New Extended Hours & More for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
After overestimating with Galaxy’s Edge, it’s now fair to say that Walt Disney World underestimated the popularity of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. More adjustments are being made to park hours, Extra Magic Hours, transportation and more to meet the demand and popularity of what we called Imagineering’s most ambitious and impressive attraction of the modern era in our spoiler-free review.
Before delving into all of the changes, let’s preemptively address the inevitable questions by directing you to our Ride Guide & FAQ for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. We’ve updated that with new info and more answers to questions readers that were frequently being asked by readers in the comments.
Additionally, it’s worth reiterating that even with the earlier official park hours, Disney’s Hollywood Studios is still quietly opening the park even earlier. On December 14, 2019, DHS opened shortly after 6:30 am, with a pretty large crowd outside the turnstiles before 6 am. The virtual queue was full before 7:45 am. More early opening speculation below–for now let’s cover what’s official…
From now until the end of the month, the official opening time for Disney’s Hollywood Studios has been moved forward to 7 am. The only exception to this is December 26-31, 2019. That’s the busiest week of the year, and on those dates DHS will open officially at 6 am.
These earlier openings will continue into the new year, with January 1-4, 2020 also seeing 7 am openings. After that, 8 am park openings occur through February 1, 2020. Don’t be surprised to see future dates also receive extended hours as we draw nearer to them and Disney has a chance to evaluate demand projections. This is true even in what’s traditionally (but not recently!) the doldrums of winter off-season.
To accommodate for these earlier official opening times, the Disney Skyliner gondolas will begin operations at 6:45 am and run until 10:30 pm. These hours are valid only for the next week (through December 21, 2019), but we’d expect them to continue, with even earlier times following for Christmas/New Year’s week. Along those lines, Minnie Vans will begin operating at 5 am.
As covered in the FAQ, our advice would be to use Uber or Lyft rather than relying on Disney transportation that early. For one thing, that Skyliner time is still not early enough of an arrival to DHS and Minnie Vans are overpriced. Buses will also be running, but they’re spotty and this is a scenario where time is of the essence. (No sense in putting in so much effort to get up that early only to have transportation be what fails you.) If you’re unfamiliar with ride-share services at WDW, see our Guide to Uber & Lyft at Walt Disney World.
Next up, Extra Magic Hours. The important thing to note up front here is that Walt Disney World hasn’t modified its policy that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will not be operating during EMH. With that said, Extra Magic Hours have been moved from mornings to evenings at DHS for the remainder of December 2019 through January 26, 2020.
This is becoming something of a sore subject for us. We were planning on doing morning Extra Magic Hours tomorrow, attempting to test out the logistics from Caribbean Beach (where we’re staying for the opening of Disney’s Riviera Resort to see how the new amenities ‘plus’ the CBR experience), but now that plan is pointless. The upside is more sleep…unless we end up at Disney’s Hollywood Studios regardless.
In addition to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, park hours have been extended around Walt Disney World for peak holiday dates (except at Epcot).
We’re not going to go through all of these–in large part because I’m not 100% sure of the before v. after–but we did notice new 8 am and 7 am opening times for Animal Kingdom on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, respectively. (Extra Magic Hours at DAK have also been shifted earlier to accommodate.)
Magic Kingdom park hours have also been extended once again for select dates in December 2019 and sporadically throughout January 2020. It feels like this is the fourth time we’ve seen an update to hours for this month.
In addition to 7 am morning Extra Magic Hours for the week of Christmas (plus a 6 am general public opening on December 25), we now have some early openings and later closings in January 2020. These hours put the park roughly in line with historic averages, and underscore just why the preliminary calendar that’s released months in advance is totally unreliable boilerplate material.
Now for some commentary on the new hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. With the new 7 am official park opening time, we are not expecting even earlier unpublished openings. Expect those times to stay in the 6 am to 6:30 am range, which is the same as they were when Disney’s Hollywood Studios was opening officially at 9 am a week or so ago.
In our view, the primary (valid) complaint about Walt Disney World’s protocol for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance was that the park was opening several hours prior to the published time. Even guests who performed their due diligence and did research could end up being shut out of the attraction.
