Star Wars: Rise of Resistance “Pausing” Virtual Queue at Disney World
Over the last few weeks, Disney has quietly been making changes to the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance virtual queue at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland. These have made the process smoother, which has been further aided by a lack of off-season demand on both coasts.
Today, the company has dropped some bombshell news that should come as a welcome change to many of you who: Disney’s Hollywood Studios will pause the use of the virtual queue for the flagship Galaxy’s Edge attraction.
Here’s the full announcement via Disney Parks Blog:
From bright suns to rising moons, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge continues to call travelers to the magic of Batuu, especially with the excitement of Walt Disney World Resort’s 18-month anniversary celebration getting closer and closer. As we ramp up to “The World’s Most Magical Celebration” honoring our 50th anniversary, we’re continuing to enhance experiences thanks to the feedback from our guests.
We know our guests love choice and flexibility when planning their time in a theme park–which is why, starting Sept. 23, we will pause the use of virtual queue for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and guests at Disney’s Hollywood Studios may experience this incredible attraction using a traditional standby queue for the first time since it opened in 2019.
Virtual queues continue to be helpful with attraction access, merchandise launches, grand openings and more, and guests should continue to check the My Disney Experience app for the latest on how we’re using virtual queues across Walt Disney World Resort including its potential use at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at a later date, or from time to time.
In addition to virtual queues, we’ve been investing a lot into the guest experience in other ways, including exciting new attractions on the horizon like Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure opening soon at EPCOT, and coming this fall, the new Disney Genie complimentary and convenient digital planning service designed to create your best Disney Day.
While we’ve been defenders of the virtual queue system for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, we’re tepidly on board with this change. Seeing so many first-time visitors and others who don’t understand the ins and outs of scoring spots in the virtual queue lose is undeniably sad.
It shouldn’t take reading our thousand-plus word Ride Guide & FAQ for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance to “successfully” ride the attraction. Some readers who have been shut out of the virtual queue have indicated that they would’ve preferred the opportunity to wait in the standby line for a few hours to be able to experience Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
As we’ve noted previously, Walt Disney World did not start using a virtual queue with the Galaxy’s Edge headliner due to its popularity. That’s a misconception. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance debuted with a virtual queue during normal operations because it was (and still is) unreliable and prone to prolonged breakdowns.
At that time, the normal FastPass system was thus not viable because it was not sufficiently dynamic to handle the aforementioned downtime without a backlog of guests in the hours after the ride returned.
Beyond that, the switch to the 7 am virtual queue last summer offered another benefit–it discouraged some guests from arriving at or before park opening. With several shows still on “temporary hiatus,” Disney’s Hollywood Studios is again a half-day park.
With this move to a standby line, the bulk of guests will once again arrive for rope drop. This changes the crowd dynamic at DHS, and means more people will leave early after being frustrating by long lines early in the morning. (The silver lining is that Park Hopping to DHS for the last two hours of the day should once again be a great option if you don’t mind not having a real nighttime spectacular.)
The downside to having a standby line is that it entails guests waiting for several hours, potentially enduring one or more ride breakdowns and resets. In the past, our perspective has thus been that the virtual queue and boarding pass system is imperfect, but the best option under the circumstances.
When it comes to a standby line, the grass is arguably greener on the other side. With an unreliable attraction like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, a virtual queue is the ‘lemonade out of lemons’ approach that causes the fewest headaches for guests.
However, we do wonder whether that’s still the case–and there’s definitely cause for some degree of (cautious) optimism around this announcement that the virtual queue is being “paused.”
(Note: Walt Disney World did not indicate the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance virtual queue is being retired, as would normally be the case in an announcement like this. Instead, they’re leaving the door open for its return “from time to time” if this experiment doesn’t go well.)
As we’ve shared previously, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance’s reliability improved pretty significantly in mid-December of last year. The attraction has been processing more boarding groups per day on average, so we’re confident it’s an actual upgrade/fix for problems plaguing the attraction. (See above, via Thrill-Data.com.)
