Previews of Test Track 3.0 are now underway at EPCOT, with Walt Disney World Annual Passholders, Disney Vacation Club Members and others getting a sneak peek of the reimagined ride before it races towards its general public reopening. In a surprise twist, soft openings have already started–and might be possible over the next week-plus. This shares what to expect, how to take advantage of technical rehearsals, and why you shouldn’t get your hopes up too much.
As a reminder, Test Track will officially reopen on July 22, 2025 at EPCOT. Prior to this, Cast Member previews have been underway for the last couple of weeks, but already ended. Annual Passholder previews were originally scheduled to start on July 13, 2025. This means there would be a couple-day gap between the end of Cast Member previews and start of affiliation previews.
It’s entirely possible something else non-public was scheduled (such as General Motors employee previews). It’s also possible that was originally set aside for test & adjust, so maintenance teams could address issues potentially uncovered during the first wave of previews (such as the breakaway doors not opening). Well, there have been a couple of new developments on that front suggesting things are going better than expected with Test Track 3.0 (minus the doors). Here’s the latest…
In a new wave of invitation emails sent out late last week, eligible Disney Vacation Members with a home address near Walt Disney World are being invited to participate in an exclusive DVC preview of the reimagined Test Track. This last-minute addition to the calendar is scheduled for today, July 12, 2025, with staggered preview times throughout the day. Eligible guests check in near the front of Test Track in World Discovery near the event signage.
That preview allows each eligible DVC Member to bring up to 4 additional guests per Membership (for a maximum party size of 5). As with previous previews, valid EPCOT theme park admission and a park reservation (if required) will be needed to attend. If you missed this email and you live in Florida, it’s worth checking your spam folder as these invites often get flagged (speaking from experience). Failing that, check your communications settings from Disney and DVC, as that can play a role, too.
Beyond that, on the very off chance that you’re a non-local Disney Vacation Club Member visiting EPCOT on Saturday, it wouldn’t hurt to make a stop by the Imagination Lounge and see if there’s any way you can be accommodated.
We’d recommend doing this early in the day and with zero expectations. You also might try at the aforementioned event signage–because clearly things are going well with Test Track for them to be offering this last-minute, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s excess availability.
As always, be polite to Cast Members and remember that those on the frontline are not the ones making decisions. So if you get turned away or whatever, it’s not as if they made a judgment call and further pleading, arguing, etc., is going to change the outcome. It’s a matter of policy, set by leadership. Moreover, you always catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so being polite and kind are always the better approach. This same sentiment applies to regular guests trying to catch a soft opening. But I digress.
The other new development is that Test Track has been sporadically soft opening for the last couple of days. There were multiple reports of guests being admitted to the standby line late in the afternoon and early evening yesterday for a multi-hour period!
For those who are unfamiliar with the term, Soft openings are also known as trial operations or technical rehearsals, and are basically an unannounced and controlled test period. They provide an opportunity for theme parks to open an attraction prior to its official opening and conduct operations and Cast Member training in a more forgiving and low stress environment.
Typically, these are not publicized via official resources: not on park maps, the official Disney Parks Blog, annoying TikTok videos, wait time boards, or even in the My Disney Experience app. As a result, they always draw significantly fewer crowds than official openings. They’re a nice perk for guests who are already in the park and the most plugged-in Walt Disney World fans.
Walt Disney World had moved away from soft openings in the last few years, before bringing them back with TRON Lightcycle Run two years ago. That was the last big brand-new attraction to debut, before Tiana’s Bayou Adventure last summer, which did not have soft openings.
According to social media reports, guests were admitted to both the standby and the Single Rider lines for Test Track during its soft openings. The attraction was open for at least a few hours for soft openings, before closing the queue prior to EPCOT’s official park closing time.
My initial inclination is to offer caution, as Test Track has been in a bit of a window between two preview periods. Cast Member previews have been winding down the last few days (and again, to my knowledge, nothing was scheduled yesterday) and Annual Passholder previews haven’t started. It’s entirely possible that these Test Track soft openings were the result of a scheduling gap, lack of utilization, and Cast Members being scheduled on the attraction anyway. So why not soft open?!
Similar logic could be applied to the impromptu DVC preview scheduled for today. If they only have a single-day window, it makes more sense to offer that to the limited pool of local DVC members than opening the floodgates to local APs. Either way, expanding the affiliation preview schedule makes sense as a goodwill gesture.