While we obviously encourage people to read unofficial resources like this blog to get unbiased/insider tips and not just the company line, that should not be strictly necessary in order to experiencing a new marquee attraction that is being heavily marketed. Reliance on DisneyWorld.com or Cast Members at the resorts should be sufficient for something as basic as that, with blogs and fan sites providing hacks and tips for ‘above and beyond’ insight.
At the time, there was truly no perfect solution to that issue. As we’ve pointed out in other posts, opening week hype being what it is, if Walt Disney World announces the earlier time, diehards simply arrive even earlier…thus necessitating DHS to open the security perimeter and park itself to avoid safety concerns. In other words, the same problem would arise, but it’d move forward a couple hours even earlier.
Now that we’re outside the ‘opening diehard hype’ period and into the ‘peak holiday crowds’ season, it makes sense and is appropriate for Walt Disney World to communicate these early times to all guests to level the knowledge playing field, so to speak. At this point, there are only so many guests willing to get up at the crack of dawn, but at least by (mostly) communicating actual park hours, more guests are aware of the earlier hours and can get up that early, should they so choose.
The virtual queue and urgency of arriving early still isn’t being fully explained via official channels, but that’s par for the course. Walt Disney World also doesn’t fully convey the difficulty of scoring FastPass+ for Slinky Dog Dash, Avatar Flight of Passage, Frozen Ever After–or the difficulty of scoring ADRs for Be Our Guest Restaurant–when featuring all of those in marketing. That’s sort of the nature of the beast, though.
Ultimately, we’d expect the gap to continue closing between the unpublished opening time and the published opening time. We’ve seen this happen over the course of the last week, and we’d expect the same to occur this coming week and in both January and February 2020.
The one exception to this will be holiday weeks or peak season. As we noted above, guests crowding outside the turnstiles is a safety concern; you should expect Disney’s Hollywood Studios to open even earlier on any morning when crowd forecasts are higher (think Christmas to New Year’s Eve, Presidents Day weekend, etc).
When this hoopla and hype might die down? Well…Pandora has been open for a few years, and mornings are still pretty busy at Anima Kingdom. That’s for a ride based on Avatar—this is Star Wars, a more beloved franchise with a new movie about to be released. And Rise of the Resistance is better than Flight of Passage. On top of that, crowds are only likely to get worse, with other new additions and Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary around the corner. In other words, don’t think you can simply skip Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance on your upcoming WDW trip and have an easier experience next time. It’s going to be popular and hard to do for years to come.
If you’re planning on visiting the new land, you’ll also want to read our Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Guide. This covers a range of topics from basics about the land and its location, to strategically choosing a hotel for your stay, recommended strategy for the land, and how to beat the crowds. It’s a good primer for this huge addition. As for planning the rest of your trip, we have a thorough Walt Disney World Planning Guide.
Your Thoughts
If you’ve arrived early for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, what was your experience like? If you have an upcoming Christmas or January/February 2020 trip, do you plan on arriving to Disney’s Hollywood Studios super early? Do you agree or disagree with our advice and assessment? Any questions? 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!
Would the preferred parking lots also be open early? Are those lots closer than the regular lots? Trying to help my family out who are not morning people to begin with, lol. Thanks for all the information!
Planning on using Lyft tomorrow morning (15th). We’ll hopefully come back and nap by noon. Will follow up after. Have MVMCP tomorrow night too. Brutal day.
26 Coppersmith Way
We were there Thursday the 12th. Arrived at 6:20am, they opened the gates at 6:35 (first day of published opening of 7:00). We were thru the lines at the gates by 6:55 and were assigned boarding group 66…which was called for entry to the ride at 1:40pm. Plenty of time to ride all other rides in DHS.
Do you have a prediction of how the opening of RotR will play out in Disneyland?
Will Studios be bringing back “March of the Order”? So disappointed not to see it when we were there in September.
Donna
Hello Tom,
I will be on WDW from Jan 7th to Jan 13th, more specifically on DHS on Monday, Jan 13th. What extra hours or park schedule can I expect for DHS on this specific date? How early should I get into the park from the expected opening time in order to guarantee my ride on Rise of the Resistance?
I will be staying at Movies resort.
