Since it was announced at the D23 Expo 2017, very little has been said about the Guardians of the Galaxy attraction coming to Epcot, other than that it will be a roller coaster ride. Well, thanks to some internal documents, we now have a better idea of what this attraction will be like…
Guests will enter where they once did, but this doorway will now take them into the Welcome Gallery. This area consists of ramps leading upwards towards the next part of the queue. The building appears to be on multiple levels, with guests climbing upwards as the queue progresses to reach the elevated load platform for the roller coaster.
The second queue room is the Xandar Gallery, likely to feature relics from the Xandarian culture (prominently featured in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie). This then leads the the merge point and the first pre-show, labeled in documents as “singularity”. You may recall that the Infinity Stones are referred to as singularities by The Collector in the first Guardians film. They are also a source of energy (wink, nudge). Regardless, we’re just speculating that the Infinity Stones will be the connection here, but something completely different could be happening in this room.
The “transformation room” in the Guardians of the Galaxy ride at Epcot
The secondary pre-show, the transformation room, is what you see above. There will be two of these for added capacity. Inside, some sort of transformation will take place for guests involving the red cannon-like device above Rocket Raccoon and Groot. The characters and the Milano ship will be projections. The attraction does not appear to have any audio-animatronic characters.
After this, guests then head down a hallway and upstairs to the load area. The attractions features a dual-load and unload, meaning two trains at a time. Coaster trains for the ride feature 5 cars that hold four guests each with a two-by-two seating configuration. In case you don’t want to do math, that means a train can hold 20 guests.
A rough idea of the layout for the Guardians fo the Galaxy attraction at Epcot
After loading and being dispatched, the trains take a quick trip around the load area and head into the launch tunnel, where they are then shot into the added building behind the old Universe of Energy. This building is 133 feet tall, so 12.2 stories in height. To our surprise, the coaster itself has no inversions and appears to be fairly family friendly. Think of it as a modern take on Space Mountain. The track layout consists of many tight turns and long straightaways that will likely be accented with projection effects. It’s hard to tell in the documents if there will be any physical show scenes, but there really doesn’t appear to be, other than some abstract lighted walls that the trains pass through at a few points in the ride. After the lengthy coaster ride, the trains travel back to the old building and unload station, allowing guests to go downstairs and exit through a store and out the right side of the facade.
Details of the storyline and what exactly is going on in this attraction are scarce, but the layout and ride specifications shared above are confirmed to be accurate.
Disney has still not set an opening date for the Guardians of the Galaxy roller coaster at Epcot.
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