Accordingly, we would not expect to see soft openings of Test Track during the upcoming Annual Passholder and other affiliation previews. At least, not immediately. As a reminder, here’s the schedule for those:
Annual Passholder Previews of Test Track 3.0 will be held July 13-16 and July 18-19, 2025. These will be done via regular Park Pass reservations and a virtual queue, with entry times at 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. This will mirror how AP previews were handled last year for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure according to Walt Disney World. (The virtual queue is already live in the My Disney Experience app, it’s just not currently in use.)
Club 33 Members and Golden Oak Residents will have their Test Track 3.0 previews on July 11, 2025.
Disney Vacation Club will have its member previews on July 12, 2025.
Going forward, there are two possibilities that wouldn’t surprise me when it comes to potential Test Track soft openings. First, that they occur at the end of the evening after virtual queue guests have been exhausted. Walt Disney World usually plays it conservatively with virtual queue entry, allowing for breakdowns, delays, etc.
The logic is that it’s better to admit too few guests to the VQ than too many. This is precisely why we used to drag our feet on afternoon virtual queue entry for both TRON and Cosmic Rewind, with the hope that we’d get return times closer to park closing. That’s when the line was usually the shortest.
We could see that play out again with Test Track. Maybe the virtual queue guests will be exhausted by late afternoon or early evening, with Cast Members scheduled until after park closing. If Test Track is running reliably, it could process APs quickly and have excess capacity. In which case, a similar “why not soft open?” mentality might be adopted as a surprise and delight offering for guests in the World Discovery area.
The second possibility is that Test Track will see demand drop towards the tail end of Annual Passholder previews and there will be excess capacity throughout the entire day. As I write this, there isn’t a single day on the calendar when EPCOT is fully booked for AP reservations.
Normally, we’d expect to see at least the first day of ride previews book out–and fast. (At one point, they did fill up; reservations have since been reallocated from other guest pools to APs given low attendance.) This is only a reimagined ride, so it’s entirely possible that the local Annual Passholders will get their fill over this first weekend and early next week, and then move on. This is similar to what we saw with Moana’s Journey of Water. It was very competitive at first, and then died down pretty quickly.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if demand drops for Test Track by Wednesday and Thursday (before another uptick over next weekend) to the point that soft openings are possible again. At this point, I also wouldn’t be surprised if soft openings also occur in the days after Test Track wraps up soft openings but before it officially opens. I’ve heard nothing of corporate or media events during that window. And it would seem that a multi-day maintenance period is unnecessary (knock on wood). It sounds like Test Track is ready to roll, and is about as reliable as it was before–very good news!
Frankly, this sounds like the most “business as usual” ride reimagining reopening (say that ten times fast) that we’ve seen at Walt Disney World in ages. This is great news, especially following up the rocky rollout of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which was plagued by problems for several months.
For starters, Test Track 3.0 will use a standby line once previews end and it reopens on July 22, 2025. This alone is a strong signal, and means that there will NOT be a virtual queue for Test Track. It’ll either be waiting in the regular ole queue like every other attraction (right now) at Walt Disney World, or line-skipping via the pay-to-play Lightning Lane system.
Test Track will also be part of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass when it reopens on July 22, 2025. It will NOT be part of Lightning Lane Single Pass, meaning it cannot be purchased on an a la carte basis. It’ll be part of the ‘bundle’ option that features two tiers at EPCOT. See Lightning Lane & Line Changes Coming to EPCOT for Reimagined Test Track’s Reopening for how LLMP is adjusting its tiers starting July 22.
Beyond that, Test Track will immediately join both of the ‘extra hours’ lineups at EPCOT as soon as it reopens. There are several other major reimagined rides or not-so-new attractions that still haven’t been added to Early Entry or Extended Evening Hours! Test Track is zooming right back to where it was before, and starting July 22, things will be just like they were before the attraction closed for over a year.
Perhaps a bit before then, if these sporadic soft openings continue. Good luck catching one if you’re in EPCOT over the next week-plus! While we would caution you against getting your hopes up too much or wasting valuable vacation time lingering outside the Test Track entrance (as it’s more likely that you will NOT encounter a soft opening than that you will), it’s absolutely worth weaving Cosmic Rewind into your late afternoon EPCOT itinerary, and making a stop by Test Track to check before and after you ride Cosmic Rewind. We’ll update this accordingly as more soft openings occur (or don’t). Stay tuned!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Will you be in EPCOT over the next week-plus? Planning on scoping out World Discovery in the late afternoon or early evening to see if Test Track has soft opened the standby and Single Rider lines for regular park guests? Already planning on attending AP or DVC previews of Test Track? Agree or disagree with our advice? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