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Andres
Hi Andres, since it’s always changing, it’s hard to know for sure. Looks like operating hours for DHS right now is 8am to 8pm for Jan 13th. You should definitely be there by 7am, but definitely pay attention to the wait times for DHS the week before, Jan 6-10, to see when wait times start being displayed. That will roughly indicate when people have been allowed into the rides area of the park. If you can get a rough estimate for each day that is usually the same, I’d recommend you get there an hour before that time so you’re in line and ready to go. Be sure to check back on the app for any updated hours as well so you’re not late! Since you’ll be there the weekend of the Disney Marathon, it’s possible times could change again.
100% off topic Tom but now that the Swan Hotel’s coffee shop is open (it is great!!), along with the Tea Traders at Disney Springs, I think it may be time for you to do a review of all the various places to get GOOD tea and coffee around Disney. After all, you are the Travel Caffeine expert!
Thanks for all your Disney trip planning help.
We were planning on returning to WDW in August 2020 (villa and accommodation booked) , the main driver being the new rides , but as may cancel as, with all the additional planning that seems to be required i fear the enjoyment will be taken out of it. I don’t plan on getting up at crack of dawn when supposed to be on holiday! Last time (2016) we managed to avoid any queues over 20 mins by sensible use of fast passes and chilling out.
Hey Peter, don’t lose hope yet. By the time August rolls around, it’s highly likely these ridiculous hurdles will be updated. Most are guessing that when the Mickie and Minnie Runaway Railway opens up, the fastpasses will be available soon after. Just keep checking back as the info is always changing! I’ll be going in May and can’t wait!
We visited on Dec 11. Caught the 6:30 bus out of Animal Kingdom Lodge, arrived at DHS, checked in and joined boarding group 45. Got called around 3:00 it 3:30. The ride broke down while we were in line. As we waited, cast members brought chips, bananas, packaged carrot slices and water. Down time was probably about a half hour. Really a smooth process. The ride experience is far and away the best, most immersive, exciting, jaw dropping thing at Disney, period. Totally worth all the inconvenience.
i wanted to say again that i appreciate you validating the legitimate complaints about the distribution of the boarding passes via the unannounced earlier openings, boxing out a lot of people.
but isn’t disney doing this to themselves? by forcing every person in a party to be present instead of coming up with some kind of other system, that’s adding more people to the crunch. and they keep saying it’s for safety they are opening early because people are lining up- well, isn’t the very simple answer to not allow lining up hours ahead of published opening? don’t open the parking lot, don’t allow cars to line up (tell them they have to back up and aren’t allowed to queue), don’t run resort transportation until a sane hour, don’t allow walkers to begin lining up in the dark. i guarantee this nonsense of hours ahead of opening would disappear real quick. it just adds to FOMO. disney is just having to spend more to open the park earlier and pay more cast members and pay for operating costs, i’d think they’d want to avoid that.
With each potential solution comes its own set of unintended consequences.
First of all, keeping everyone away from DHS would require a lot of staffing–it’s not as simple as putting up a sign. Second, not allowing traffic to enter would simply back up nearby roads. Morning traffic is already not the most pleasant in Central Florida.
Finally–and most crucially–delaying opening means fewer people per day would be able to experience Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance because the attraction would be operating for less time. I don’t think Disney wants that, either.
With any new attraction, demand is always going to exceed supply, leading to some unhappy guests. That’s just the reality of the situation. Personally, I wish communication would’ve been better (something that has now been resolved), but I truly believe the current approach is the best course of action for Walt Disney World. They often botch operations, but I think they’re largely nailing this.
i agree the communication piece was god-awful. but it’s just a cycle they are perpetuating. they announce a time, people line up 2 hours ahead of it. they open early, people start lining up 2 hours ahead of that time and so on and so forth. i would think keeping people away would be the better option. or if they allow cars into the parking lot, tell people they have to stay in their vehicle until such-and-such time, not allowing lining up at the gates. something. honestly at this point it might be best if they just stayed open 24 hours… and none of this affects me at all, i’m not there and don’t know anyone who is (though if i did i’d be tagging them everywhere), i just have a really soft-spot for families like mine who i feel are getting the short stick in all of this.
Thank you Tom for this insider info! We were at DHS 12/11 and 12/12. Had we not read your blog, we would have arrived at the posted opening time (8am) and missed the ride. We arrived at the park at 6am both days and got boarding passes each day. The ride is worth waking up early for. On those days boarding passes we’re gone before the official opening time. While we were on line the first day the ride broke down but we decided to wait it out on the line. Rey and Chewbacca came through, and they gave us popcorn, chips and water. We wound up waiting on line for an extra hour but now we have some really good stories to tell. Tom’s blog is invaluable and we wouldn’t have been able to experience this ride without his tips.
