Virtual Queue for Journey of Water Inspired by Moana added to 'My Disney Experience' after chaotic start

Sep 24, 2023 in "Journey of Water Inspired by Moana"

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Journey of Water Inspired by Moana Passholder previews

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Posted: Sunday September 24, 2023 10:15am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Annual Passholder previews for Journey of Water Inspired by Moana got off to a chaotic start this morning at EPCOT with confusion surrounding the Virtual Queue.

Unlike other recent passholder previews, guests did not have to register for a preview window, resulting in many passholders arriving at park opening expecting to join a standby line.

Disney quickly activated a special version of a Virtual Queue that was only accessible via scanning a QR code near to The Land pavilion. Guests joining what they thought was a standby line ultimately arrived at a QR code poster just to scan to join the queue. The QR did not work for many users, leaving those guests to visit a Cast Member to be manually added to the Virtual Queue.

Complicating matters further, other guests were arriving at the QR code poster from the Imagination side, bypassing the physical queue to scan the Virtual Queue code.

Disney has now updated the My Disney Experience app to enable the Virtual Queue for Journey of Water via the standard Virtual Queue tab in the app. The QR code scan is no longer required, and guests do not need to wait in a line to scan a code.

Journey of Water Inspired by Moana Passholder Virtual Queue in My Disney Experience

Managers in the area say it is unlikely that the standby line will reopen, and it will remain a Virtual Queue only for today at least.

Guests can only use the Virtual Queue once per day, and guests must be inside the park to join.

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Brian4 hours ago

Some of the water features/interactive "stations" were having issues from the get-go, including even before the affinity group previews.

Vegas Disney Fan1 day ago

2 big empty buildings that housed a Starbucks, a Coke store, and a meet and greet, also a lot of concrete on the ground, and a sail overhead. With the exception of the fountain everything else is an improvement, and it could be argued Moana is an improvement over the fountain.

Incomudro1 day ago

Remind me what was lost?

Disstevefan11 day ago

Kids love water play areas. Some adults do too. I hope they duplicate this for Animal Kingdom. maybe theme it to Avatar: The Way of Water. AK really needs a water play area!

DreamfinderGuy1 day ago

I don't think anyone doubted this. It was designed for kids, of course kids are going to like it. The biggest complaints have always been and always will be that it was not worth what was lost for it and that it's misplaced. On its own it's perfectly adequate for what it set out to accomplish.

ohioguy1 day ago

Wow... now that this attraction is open, people seem to love it or appreciate it for what it is. And look -- kids adore it! Who knew? Disney knew.

EricsBiscuit2 days ago

Just experienced this for the first time today and I absolutely loved it! Very high attention to detail. I noticed the kids really liking it too. The only thing that shocked me is how much of a slip and fall hazard this attraction is. I would hate to see how much it costs to insure this attraction.

TrojanUSC2 days ago

Did this the other day and our group, along with nearly everyone else, was speculating that a lot of the effects are just on timers if the sensors weren't working (which most weren't). The sprays and things seemed random, at best. Some of the effects towards the end and the wall of water worked as intended though.

peter114359 days ago

Everything at WDW needs constant attention to keep it in working order. The question is will it get the attention it needs.

CntrlFlPete10 days ago

fwiw, we had no issues on two walk throughs (one being during previews). We went one night recently -- there was one of the water string areas that was blocked off, another had water flowing but the sound did not corollate with ones strumming of the water. On the same night, the large area where folks make the water shoot super high, well that one was not working. I hope it was just an off night, but it seems a shame if this will need constant attention to keep in working order.

James Alucobond10 days ago

I'm not sure "already not working" is exactly the right framing. There are certain effects—particularly the ones just before the caves where the water rises to meet your hand—that have regularly gone down for maintenance even before the attraction officially opened. I'd be interested to know the why, but it's not performing any worse than when it opened; there just seems to be a reliability issue with that portion for whatever reason.

CntrlFlPete10 days ago

was going to say this. we went through last week to see it at night and I was really surprised how many elements were already not working.

MisterPenguin11 days ago

According to an Unscrupulous source, the water in JoW is heated when temperature in WDW is low. (Or, when it's in the 60's, the water, which has been in the 70-80s, feels heated.)

Rteetz15 days ago

I experienced it for the first time a couple weeks ago now. For what it is it’s lovely. I didn’t find it overly in your face Moana. Yes there is the Te Fiti statue or whatever you want to call it but outside of that Moana is more subtle. I have to say kids were in love with the play aspects. I’ve talked with friends and others too who say their kids loved it. I think that’s really who the target audience is for this and its working.