Further corroborating that is data showing shorter and fewer breakdowns per day for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. That coupled with the “new ride smell” starting to wear off might mean that experiencing Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance becomes slightly less competitive going forward.
Moreover, the virtual queue entry at 1 pm has gotten considerably easier over the last couple of months. On some days at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, boarding groups being available well into the afternoon has become an increasingly common occurrence. We’ve seen the virtual queue open after 5 pm on several occasions, and it usually takes minutes or hours to fill.
While that has been a positive development, that trend probably wouldn’t last much longer even if the virtual queue stuck around. There’s pent-up demand among new Annual Passholders and crowds are expected to start arriving for Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary by late September 2021.
However, there is also the reality that many Annual Passholders and other repeat visitors may have honed their skills at joining the virtual queue, but would not even consider waiting 90 to 120 minutes for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Those guests thus will become less likely to attempt doing Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, leaving more hourly ride capacity to first timers and infrequent guests.
I think this is a likely scenario, because it’s our personal perspective. We have zero issues successfully joining the virtual queue every time we visit the parks, but wouldn’t wait more than 45 minutes for it (the wait time will definitely be higher than that, even during the off-season).
As some readers have cynically pointed out, it’s also possible that this move could be motivated by the launch of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World in mid-October 2021 (tentatively). The company has already announced that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will be an individual attraction purchase (what we’re calling Magic Carpet Access) via that system.
This means that some portion of the current free ride capacity will be reallocated to that pay-to-play system. With the second virtual queue drop at 1 pm, many guests might’ve been inclined to wait and roll the dice on that second distribution time rather than buying their way to the front of the line at 7 am if they were shut out on the first try.
That’s entirely possible. Seeing a 180 minute posted wait shortly after Disney’s Hollywood Studios opens for the day might “incentivize” many guests to drop $24 per person (or whatever the amount) so they don’t miss out on Walt Disney World’s flagship attraction.
However, my strong suspicion is that if the goal were simply to nudge guests towards buying Magic Carpet Access for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, the company would simply drop the 1 pm virtual queue time. That’s an easier and cleaner solution that pushes even more guests towards Magic Carpet Access since it encourages purchases starting even earlier (7 am v. shortly after park opening when the line gets long).
I’m pretty cynical, but my gut says this change is actually about guest satisfaction. Enough Walt Disney World visitors are already upset about the virtual queue for this, another virtual queue coming to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (for totally different reasons), and Lightning Lanes & Genie+ on top of that. The systems were getting too complex and convoluted, especially for first-timers and infrequent visitors. This is one way to scale back on that. But I could be completely wrong–it wouldn’t be the first time.
Ultimately, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Walt Disney World. Even though we’re on board with the shift to standby (or at least taking a “wait and see” approach), it is surprising to see this happen right before the World’s Most Magical Celebration kicks off and crowds surge. Testing this out back at the end of August or even early this month would’ve been a much more pragmatic approach. Suffice to say, we’ll be watching closely to see how all of this shakes out. Hopefully it goes well!
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of this news that Walt Disney World will pause use of the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance virtual queue? Do you agree or disagree with this change? 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!
Not sure if this was noted but there seems a simple explanation – they want the virtual queue for Ratatouille but can’t handle two rides and the resulting app traffic. Decided to dump ROTR to shift the already-built queue over. As Tom says, their scrambling to meet Oct deadlines too.
The beancounters will not rest until every last bastion of “value” is stripped out of the already unjustifiable, exhorbitant prices being charged for a Disney experience. Prior to Galaxy’s Edge, there was contemplation of charging extra for the attractions. This is a sneaky way, under the guise of Lightning Lane/Genie to do exactly that – monetize a “premium” experience. RotR is by far the coolest thing in a long time and it has changed my POV on not wanting to get ripped off at the parks (we have been APs, are DVC, and generally go to WDW at least once a year). This move now reverses that POV. The only way this stops is if guests stop succumbing to the price increases/a la carte charges/etc. Otherwise we’ll be looking at $50 a pop addition for each ride on RotR…
Tom –
I’m guessing this also means that grabbing multiple days worth of park passes for DHS is moot? I’m think that with DHS being a half day park, late afternoon is the preferable time slot?