We rode ROTR on Thursday, Dec. 12. We got up at 4am and drove to the park at 5:45. They opened at 6:30 and we got in boarding group 32. They were all gone by 7:20. We got called up at 9:30 and were out by 10:30. It was totally worth the early wake up!
With the downtime, I had clients arriving at 6:15 last week only to be evacuated off the ride twice, never to be able to fully experience it. That does happen, but it sure is a bummer. And what with the need to have the other FPs and ADRs that you must have at Disney (also droid and lightsaber and Oga’s reservations) you aren’t necessarily free to go back 3-4 times. I wish they would have done AP previews or an AP blockout for a few weeks for out of town guests that are spending way more than AP holders, to come once every few years… to get to ride these things. So I’m not a huge fan of the boarding group system. It’ll be interesting to see how it does shake out. I agree Pandora is still nuts all these years later, and no one even cares about Avatar. It’ll be interesting to see if my kids love the ride as they are in for more thrills normally (like Rock n Roller coaster). The fact that it’s more of an easy ride to accomodate all is wonderful, but it puts the # of people who can/want to ride it higher than even Flight of Passage. (As some avoid due to 3d, or ability or whatever). I have also been following Hagrid’s opening since June and sure the lines are insane but you CAN ride it if you’re willing to wait 2-3 hours just by showing up in the afternoon. By utilizing the virtual queue, you’re essentially taking that person who would have shown up at 3pm and waited til 6 or 7, and put them at the park at 7am just waiting around doing all the other rides, until their RotR time. Anyway… just my opinion. With all this mess I am advising my clients who wish to ride it to have 2 days at Hollywood on their 2020 trips. It’s also a great time to use those VIP tours if you’ve ever wanted to!
Do you think crowds are really any higher than they would have been? Or they’ve just extended the operating hours at HS because an extremely high percentage of guests that would have already been there anyways want to experience RotR, and it is suffering from some operational hiccups?
With all that goes into planning a Disney vacation, and knowing most “normal” people don’t really follow the parks that closely, I’m just kind of not sold on last minute bookings for Christmas elevating crowds even higher. As you pointed out, the other parks received extended hours similar to last year, and Christmas always goes to an 11 on the insanity scale.
I’m happy for everyone that will be there the hours have been extended. I’m just not sold that opening this attraction is bringing in that many people that wouldn’t have already been there…
It’s honestly really difficult to tell.
The crowds are definitely larger first thing in the morning, but later in the day it’s not noticeably worse than last year (if anything, Toy Story Land is significantly better). However, that could be due to a huge new land opening and absorbing crowds, TSL no longer being a dead-end, or guests bouncing from DHS and heading elsewhere once they do (or find out they can’t do) RotR. Additionally, there are really aggressive and unprecedented Cast Member blockouts for DHS, and those were not a thing last year.
Animal Kingdom is probably up YoY for December, but we haven’t been there enough to say that definitively. This RotR opening has sucked up far more of our holiday park time than I anticipated.
The one park that’s beating (my) expectations is Epcot. I suspect it’s beating Disney’s, as well, which is why some of the shop closures (and potentially SSE) were pushed back.
I do think Rise of the Resistance will be a huge factor over time, especially as word of mouth spreads. Of the people who are able to ride it, I’d imagine it has one of the highest guest satisfaction rates in all of Walt Disney World. It may not have had a tremendous impact on bookings this year as people played the ‘wait and see’ game, but it should result in a bump for Spring 2020 and beyond.
Always appreciate your perspective.
From everything I’ve read it sounds like it will definitely raise the numbers starting next year.
TSL not being a dead end gets my unsung hero award for park improvements. I almost enjoyed myself in that part of the park this year :-).
Thank you so much for this but if we’re driving, do you know how early they will allow us entry to the car park? Is it only at park opening hours or a good time before?
They’ve been letting people park between 5-5:30am.
which to me is crazy. just don’t open the lots and don’t allow cars to line up until a certain time. it’s just contributing to the chaos.
