Welcome Users!! We finally got here, we got to ride Tron: Lightcycle Run last night!! Now I’m going to break down how booking our passholder preview went, the check in process and if the ride was worth the hype and wait! We were joined by our friends over at WDW Travels, if you haven’t checked them out yet you should! They have an awesome blog with the best tips and tricks for Disney World! Ok, let’s talk about Tron!
How Was The Passholder Preview Booking Process?
In a word…..STRESSFUL! But also exciting, I was just so stressed about not getting one and missing out on our first chance to attend a Passholder Preview. Thankfully my friend Pam is the best and made sure I knew exactly what to do and where to go! She did such a good job that I got mine before she got in to book hers. Hahaha!
First of all, you really have to be looking out for the link to book these passes, I was refreshing pages and checking websites and still didn’t actually see it. Pam sent me a link from WDW News Today that had the active link in it, so don’t count on Disneys websites to make it readily available to you, you kind of have to hunt for it despite what they tell you.
Once you clicked that link, you were put into a virtual queue and it told you an estimated wait time. Thankfully mine only said 6 minutes when I got in, Pams told her 20 minutes and ended up being over an hour. Mine was pretty true to 6 minutes and once I was in I could choose my party out of who was linked to My Disney Experience account and then my day and time. We wanted to ride at night so I was glad that most times on a day we could go were still open. You just went through and clicked all the necessary prompts and then it confirmed you were booked and added a park reservation for Magic Kingdom for everyone in your party for that day! I took a screenshot of that page as well as the confirmation email I received just in case, it does say to have printed or digital proof of your reservation even though we did not have to show that.
I have to admit, although it was stressful, it was also really exciting and reminded me of days gone by when I would get up early to book dining reservations and fast passes.
Checking In For Our Time
I have to say a big thank you again to Pam, her preview was the Saturday before ours so she gave me all the inside information to maximize our time!
When we went to check in there was a HUGE line that went from the store next to Space Mountain all the way back to the Tea Cups! Pam had told us not to get in this line, that we just needed to wait until our time slot started and then walk up to the Cast Members standing by the walkway to Tron and they would scan our Magic Bands then send us on through. So that’s exactly what we did at exactly 6:30pm! We were not so patiently waiting for the 29 to turn to a 30. Hahaha! The line was people waiting for their time slot to start but not a necessary line to wait in, we chose to ride the Peoplemover instead and then go check in.
Now We Enter The Grid!
Walking up to this ride was awesome! It looks incredible and has very open walkways and spaces, we just kept getting more excited the closer we got. The kids wanted to try out the ride vehicles and see how they felt before the ride, they have these right before you enter the ride building so you can decide if you want to ride the light cycle or do the bucket seat they have offered at the back of some of the “trains”.
Sawyer opted to ride the bucket seat because he didn’t like the way the light cycle felt on his chest, our friend Sierra did as well. The rest of us did the light cycles! We will talk more about that in a minute.
As you enter the building you really feel like you are walking into the Tron movie! You totally do not have to have watched the movies or like the movies to enjoy this ride but if you do like them then this is very cool!
You go down a hallway that has “grid” lines on the walls and got Thatcher super hyped, he was a whole mess! That picture is blurry because he couldn’t stop moving. Hahaha! From here you turned down another hallway with walls of lockers for your bags and anything larger than a cell phone. You picked a locker, unlocked it with your Magic Band and put all your things in there, don’t forget your number! The 700 numbers are the farthest from where you enter but the closest to where you exit, thanks again Pam. The trippy thing about this to me was that when you exit, you are opening the back side of the locker! It makes perfect sense I just wan’t expecting that and was like OH! It’s the back side of lockers! Hahaha, Duh!
From the lockers you go into a pre show room where you are scanned into the grid and the light cycles are revealed to you in the coolest way! I liked that this pre show was short and to the point, it wasn’t long and drawn out. Although I love a lot of the longer pre shows it’s nice to have a short and sweet one too!
From here you enter the final part of the queue line and I am including a ton of pictures here because it was just so cool! I’m sure this ride will be on a virtual queue like Guardians of the Galaxy is right now so you should still be able to get some good pictures of it not being super crowded once it opens on Aril 4th.
This is where you got the first up close look of the light cycles, not just zooming over your head outside and they did not disappoint!
Did The Ride Live Up To The Hype?
YES!!! It was very much worth the wait and lived up to the hype! It does feel a little short, but not like Barnstormer short. It is officially the fastest ride in Magic Kingdom at 59 mph and it definitely felt that way. Like I said before, Sawyer and Sierra opted for the bucket seats while Jay, Thatcher and I did the light cycles. I have no doubt it was a different ride sitting upright versus leaned forward on the cycle but they both absolutely loved it none the less. The way you get into these is interesting. You straddle over to sit, lean forward and then pull the handle bars towards you to get the restraints to lock in place. It does hurt your chest/ribs a little but if you push back against the handle bars you can lift your chest a little and that helped a lot.
You blast off so fast and do the outside part of the ride that you can see under the canopy first…..I think….it went so fast! Hahaha, Jay said he didn’t even realize we did the outside part!
One of the coolest parts of this ride is when the lights change on the light cycles to orange and it’s reflected next to you so it looks like the Orange cycle is racing you and trying to go through the checkpoints first, but spoiler….blue wins!
The boys loved that the back restraints had the Tron discs on them so you looked like you had a disc on your back just like in the movie. The lighting is so good in every part of this ride and it definitely keeps you engaged the entire time, maybe that’s why it feels short, you are hyper aware of everything around you!
When you exit you go through a section called Team Green that has a very neat looking, futuristic vehicle and has posters with information about energy efficient vehicles and the future of those kinds of vehicles. Then the exit takes you out into Storybook Circus right by the Barnstormer.
Conclusion
This ride was AWESOME! We all loved it and wished we could ride it a second time! I did ask since we had time left in our block but they said only once. Although there are mixed reports coming out about that so if you have a Passholder Preview planned, it never hurts to ask. This was a really exciting ride to have as our first ever Passholder Preview and we will definitely be booking a virtual queue as soon as we can to ride it again! Like I said, it doesn’t open to the general public until April 4th and if it is like the Guardians virtual queue, you will need to have your park reservation done and then at 7am be in the app ready to book that queue. If you miss it then you will have another chance at 1pm but will have to physically be in the park at that time to book it.
If you have a trip planned for this spring or summer, DO NOT SLEEP ON THIS RIDE! You will love it no matter if you like the Tron movies or not! And if you don’t have a trip planned and would like to get one booked, I’m your girl! I can book that for you and take care of all the details for you with Wondrous Adventures, doesn’t cost you anything extra and I may even find you a discount you didn’t know about! As always, thank you all for being here and reading along. If you haven’t already, please subscribe and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for even more fun Disney stuff. Have a magical day everyone!