HI Tom,
Do you think this will mean that park hopping will move up from the 2pm position? It had seemed that Disney was holding back on moving up the hopper time because of the 1pm virtual que for ROTR. Since that, as of right now, won’t be an issue, maybe we get to park hop sooner? I would love to hear your ideas on park hopping. Thank you
Personally, as a repeat visitor, I’m all for this change. I say this as someone who has pretty much mastered the virtual queue system and never not gotten a boarding group in the around 11 trips I’ve taken since ROTR debuted. On probably the last 8 of those trips we’ve gotten in the first 10 boarding groups. We’ve actually found ourselves hoping for later boarding groups so we either didn’t need to arrive for rope drop or didn’t waste valuable morning time on ROTR when other waits were lower. We’ll now be able to go back to doing DHS as our second park of the day and taking advantage of the lower overall waits in the park the last few hours of opening, which feels like a relief with it still not being back to a full day park. I love the ride, but I’ll happily just jump in at the end of the night or make peace with only riding when it’s under a certain threshold (probably 60 min for me). I also think this is a great move for all those casual/first time/only there because they’re Star Wars die-hards visitors who will happily wait multiple hours to experience the ride. There’s always going to be the people who hate any change, this is probably the first Disney change in months that I’m fully on board with.
Maybe it’s because the virtual que system can’t handle two rides (ROTR and Remy) at the same time?
I keep looking for nuggets of information about Genie+. In here you say mid-October. I’m mentally preparing myself for brutal line first week of October with no real option otherwise. Got any more info about early October?
I have an idea, they should do this with Web Slingers (and open its Single Rider). I’m guessing they won’t until debut of Genie+ because they need to pull bodies out of the standby queue to put into the bizarrely equal amount of physical queue they have reserved for Lightning Lane, otherwise the line will overflow and interfere with people just trying to watch Spidey do a bunch of flippies.
But it will be so nice when I can finally get Single Rider and never have to use normal queues for that awful Nintendo Wii game again. Single Riders unite! Actually, you can’t, your party will be split, but AFTER that.
I love ROTR…. Rode in 3 times on August trip….
But I am now strongly suspecting I won’t ride it again for a long time, unless I feel like rushing over for morning early entry rope drop..
Great ride. But I won’t wait over an hour to repeat any ride I’ve done before. Also not inclined to pay $24ish per person for a ride I’ve done before. Though it will be interesting to see the demand for that Magic Carpet Access, how much ride capacity they allocate to the Magic Carpets, and then what price is set. At $5 per person, I’d probably sign up without hesitation during each DHS day. At $10, I’d probably groan and pay it. once per trip.Over $20, no way.
But that’s just me.
“I won’t wait over an hour to repeat any ride I’ve done before.”
That is likely a common attitude among repeat visitors and anyone who would comment on a blog post like this within hours of the announcement being made. It should go without saying, but we are not representative of the park-going public.
I’m thus not totally surprised people here are upset by this news–anyone reading/commenting now was far more likely to be adept at using the virtual queue. Still, I am mildly surprised given the amount of backlash to the virtual queue over the last couple of years.
What are the changes at Disneyland for the ROTR ???
There aren’t any.
So does this mean ROTR will now be a Genie+ ride?
No, it will not.
I do think this is to push people to pay for The ride, but my bigger concern is how will this make Studios in the AM? Will onsite guests actually get an advantage if they wanted to drive? Will there be enough busses from resorts in the AM? When will the line cut off? Also, with younger kids will we be at a disadvantage trying to walk back there first thing in the AM? The big positive here for me is that as long I’m willing to wait or pay, I know I won’t have to deal with the disappointment of my boys not getting on.
On-site guests will certainly have an advantage during that 30 minutes starting October 1. It should be pretty comparable to rope dropping any headliner–think similar to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Magic Kingdom.
