Star Wars Rise of Resistance Report: September Slump
It’s time for another ride report on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Hollywood Studios. This Walt Disney World update details our success scoring boarding passes, tweaks to how the virtual queue works, and a serious drop in demand due to the low crowds of last month and September 2021.
If all you care about is strategy, consult our Ride Guide & FAQ for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance for the ins and outs of the virtual queue–including tips to improve your speed–rather than reading this report. There have not been any recent major changes since that ride guide was updated late last month. The strategy is still 100% accurate.
The good news is that, for now at least, the “fast finger” strategy in that ride guide is not even remotely necessary. For the last few weeks, attendance has dropped and vacation cancellations have increased. We cover what’s happening in Walt Disney World’s Lowest Crowd Week of the Last Year, but that title tells much of the story–last week was the least busy the parks have been in the last year. At least until this week dethrones it…
As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, the virtual queue entry at 1 pm has gotten considerably easier over the last couple of weeks. We first noticed this on August 13 or 14, right after Osceola and Orange County schools had gone back into session. It began with the afternoon boarding groups remaining available shortly after 1 pm, which has been unprecedented in the last several months–they’re normally gone within seconds.
Things got really weird on August 16. The virtual queue for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance remained open until 7 pm. The virtual queue didn’t close then because the ride ran out of boarding groups–the attraction began accepting guests on a walk-up basis, using the standby line. For roughly the last hour Disney’s Hollywood Studios was open, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance had no wait!
In the couple of weeks since, 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, including after 6 pm on weekends.
We decided to take advantage of that on a recent afternoon visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios…
We arrived to Disney’s Hollywood Studios at 1:15 pm to find, unsurprisingly, low crowds throughout the park.
Our plan was to show up a bit later, but Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance wasn’t having the most efficient day up until that point, so we opted to move our arrival time forward so as to not miss out on the virtual queue. (A wise move, as it closed by 1:30 pm that day.)
This is also a good time to highlight how joining the virtual queue has changed slightly as of late.
The first portion of the process–clicking the hamburger button and virtual queue icon–is unchanged. It’s once you get to the above screen and tap “Join Virtual Queue” that things are different.
Instead of proceeding to a screen to review your party, select additional members (or unselect someone), and continuing to the next screen, that’s been consolidated into a single step.
Any of your My Disney Experience friends and family with Disney’s Hollywood Studios reservations should appear in “Your Party,” and you can simply tap “Join Virtual Queue” from here. This is an incremental improvement that may not seem like much, but it is–especially for larger parties. It shaves off a few milliseconds from the process, which doesn’t matter at all right now–but it will.
We ended up scoring boarding group 125, with an estimated return in 6 hours.
It ended up being exactly that, as we were called back at 7:16 pm.
We headed back to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance shortly after sunset.
There was a long line just to enter the physical queue, which itself was backed up almost to the attraction marquee.
There had been a couple of afternoon showers that cleared out the crowds, making Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance the attraction with the longest standby wait time, effectively. Thought that was mildly amusing given that it’s using only a virtual queue.
For what it’s worth, this is not a normal occurrence, but it does happen–seemingly with greater frequency at the end of the day. The last time we had encountered this long of a line was January of last year, so it’s been a while. It all depends on breakdowns and how many boarding groups are left to process at the end of the night.
The only other “new to us” change with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is that face masks are now required once you enter the enclosed portion of the queue.
That’s technically right here under the waterfalls, I guess.
In practice, most guests put on their face masks when entering the actual building.
Other than that, no material changes to the experience of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance since our last update. Plexiglass barriers are still up in the queue, but that’s really the last vestige of the modifications.
We do have another update since our visit, which is that today (September 1, 2021) for the first time since…maybe December 2019?…the early morning virtual queue entry time didn’t fill up in seconds or minutes.
It stayed open until after 9 am, for over two full hours!
We got group 89 at 8:40 am.
While this is probably exciting news, this probably won’t last much longer. By tomorrow or Friday, Labor Day crowds should start arriving. This isn’t a particularly busy long weekend at Walt Disney World by holiday standards, but it will give attendance at least a slight bump.
Once Labor Day travel subsides, new Walt Disney World Annual Passes go on sale starting September 8, 2021.
