Star Wars Rise of Resistance Report & Low Boarding Group Strategy
It’s been two weeks since our last visit to Hollywood Studios. Not long in the grand scheme of things, but a veritable eternity when it comes to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance protocol and policies. In this report, we revisit the new Walt Disney World blockbuster attraction, and test out strategy we refined over the last week at Disneyland.
You might recall that our last two attempts at doing the attraction at Walt Disney World didn’t go so well. Our “frustrating foray” with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance detailed a delays and broken effects. Following that, we returned with our “rope drop dilemma” with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which was essentially more delays and a breakdown.
However, after the rockiness of opening weekend at Disneyland, we had tremendous success there doing Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Between that and a general desire to see how rope drop, crowd flow/distribution, and wait times had changed (or not) at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the last two weeks, we set out for the park bright and early yesterday morning…
After parking, we were once again outside of Disney’s Hollywood Studios at 6:25 am. There was no line for security, which didn’t matter as I hadn’t brought a bag. (Due to the long line the last time we did this.) It only took 2 minutes to get through the no bags line, which is probably more or less identical to how long a normal line would’ve taken.
We then advanced to the turnstiles, heading to the far right to enter. I don’t think we’ve mentioned this before, but I think this is the best approach. At least for now, there’s a construction wall on that far side by the ticket booths that initially blocks direct access to several turnstiles. If you hug that wall, you’ll be able to choose among said turnstiles farther to the right. If you’re in a hurry to enter, this could save you a minute or two.
It didn’t end up mattering at all to us, as we were inside the park and under Crossroads of the World before 6:40 am. The crowd seemed slightly smaller than the last time we did this, but the difference was negligible. Still heavier than when the attraction first opened, but not as busy as the holidays, weekends, or any days when local school districts are out of session.
At this point, I wandered around for a bit while Sarah sought shelter from the cold inside a gift shop. A reasonable crowd was gathered in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to rope drop Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run. Ditto in front of Carthay Circle on Sunset Boulevard, where guests were being held for Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
Guests wanting to head to Toy Story Land were being directed through the Animation Courtyard archway, with a line forming near Voyage of the Little Mermaid. If we were interested in maximizing our efficiency and doing Slinky Dog Dash, this is where we would’ve been.
Even guests entering the park by ~6:50 am could’ve joined this crowd and done Slinky Dog Dash in under 20 minutes, then “rode the wave” and done Toy Story Mania before its wait time was prohibitive. This line for Toy Story Land is never as bad as it looks, especially as most of the ride capacity is allocated to the standby line early in the morning.
At around 6:58 am, we both closed out the My Disney Experience app. At 6:59:55 am, we both launched MDX with the intent of following Option A in our Star Wars Rise of Resistance Disneyland Strategy Guide, which we found to be the winning approach out west.
Unfortunately, my app took longer than normal to load. Once it did, it froze for a couple of seconds as I was furiously tapping the “Find Out More” button. By the time that responded and I selected both of us to join a boarding group, I received the “Not So Fast” message.
Sarah’s timing in launching the app was perfect, her fingers were fast, and everything went flawlessly for her. She scored boarding group 4 for us. It was a triumph for the ages–now I know what winning the Super Bowl feels like.
I’m convinced that had she not been there, I would’ve been stuck in boarding group 50 or higher. I was “only” a few seconds behind, but those precious moments right after park opening can be the difference between boarding before 8 am and in the afternoon. Executing the best strategy is crucial, but luck determines whether the My Disney Experience app will let you do that.
Our boarding group was called at 7:11 am, and we had a return window of one hour (instead of 2 hours). It was really hard to resist, but we didn’t do Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. This early in the morning, it would almost certainly be firing on all cylinders. As such, there was no “research value” in doing the attraction–there shouldn’t be any issues with broken effects, queue backups, or anything else worth reporting.
As we’ve previously noted, we don’t want to be the rude bloggers who do this incessantly at the expense of tourists, some of whom potentially will not have another chance to experience it. In effect, this allowed two people in a back-up boarding group to take our spots.
Instead, we wandered around Disney’s Hollywood Studios to check out crowds and wait times. Unfortunately, the morning was far from photogenic, so not much on that front.
