diff --git a/cluster/gce/gci/configure.sh b/cluster/gce/gci/configure.sh
index 1f768c3b50f..ad5d6d6eae0 100644
--- a/cluster/gce/gci/configure.sh
+++ b/cluster/gce/gci/configure.sh
@@ -126,12 +126,12 @@ function validate-hash {
 # Get default service account credentials of the VM.
 GCE_METADATA_INTERNAL="http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance"
 function get-credentials {
-  curl "${GCE_METADATA_INTERNAL}/service-accounts/default/token" -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google" -s | python -c \
+  curl --fail --retry 5 --retry-delay 3 ${CURL_RETRY_CONNREFUSED} --silent --show-error "${GCE_METADATA_INTERNAL}/service-accounts/default/token" -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google" -s | python -c \
     'import sys; import json; print(json.loads(sys.stdin.read())["access_token"])'
 }
 
 function valid-storage-scope {
-  curl "${GCE_METADATA_INTERNAL}/service-accounts/default/scopes" -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google" -s | grep -q "auth/devstorage"
+  curl --fail --retry 5 --retry-delay 3 ${CURL_RETRY_CONNREFUSED} --silent --show-error "${GCE_METADATA_INTERNAL}/service-accounts/default/scopes" -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google" -s | grep -q "auth/devstorage"
 }
 
 # Retry a download until we get it. Takes a hash and a set of URLs.