Day Four: Part One - Last Day & Guardians
Our last day (Sunday) began early at 6:45 AM so that I could purchase
Genie+ for the last time this trip and more importantly join the virtual queue for the new Guardians ride! I joined the queue at 7 AM on the dot and got boarding group 40 which put our estimated return time to about 5 hours from then. I then hopped over to the Tip Board so that I could purchase an ILL for Guardians and chose a return time for 12:25 PM, that way we could ride it twice! Neither of us had ever ridden it before but James' sister assured us we would want to ride it twice. I also booked us a LL for TT for 11:20 AM.
From there I slept some more until 8 before packing our things and calling bell services to store our bags while we went to the park. We decided to skip breakfast until we got to the parks so once we said goodbye to our beautiful room and checked out downstairs we were off on the bus to EPCOT.
Aside from the atmosphere, I think the thing I miss the most about the WL is always the smell. It has such a distinct aroma—smoky, clean, earthy. I just love it and it somehow it has still retained the same scent since I was kid and visited. One year for my birthday James got me a candle from Magic Candle Company; it has a wood wick so it crackles and even though it's not exactly the same it's very close.
The bus ride was quick and once we were there we could tell it was already heating up to be a very hot day, despite being before 10 AM. Our call time for Guardians had actually jumped forward a considerable amount of time and by the time we arrived we only had 20 minutes left to wait. The first thing I noticed was that there didn't seem to be as many walls as our previous trips in Feb & March had. They definitely still had some up but it wasn't as disorienting as I remember and you could see a lot more.
We ended up stopping at the new Connections Café & Eatery to sit in the AC before our ride time. I didn't expect it to be so HUGE and the murals were gorgeous, spanning across many of the walls. I wish I had gotten better photos but it was already filling up with people.
Once it was our call time for Guardians, we walked right over which was just outside the Eatery and got in line. Again, James & I had never ridden this before and we were going into it completely blind. I knew it was supposed to be a rollercoaster, but I knew nothing more than that. Below I'm going to talk about our experience and if you want to avoid any spoilers,
scroll down past the photo of the outside of the ride.
Potential spoilers ahead:
Once in line we waited maaaaybe about 15 minutes before making it into the pre-shows. The line was actually really cool & had a ton of screens playing videos of the characters & models of the city of Xandar. I LOVE seeing prototype models—one of my favorite parts of the People Mover at MK is seeing the Progress City model.
The pre-shows were really cool. It kinda had a similar effect that the pre-shows from Rise has. Very, very immersive & funny!
From there we were on the ride in under ten minutes and we were not prepared for how awesome it was. James' sister had hyped it up quite a bit but I was afraid I would be disappointed because of how much we were anticipating it. I was WRONG!
It is hands down my favorite ride at Disney now. No question about it. I love rollercoasters but I think those who get squeamish on rides would still love this one. It doesn't have any drops & doesn't go upside down. The ride itself, however, is FAST. Really fast. The G-forces are incredible and it somehow makes you feel like you are levitating/flying through space. It is a lot smoother than Space Mountain (which btw I feel needs a major overhaul, but that's a topic for another day).
Not to mention the music! There are six songs the ride shuffles through and we got Conga the first time & Everybody Wants to Rule the World the second. Both were super fun and added different vibes to the ride. We were so glad that we had purchased the ILL to ride it again afterwards as we had a blast. We came off both times with windblown hair and giant smiles on our faces. The second time around doing the ILL we skipped pretty much the entire line up to the pre-shows, so I'm glad we got to experience the regular line first.
I will say that the virtual queue doesn't appear to guarantee a quick entry, that is what the ILL is for. Our boarding group was early enough that there wasn't a long wait the first time we rode it, but walking past the virtual queue line our second time using the ILL, it was a lot more backed up.
By about 10:30 AM an announcement said the virtual queue had booked up completely. There was another chance at 1 PM to try and join it then. I've also been told that on nights of extended hours there's a chance to join the queue again at 6 PM.
James' one critique was that he thought the ride itself should've incorporated more of the plot elements. I agree that the plot wasn't super groundbreaking but if I'm being honest, I hardly looked at the screens the whole time as I was too busy having fun being sped around.
In conclusion, I adore that ride and you should definitely try it (even twice!) if you have the chance. I wish we could've done it five more times that day.
In between our two chances to ride Guardians we rode our LL for Test Track which was just across the way. James and I always make the most ridiculous looking cars we can. He scanned his magic band for the one we created that day and when I scanned mine it actually pulled up an old one we had previously created which was pretty funny. Our cars won!
We also grabbed a bite to eat over at the eatery which was packed by that time. James got a chicken sandwich and I got a slice of pizza. They were both pretty yummy. They also had waffles in their dessert menu and James couldn't get over how good they smelled.
Next up—Food & Wine and heading home. I'll report again here soon
) & an apartment to myself, I'm in the stages of packing while I wait for James to finish up work. I want to be as prepared as possible so we can hit the road as soon as he finishes up.
We're a relatively quick drive away—about 2.5-3 hours depending on traffic & including our traditional stop at Buc-ees along the way.
Luckily our symptoms were on the mild-moderate side and we are feeling SO much better so we are hoping we can jump back to normal life soon; we are super grateful we are able to rest up and stay away from others at home. I hope you all have been well, the current variant is definitely making the rounds lately.
and stopped by the gift shop to pick up a WL magnet I wanted to add to our growing collection! Then we grabbed our luggage and car from valet and hit the road.
We pulled out of Disney around 4 PM and were home in time to feed our kitties dinner by 6:30!