The first, most interesting thing to report is the line for the Guest Experience Team on Hollywood Boulevard, which was very long. At this hour, it’s safe to assume that nearly every single guest in that line had an issue joining a boarding group.
It’s also worth noting that it took me approximately 2 minutes to walk from this spot to the Guest Experience Team stand at the end of Sunset Boulevard, which had no line.
This underscores both the advantage of walking a little farther for a shorter line, but also having multiple members of your party attempt to join the virtual queue. We hear from some readers (too many in my estimation) who have one member of their party responsible for everyone, which is a high-risk proposition.
My Disney Experience is extremely unreliable, and if you only have one person in your party attempting to join the virtual queue (for everyone in your party), you are putting tremendous faith in their app not crashing or having some other glitch.
You should absolutely have every competent member of your party attempting the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance ‘boarding pass dash.’ Whoever is fastest will get the boarding passes, and will lock everyone else out with the Not So Fast/Already in Boarding Group message.
Disney does not officially recommend this approach, but that doesn’t make this bad advice. (It’s probably because this approach means more simultaneous app users, which puts more of a strain on their system.) There’s no downside to you, personally.
One interesting thing we did notice was a huge line for Jedi Training Academy: Trials of the Temple.
Admittedly, I don’t pay super close attention to this, but I haven’t seen such a lengthy line–which ran through the outdoor queue of Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular–in a while.
Wait times in the rest of Disney’s Hollywood Studios weren’t terrible immediately after park opening, but still worse than they were when the virtual queue was in its infancy. Before 8 am, things were already pretty busy.
This improvement is, perhaps, at least partially attributable to the mass exodus of guests in the first couple of hours Disney’s Hollywood Studios was open. Back in December, I bounced over to Epcot a few times at around the same time we left DHS yesterday–unlike back then, there was a huge line for the Skyliner.
One final thing to note is that Walt Disney World has lowered the threshold for backup boarding groups. In the past, backup boarding groups began above 110, with the exact number varying based upon the attraction’s “results” from the previous day. In the last week, backup boarding groups began in the 80-90 range.
Yesterday, backup boarding groups began at 78 (which it reached by the early afternoon). This is not because Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has become less reliable. Rather, it’s likely motivated by a desire to reduce expectations (under-promise and over-deliver) as well as guest recovery options.
Based upon what we’re seeing, daily throughput has remained unchanged. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has its good and bad days, but is frequently getting above boarding group 145. In other words, don’t freak out if you arrive at rope drop and find yourself in backup boarding group 80 or 90. It’s really no different than regular boarding group 80 or 90 a week ago in terms of your chances of getting to ride. (In other words, our Star Wars Sleep-In Strategy is still viable, albeit risky.)
Overall, it was a successful morning that vindicated the strategy we’ve previously advocated. Consequently, we remain of the belief that arriving to Disney’s Hollywood Studios roughly 30 minutes before park opening remains the best course of action if you’re willing to sacrifice some sleep. Unfortunately, even with the best strategy, you can still get unlucky with the boarding pass dash. Scoring a boarding group under 20 requires not just fast fingers, but a lot of luck.
Still have unanswered questions about the attraction? Read our Ride Guide & FAQ for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which covers everything you need to know. If you’re planning on visiting the new land, you’ll also want to read our Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Guide. 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
Have you been able to score a low numbered boarding group for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance? What was your approach? If you’ve done RotR in the last two weeks, what time did you arrive, which boarding group did you receive, and when was your return time? 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!
Tom,
One interesting thing that I noticed at the opening day of Rise of the Resistance on both coasts was that the MDX app seemed to be much slower than the DLR app, especially in the operation of the RotR module of the app. At DHS opening day, the MDX app had to load multiple times throughout the process, and it took me about 20 seconds to get my boarding group (group 71). At Disneyland opening day, the app had no delays and I got my boarding group in about 5 seconds (group 8). When I return to DHS in a couple of weeks, I’m curious to see if the app is still experiencing difficulties. Was this your experience as well?
The Disneyland app always works flawlessly for me and has a faster response time.