It’s difficult to say just how much pent-up demand exists among locals who have been anxiously awaiting the return of APs, but there’s definitely at least some. Probably enough to bring the days of boarding groups available for multiple hours to an end–at least on weekends.
It’s possible that by the time pent-up demand among new Annual Passholders fizzles out, it’ll be late September. That’s when crowds are expected to start arriving for Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary on October 1, 2021.
Sometime shortly after that, there’s the launch of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World. 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 virtual queue capacity will be reallocated to that pay-to-play system.
In other words, it’s entirely possible that what’s happening with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance right now will only last another few days. We mention all of this to avoid giving you unrealistic expectations that this is the “new normal.” It absolutely is not.
If you’re visiting in October or December, the virtual queue will almost certainly be competitive again, with boarding groups gone in seconds.
With that said, this is cause for some degree of optimism. As we’ve previously noted, 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 joining the virtual queue for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance becomes slightly less competitive going forward. This definitely will not mean boarding groups are available for several hours per day, but even a few minutes would be a huge relief for guests who don’t have fast fingers–or phones.
Ultimately, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is one of Imagineering’s greatest achievements ever, and if you want to enjoy the incredible experience without it being tainted by the stressful virtual queue…now is the time! Your window is probably closing already, but our expectation is that the process will continue to be easier on weekdays throughout September 2021.
After that, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. This is the one attraction we anticipate being a popular purchase with Magic Carpet Access via Lightning Lanes. Depending upon how much capacity is allocated to that, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance could go from being very easy to access to very difficult to access in the span of a month.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you experienced Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance in the last few weeks? Have any success scoring a boarding group hours after the entry time opened? Are you optimistic or apprehensive about how easy this process will be in the coming months once Lightning Lanes launch? Will you be attempting to join the new/modified virtual queue on your next trip to Walt Disney World? Do you agree or disagree with our 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!
I entered Hollywood Studios today and was able to join the Cue for Resistance at 3:30 and was called by 6:05pm! No waits anywhere, rode the Falcon 3 times! It was like fast pass on every ride and right to the front!
Disney World is missing its international guest. The place would have been packed with Brits, Europeans and South Americans making up for the domestic drop as US kids go back to school.
@ Joshua. When in doubt, always pick the week when the schools are in full session. You’ll get heavy crowds the week of the holiday since you’ll have a lot of people planning time off around the holiday and the schools will be on a short week.
The week after Thanksgiving was the week we would always go and I highly recommend it. Our last trip was in 2019 and we went the same time for 4 consecutive years from 2016-2019. It was always great weather and we never felt overwhelmed by the crowds. The weekend after Thanksgiving felt a little crowded but it wasn’t too bad, and the following week was great. I attribute that to everyone returning to school and work after the holiday break. And if you go after Thanksgiving, you’ll also have the Christmas atmosphere. Hopefully the 50th doesn’t change the crowd levels too much in Nov and Covid doesn’t get any worse. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Lines have been insane! In a good way! We arrived on the 29th. Epcot 30th, Magic Kingdom 31st, Hollywood Studios today like you. For every single park so far we have gone every single ride (and I mean every one!) two times or more. This is our experience so far:
Epcot: walked onto Frozen the first two times (first thing at open), 3rd time later in day it was 20 minutes. Rest of rides in park were 5-10 minutes, even Test Track!
Magic Kingdom: longest wait was Seven Dwarfs and Jungle Cruise at 20 minutes. Rest of rides were 5-10 minutes. We walked onto Thunder Mtn (they let us stay on it and ride again), Haunted Mansion, Splash Mtn, Space Mountain
and that Little Mermaid ride.
Today at Hollywood Studios: We were boarding group 14 for Rise! Glad we got to experience that. Longest wait was Slinky Dog at 30 minutes. Walked on Star Tours, Toy Story Mania and Tower of Terror. The rest of the rides were 10-15 minutes.
It seemed like a lot of people were in the parks, but not long lines. But we live rural, maybe “a lot of people “ is subjective! Really enjoying this vacation. Other than the heat. The rain today was nice for these pacific northwesterners
We were there 3 weeks ago and got a boarding group at 7:00am. When we arrived for our time we got as far as the stormtrooper room and suddenly all shut down and they escorted us all out and gave us FP to either come back later if it reopened or ride something else. When we were finally notified that it was up and running, we decided that our previous trips had been enough and we rode Smuggler’s run instead. I think for us the newness has worn off.
