On Nov. 11, 2023, Mouse Trap News published an article positing that Disney World had announced they would be eliminating all physical lines from their park. While the headline might sound too good to be true, the article later walked the claim back, explaining that the parks would supposedly switch to all virtual queuing, similar to the Lightning Lane systems currently in operation. The article read:
Disney World is Eliminating All Lines From Their Rides
When people talk about the worst part of Disney World, many people mention the lines. In fact, the parks continue to get busier and the lines get longer, despite the price going up. In fact, with Disney requiring guest uniforms, the cost of a Disney trip will go up even more. Well, Disney finally has a solution to keep lines shorter and it’s by eliminating lines altogether.
The article was reformatted for Mouse Trap News' TikTok page, where it garnered over 670,000 views and 30,000 likes. Many commenters shared their thoughts on the purported change. Some compared it to the original FastPass system, while others mentioned that they hoped it wouldn't make the park walkways even more crowded.
@mousetrapnews What do you think of Disney making all lines virtual?! We love this! #disneyworld #disneynews #disneylines #disneyqueue #disneyrides ♬ Disney-style fanfare-style BGM - harryfaoki
But none of the purported changes are things that Disney itself has announced. Mouse Trap News is a website dedicated to publishing satirical, fictional articles about Disney, as explained further on the website's About page:
Mouse Trap News is the world’s best satire site. We write fake stories about Disney Parks stuff. From Disney Park announcements to Disney Hotel and resort news to made-up Disney partnerships, you can be assured that anything you read here is not true, real, or accurate, but it is fun. So technically our slogan The Moused Trusted Name in Disney News isn’t true, but we thought it was creative and funny, so we are running with it.
The history of virtual queues at Disney parks is complex enough that one YouTube documentarian has produced an hour-and-a-half long video about the system. To very briefly summarize, the idea was first introduced in 1999 as FastPass, which was available to all park guests for free. In the mid-2010s, Disney World switched to FastPass+, which ditched the original paper FastPass for an online reservation system. When Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opened at Disneyland in 2019, the park implemented a fully virtual reservation system to enter the area because of its popularity. After the parks closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney decided to retire FastPass in all of its forms when reopening, and replaced it with the paid Lightning Lane service.
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.