)
I wasn’t about to ping-pong from the front of the park to the back, so I headed over to the Land and did Soarin’ Around the World.
This would also provide a more direct comparison to the previous day, when I did Soarin’ second as a near walk-on. (Unfortunately, I didn’t actually time it, as I didn’t expect to be doing this comparison.)
On day two, my wait for Soarin’ was 12 minutes. This is a really good time, from my perspective, as Soarin’ involves luck of the draw with theater loading. Even a “walk-on” could easily be 15 minutes with poor luck/timing. I had good luck both days and there were definitely more people in front of me on the second, so I’m going to call this an extra 10 minutes.
I could’ve done every other ride on this side of the park as a walk-on, but instead opted to eat before heading back to my room for an overdue and much-needed shower.
The bottom line is that I waited ~30 minutes for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. That was either 30 minutes less than the previous day or ~10 minutes more depending upon whether you start the clock on the first day when I entered EPCOT or from the time Early Entry started. Either way, both of these are strong performances for a 9/10 crowd level day when Cosmic Rewind usually had a 95+ minute wait.
The question is: which approach is better? There are two bigger points that give day two a decisive advantage. First up is the secondary impact to my plans on these particular days. In both cases, Soarin’ was my best play for ride #2 of the day. I literally lost nothing by rolling up after Early Entry had already started on day 2, whereas I gained over an hour of sleep. That’s a potentially big deal, especially if it means staying until park closing, not having to take a midday nap break, etc.
However, there’s a strong emphasis “on these particular days.” I’m guessing that, in a 7/10 or below crowd level, I either could’ve maybe done Cosmic Rewind a second time or definitely knocked out Frozen Ever After with minimal wait on that first day–but not the second day with my later arrival.
From my perspective, the biggest advantage to this easy Early Entry approach is that I wasn’t stuck in a stressful environment in the Innoventions Breezeway for a half-hour. There’s a reason why I previously cautioned against lining up on the Fantasyland Bridge in Magic Kingdom to do the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Shuffle, and it’s basically I think situations like this set a bad tone to start the day. Maybe you’re built differently and these congested, high-stakes scenarios don’t bother you. But they do me.
Accordingly, when balancing the qualitative experience with the quantitative time-savings, I view this as the second-best approach to Early Entry at EPCOT from International Gateway, and the #1 way to do Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind from the back entrance. Not just #1 during Early Entry or in the morning–the best strategy for Cosmic Rewind, period.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you done Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind via Early Entry or throughout the day now that it’s switched to standby? Thoughts on Early Entry at EPCOT? Have you experienced this on-site hotel perk? What’s your preferred approach to mornings at EPCOT–starting in World Showcase or the front of the park? How would you have done things differently? Any other feedback on arriving early to the Walt Disney World theme parks? Agree or disagree with our advice or approach? 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!