I wonder if Disney realized they were running into a tech issue too, which helps explain why this only applies to WDW and not DLR. When Genie+ starts, 7 am is going to be huge for MDE. On-site guests can purchase individual lightning lanes; everyone with Genie+ gets to make their first reservation; and before this announcement, there were two boarding groups to join. They had already minimized the action at 7 earlier this week when they announced you can confirm your friends and family list for the virtual queue starting at 6 instead of once the boarding groups opened. I wonder if they’ve been running tests and it was just too much on the servers at one time, something DLR doesn’t have an issue with, even with two boarding groups going at once, given the sheer number of WDW attendance and resort guests. Maybe something had to give, and this was the easiest/most complained about, plus it’ll ease up a huge chunk of guests who might not need to be on the app right at 7 now.
That’s also entirely possible, too.
The first time Walt Disney World’s systems crash some morning after all of the Genie stuff launches, that’s going to be a nightmare. It’s bound to happen sooner or later.
Nope. This is all lightning lane.
You keep the virtual queue and even if you cut it at 1. Disney cuts their potential LL profits by 1/3 to a 1/2.
I’m slowly getting exhausted by it all.
Don’t forget. Those staying at certain Disney resorts will have a 30 minute head start over the general public. It will be interesting to see how long the wait is for them.
I thought the virtual queue was better than standing in lines for hours BUT I am sure having the virtual queue would mess up their plans for the paid lightning lanes… I am also sure this is to make money and they will make the announcement that paid lightning Lane will start soon!
I’m really interested to see how all these changes shake out in a few weeks. On the surface I think this is a positive but I also totally get/kind of agree with everyone who cynically thinks this is about selling more Lightning Lanes. Disney has made too many blatant cash grabs recently for them to get the benefit of the doubt from me right now. Anxiously awaiting to see how much Genie+, Lightning Lanes, and dropping the virtual queue for this but using one for Remy affects touring. I know Tom will have us covered!
“Disney has made too many blatant cash grabs recently for them to get the benefit of the doubt from me right now.”
I think that’s a totally fair perspective and I certainly don’t fault anyone for having a cynical perspective here given the surrounding circumstances.
There’s also the reality that a lot has been changing on extremely short notice, Disney has provided minimal/incomplete details, and the company is seemingly figuring out a lot of this and tweaking it on the fly. (Actually, not just “seemingly.” If what I’ve heard lately is accurate, it’s an absolute scramble to have all of this up and running before the end of October.)
Sounds like everyone wins with this. Disney definitely will make more money as people will pay rather than wait in long lines. This also helps Disney and park visitors by cutting down on the number of people walking around the park biding their time on other lines while waiting for their boarding pass to come up. It also helps those who are not good with tech and would never win a boarding pass. Most importantly it’s great for Disney and their paying guests by giving folks who save and plan for a year or longer to have the opportunity to get on a ride they’ve been dreaming about. Nothing worse than folks spending three years of saved disposable income in a week and never getting on the ride they most wanted. I spent a little time with an imagineer who worked on both Smuggler’s Run and ROTR. SR had just opened but ROTR was still testing. It was his opinion that SR was worth waiting an hour for but ROTR was worth waiting 2 hours. I think he was right. Most people will not be disappointed waiting a long time. Nothing better for Disney than satisfied customers. Something they should try to remember more often.
I’m so unused to recent Disney changes actually yielding guest satisfaction that it’s hard to believe that is driving Disney policies anymore. I’ll miss the virtual queue. While it made for a hugely stressful few minutes in the morning, I thought it was amazing to be able to spend time at other attractions while waiting out my time to ride. I guess I’m in the minority, but I’d love to see more virtual queues.
I don’t think this is as hot of a take as I thought it was before reading the comments, but I am in the NO camp for this one. I knew it had to happen at some point, but considering there are rides that are now considered “older” that still have considerably long waits (your Flights of Passage and 7DMTs) I am not looking forward to having to wait hours and hours for this for who knows how long. Especially with the 50th coming around the corner and crowds sure to increase it’s hard for me NOT to see it as a push toward paid Lightning Lane. If you had asked me weeks ago I would’ve said I was crazy but bring back the virtual queue! XD