To be frank, My Disney Experience is garbage by comparison. (At least it’s not crashing as much as it used to!)
Hi, one question about bording groups. We are a group of 4 ( mi wife, 2 kids & me). Can i enter DHS as soon as it opens and get bording groups for the whole family trough the app so they can sleep a little longer or do we have to be inside the park the 4 of us?
No. Everyone must be in the park to get in a boarding group
How does the app recognice that the whole group is in the park? We have only 1 device with the MDX app (mine), and i manage all the reservation for Fpass & dinning for the 4 of us!
Ale, it’s based off you scanning your ticket/magic band at the gate. As soon as you use your daily ticket at Hollywood Studios, you’re able to join a boarding group.
No, all those wishing to get a boarding pass must be in the HS park.
Can anyone tell me how to make not just one person responsible on the app?
Thanks
Download the app on everyone’s phones. Create individual accounts and then link the accounts together.
My husband tried to link his account to mine by way of our reservation number, but it wouldn’t let him link because it says the reservation number was already being used.
Also can my 10 year old son get an account?
Our family vacation started last Sunday. Anxious to experience both new Star Wars rides, the 3 of us headed to Hollywood Studios first thing Monday morning. The park scheduled opening was 7:00am. We stayed at an offsite hotel and made our way to the HS parking lot by 6:15am, cleared security and entered the park by 6:35am.
The crowd was allowed to enter the park early at about 6:30 but only allowed part way up along the path to Galaxy’s Edge via the route past the Indiana Jones venue. My goal was to get to the park early enough to not just get a boarding pass for RotR but to avoid the long “standby” wait times on the Smugglers Run ride. However, at 6.35am we could only get up the path to the far left of the Star Wars stage. Since I could not estimate the size of the crowd ahead of us, I was pretty sure we would not avoid a long standby line at Smugglers Run. My wife and daughter were very patient up to this point so instead of following my initial plan, and for the sake of my marriage, we opted to head to Starbucks after we secured our boarding passes.
At exactly 7am I used the app to secure our boarding passes. I got #68 at about 7:01am.
My boarding group was called at about 2pm.
From what I could tell, the timing of when your board group is called is very dependent on how well the ride performs. I tried to monitor boarding times for group 70 on Sunday (around noon) and Tuesday (around 4pm).
As for Smugglers Run, we waited until later afterward when standby was only 50 minutes.
I have to say that I thought the RotR ride was a bit of a let down. It could be because of all the hype I read about it. I also saw a video as well. In addition, I think some of the special effects were not working. In comparison, I did Smugglers Run 3 times during our stay.
Anybody have advice on trying to rope drop Slinky Dog and sign up for Jedi Training? Which would you do first? Try to get in slinky dog (we do not have a FP for it) or go right to Jedi training to register? Anybody have experience with this situation? Do the registration open early when the parks open early?? We will be at HS Monday, Feb 3rd!
I’d recommend first going to sign up for Jedi training, very brisk walk there if you can. You might have a wait for Slinky, but once the spots for Jedi training are gone, they’re gone. By signing up for Jedi training first, you’re guaranteed to do both!
My advice is the opposite. I don’t have any experience with Jedi training but I have read that the spots do not fill up early in the morning like they used to. We were just there yesterday. Rope dropped Slinky Dog at 6:30 and we were off the ride at 7:24. This included a 15 minute delay of the ride opening. If you don’t experience the delay you could feasibly be odd and signing up for Jedi training at 7:15. We were also able to ride it later in the day via fast pass. If you only fast pass one or two people at a time you can get one. We did 2,2,1 and had 5 people in our group ride a second time FP.
We did TSMM first thing on Sat, 1/25 and then signed up for Jedi Training. Josh at easywdw has been saying that slots for JT haven’t been filling up until at least 10:30. You’ll probably want to get to the park pretty early for Slinky Dog in standby (we were behind a huge crowd going to Toy Story Land even though we were in the park before 6:45 with a 7:00AM open; our wait for TSMM was around 25 minutes, and Slinky Dog probably would have been over an hour).
I’ve been noticing the drop all week in the initial boarding groups and wondered why they dropped so dramatically over just a few days. It’s becoming a daily thing for me to check and see how far they get through. Hoping for a chance to ride it when I’m there and that my boarding group doesn’t get called during something else I already have booked.