Ok, so park opens at 7 and cars
start lining up at 6. What’s the difference.
ROTR is a completely different experience than FOP and is less entertaining in my opinion. I’ve been on FOP over 10x and I would get up early to ride it again. I’ve been on ROTR once and I can’t say that I would do the same.
No, you have to have a boarding pass, even to use the DAS pass.
Sorry, I had not seen information about DAS. Are you saying we can go into SW area but not the RotR ride unless we were early enough to get a boarding group? Is DAS usable for the other ride?
Haven’t been in a while, so not sure we cannot use DAS for. At DL it is usable on any ride, not just those with FP. That is very helpful for those of us that travel about a bit slower than others.
Have to disagree. FOP is a simulation to where ROR is an immersive experience. ROR is way above FOP imo.
We will be there for Christmas and New Years so we are planning on getting there early. We will be camping at fort wilderness. What transportation would you suggest to get to Hollywood studios early?
Do you know if guests with DAS (Disability Access Service) are able to use it on ROR even if the virtual queue is sold out?
You have to get a boarding pass like everyone else. No exceptions.
“Rise of the Resistance is better than Flight of Passage” – some bold words there! Hope to find out myself next week! Course, I’ll totally get up at 4, and we have our own car ( the Star Wars stickers may give away my hardcore fandom!). Would have went for opening if I hadn’t already planned a trip just before Thanksgiving and over Christmas.
Everyone is going to have their own personal preferences, but I strongly favor dimensional, tactile experiences. That’s why I’m a huge fan of classic dark rides (plus newer stuff like Sindbad, Mystic Manor, and Pooh’s Hunny Hunt) and am not particularly keen on Toy Story Mania and that breed of attractions.
I love Flight of Passage, but it’s not on the same level for me. Plus, the pre-shows are interminable and kill a lot of my desire to re-ride.
I was able to book a last minute studio at Boardwalk with DVC points Tues 12/10. I walked to DHS with my 7-year old Wed morning and lined up just before 6am. There were several buses arriving and gondolas were running while I waited for his 7-year old legs to catch up. Gates opened at 6:30am and we were assigned BG 22. We walked onto RR 3 times and as we made our way to Galaxy’s Edge our BG was called at 7:20am. We have AP and weren’t planning to stay at the park all day. There may have been some small downtime for the ride while we were in line (lines stopped moving for awhile a couple of times) but we were finished before 9am.
ROTR has a major wow factor and makes you feel like you’re immersed in a movie. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan so I’m happy I’ve had the experience but probably won’t try for a repeat unless we have friends or family visiting who really want to check it out. My 7 year old is somewhat of a Star Wars fan but really into the thrill rides these days and he enjoyed the ride even though it’s not super high speed. There’s enough excitement in other forms to keep thrill seekers engaged. The level of immersion the Imagineers achieved is unmatched compared to any other theme park experience.
Do you think the earlier official times indicate they’re feeling better about getting the early kinks worked out and ride closures are more infrequent, or are those issues still there?
There are still issues with ride uptime and breakdowns. (My bet is that until that’s addressed, the virtual queue stays in place–however long that might take.)
I think the earlier opening times are likely resulting from a mix of guest complaints and WDW management realizing that this is a massive hit and its popularity isn’t going to die down after opening weekend (unlike Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run).
Thanks for the info. What’s typical length for downtime right now? I know a week ago people were saying it was down for 2-3 hours when it went down. Is that still the same?
If the ride portion itself goes down, the reset time is approximately 70 minutes. It can be shorter if there are other timing issues, or potentially longer if multiple problems occur simultaneously.
I’ve never heard of it being down 2-3 hours at a single time. I have heard of it going down quite quickly after it comes back online (so perhaps that was two near-consecutive breakdowns?).
Anecdotally, it appears that most of the breakdowns are occurring earlier in the day. This could be pure coincidence, but it’s what we’ve observed.
The 2 simultaneous breakdowns does make sense. The main one i was thinking of was someone that commented on one of your other articles saying it was about 2 hours and 15 minutes, which is pretty close to 2 70 minute break downs. I really haven’t paid attention to what others are saying outside of here, mainly because I’ve enjoyed the spoiler free nature here. I doubt I’ll be able to go another 5 months completely spoiler free before I get my chance to ride, but I’ll trying hard to avoid them!