Tom,
I’m intrigued by your following statement, “If you’re visiting in October or December, the virtual queue will almost certainly be competitive again, with boarding groups gone in seconds.” I distinctly see November not included. I realize they are all going to be more crowded than now because I’ve read your other articles pertaining to 2021 best months to go. However, I hope you could answer this, if your choosing between the week before Thanksgiving and the week after from primarily a crowd perspective, which would you choose for a 5 day visit? I’d really like your perspective on this because I’m torn.
November was not purposefully excluded.
By before, do you mean week of Thanksgiving? If so, the week after. If you mean Nov. 14-20, then that week.
follow
We were at Hollywood studios Monday, got a virtual que boarding group at 7am and did the ride. Later, well after 1pm, I was able to get a second boarding group. But then we left the park, so didn’t have a chance to ride it for the second time but I assume we could have.
You pay over $100 to get in, and now you have to pay more to catch a ride? Sounds like they should just go back to the old E-ticket system and be done.
it’s bad enough that you are expect to purchase a plane ticket and then another ticket to fly your suitcase. Now you have to pay extra if you actually want a seat.
What is this world coming too…….Walt is rolling over for sure with what is happening to his ‘happy place’.
Maggie, I had the exact same experience at HS last week! Only thing is, it was on our very first experience so my family and I didn’t know any better and thought the grey hallway was a part of the ride that was just odd. It wasn’t until we got a 2nd boarding pass that week and had the full experience.
I wonder if the 7 am time will get hard but 1 pm time will stay easy, as people who fail to get a spot at 7 am opt to purchase the Magic Carpet access rather than waiting to take their chances in the afternoon. That’s honestly probably what I’d do, even knowing that we are likely to get a spot at 1, since it’s a must-do ride for us.
Do the First Order officers still wear masks? I’m not trying to start a debate – I’m just curious. For all the ride’s tech, I found those cast members to be one of the best parts, pre-pandemic. Safety first, of course, but I miss their scowling faces…
Any guess on what percentage of RoR capacity they will allocate to the new paid option? I would hope it would be no more than 20% given the difficulty/likelihood of the average guest on a normal crowd day to ride now. Understanding this would just be a complete shot in the dark number of course.
Disneyland’s version has seen its slow days as well. The 12 PM drop is almost always the easiest one to get and has been available into the early evening on some days. I went yesterday after work and scored backup group 321 at around 5:30 PM (I also got the same day reservation–both parks available for those classic after work hangout visits where I show up with all my friends, you can’t see them, they’re just out of frame). Unfortunately, Rise broke down at around 7:30 PM and they just kept it down, stopping at group 291, but I was able to easily dump that and get Web Slingers, which was also available all day. The parks are deader than dead! Now is a great time to be a keymaster.
Impressed by the full battery, Tom.
“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.”
I find the interplay between Rise being a) so popular, b) using the free boarding pass system, and c) using the Magic Carpet Access quite interesting.
It seems like the obvious sweet spot for monetization as the new a la carte system rolls out. I’m glad we got to ride it twice. I must say as awesome as it is, I would feel like I got ripped off it I had to pay an additional 80 dollars for my family of four to experience it.
I hope they don’t dramatically reduce the allocation of free boarding groups to the detriment of future guests.
This is almost exactly the experience I had one week ago – We got to the park late due to slow transportation and a long night at Boo Bash the night before. It was 1:24 before I was able to log in and snag a boarding pass, but nevertheless I got one. I waited a good 40 minutes after our group was called, but there was still a huge line when I got there, and the first two elements of the show were not running at ALL. No Rei, no Bek, they just took us through a back hallway straight to the Stormtrooper room. We were on it with people who had never ridden before, so that must have been incredibly confusing! But probably better than not riding at all, so…there is that.
We had boarding group 140ish for this experience and were called basically at the end of the night…but when we were at Disneyland a month and a half ago they were getting through 300 groups a day. Do they have an extra track out there?
Do you have information regarding Disneyland? Do you find that it correlates to Rise of the Resistance in California? I will be there next week and World in November.