Another site I’ve been following, disboards, suspects that either Disney is limiting the initial groups to those in the park at 7am as the initial groups have been filled by 7:01 or they are trying to prevent having to offer concessions if they don’t get through very many groups due to issues, or both.
It seems like the boarding groups as well as ride issues are all well known inside the park, so I doubt you’d have trouble getting onto the ride if you were at a dinner reservation and your return time closed, etc. If you do get grief along the way, just chat with one of the GET cast members (blue umbrella pic above). From what I’ve read, they do a lot to fix things up for people. Saw someone mention today they missed a slinky dog fast pass due to being stuck in queue. Talked to GET member and they printed out new FPs to use.
How soon is your trip? I’m going in May and really hoping a lot of these issues are resolved by then. Seems like a crazy way to spend vacation time, lol
Flew in from Indiana just to ride ROR. We got to HS today at 6am, took 2 tries and 15 seconds and ended up with boarding group 89. Broke down 3 times today for several hours. Last group to get called was 70. Absolutely devastated that we flew here, spent all that money, took time off work and this is how it ends. Will never plan a trip around boarding groups again. I would rather wait in line 4 hours and know I won’t have wasted $1500.
If it was all you came there for, did you just go for one day? I’m sorry you didn’t get to ride.
When trying to get a boarding pass were you using Disney wi-fi or data or hot spot etc?
Verizon 3g
Heading to Disney in March and my kids super excited for Star Wars Land! For clarity, do you have to have an open fast pass to obtain a boarding group for ROTR? Just want to be sure that we have an open pass for the day. I would hate to arrive way before 7 and not be prepared.
No. Go ahead and book your FastPasses. The boarding groups for ROTR are separate from that. Also, enjoy the new Tier rankings that start Feb 19. Only Slinky Dog Dash and Millennium Falcon:Smugglers Run are Tier 1! So depending on when you are going in March, you may still be able to get a FP for the other Stars Wars:Galaxy’s Edge ride along with some other favorites that will be Tier 2 after Feb 19. Enjoy!
Was there today and the lines to get in the park were crazy long but we still got in at about 6:45 after arriving about 6:30. We got boarding group 44 and didn’t get in the ride until about 5:30 pm. It was down for most of the day prior. When we left the park around 7 they were calling group 70.
I’m going to Disney late June. Paying a lot of money let me understand, staying at wilderness lodge. In order to get on this ride I have to go to the park before sun rises, wait in line for the park to open, get on the App and hope to score a boarding pass ?
It couldddd change by late June…. but as of now, yes, that’s the system.
Yep. We scheduled a Lyft for 5:45, at the park by 6. Got boarding group 89. Only got through 70. We are now flying back home without having rode ROR. Asinine system. Hope for you it changes before June. This is the best blog to keep tabs.
What clock are you going by to open at 6:59:55 am? Your phones time?
I literally counted down on my watch which is bluetoothed to my phone and I guess the greater internet which counts the time on it? It was right on the money. Felt pretty dumb counting down out loud to my husband like we were shooting off a rocket but it worked â€â™€ï¸
I can’t speak for Mr. Bricker, but I had my son keep Safari open to time.is – it tells you the exact time and how far off your phone is from “exact time”. He counted down for us, and me and my wife clicked after he said “59”. In 5 days at Disneyland ending yesterday, we secured groups 1, 12, 20, 46, and 97 (and the people next to us that we assisted two days got groups 1 and 5). Amazingly we rode RotR five days in a row (no blogger ethics restrictions on us!!). On the day we got 97 we had a fast pass that started at 9am and we theorize that because the app was trying to send us a notification it bogged the app down so we stopped getting 9am fast passes after that. The very first day we got group 1 and we couldn’t believe it – I didn’t think there was a group 1! We were on and off the ride by 9:25. And yes, it is the best theme park ride in the world. Do your best to avoid spoilers!
I also have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Bricker’s option A strategy for a casual guest with a one-or two-time shot at passes – at least in my experience, I think it would be awfully risky to try to load the app fresh right before “go time”. The Disneyland app loads in wildly varying amounts of time on my iPhone X, and trying to time it to load at exactly the right time seems really tricky, and adds the potential for a crash. We had great success starting directly on the Find out More page – the app never crashed and only once did we have to refresh more than once or twice. Of course this applies to Disneyland only, we haven’t been to DHS yet.
One other thing – we stood at the top of the right hand steps of the entrance to the Disneyland Railroad right at the main entrance every day. Our AT&T cell reception there was great and speed tests showed we had fast connections every day, generally between 50 and 120 mbps.
Thank you!
Just to make me understand better (I am not English native).
Did you recommend to open MDX APP on several devices using same log in account??
We were also at HS yesterday for the ROTR boarding pass dash. We were also attempting to get the shortest wait on Slinky possible. Because of that we showed up pretty early (in the parking lot at about 5:40 am, at the tapstiles about 10 minutes later). Tapstiles opened at 6:12 and we were already at the entrance to Toy Story Land by about 6:20, fairly close to the front of the pack.
My husband and I both had our apps ready a few seconds before 7. Even with my shaky fingers, I managed to get us boarding group 21 while he got locked out. I attribute that to my fastpass-getting expertise!
Our boarding group got called at 7:58 and I was surprised to see the one hour return window. Apparently that just changed this week. I’m glad I paid attention because I was expecting two hours. We joined the queue at about 8:30 and the ride went down about 10 minutes into our wait in the queue. Having just experienced an almost 2-hr delay in a line at Universal earlier in the week, we got a little frustrated to start. But castmembers came out almost immediately with water and snacks. And a while later, Chewie came through with a photo pass photographer on hand. Everyone in line got a picture and free download of that picture. Disney definitely wants to keep people happy! We finally got to the front of the queue at about 9:30 and then experienced a small hiccup in the process of actually getting going on the ride part of the experience. It could’ve been better, but we got to ride and the wait was still worth it!
And I’m not sure how necessary it was to get there as early as we did. But we were on and off Slinky and Alien pretty quickly. With a short bathroom break, we tapped into our FP return for Toy Story by 7:50 and were just finishing that at 7:58 when I got our boarding group notification. So the bit of extra wait on the front end saved us some time in standby lines, I think.
My husband and I will both be attempting to get boarding passes. After my husband downloads the Disney app, should he sign in with my account or create his own?
He needs his own account for you to book fastpasses or reservations together. I would definately have him download the app and have his own account.
My husband and I both have the app and have linked our accounts in both directions (it’s easier to do the linking via the website with a laptop). This lets us both be able to book for both of us, and the app will automatically give each of us that option every time.
This is my question too, if my wife downloads the app for her phone does she use my account or create her own?
I can’t definitively answer whether it’s strictly necessary to have two accounts, as that’s the only way we’ve ever tested since we have two accounts. (My guess is that Disney’s terms & conditions require this, too.)
I will say that, as a general matter, it’s better to have two accounts. There have been times when one of us has had account issues (totally unrelated to Rise of the Resistance), and we were able to use the other account to book FastPass+ or ADRs with the other account.
Going in June with a HUGE 14 year old Star Wars superfan. I have made a 9:05 reservation for Oga’s (right now HS is opening at 9). Do you think this will give us an advantage other than being able to look around before the land gets too crowded? I don’t want to ride home with him if we do not get to ride RotR! 🙂
I was there on RotR’s opening day but wasn’t able to get on, due to a cast member giving me bad information the day before (I asked, and was firmly informed there would be NO early opening of Hollywood Studios and the buses would NOT begin running until 30 minutes before the 9:00AM scheduled opening).
So once back home I immediately scheduled a brief return for the sole purpose of doing RotR, just as soon as my next set of DVC point become available. That trip will be September 2. (I thought about actually paying for a room and so returning sooner, but I just couldn’t justify the dollars when I’ve got DVC).
Is there any expectation of whether RotR will keep using the boarding pass system all through the summer? I know Disney hasn’t announced anything one way or the other but I can readily imagine them keeping an eye on events with the thought of making this system permanent, and perhaps even starting to use it for other high-demand rides like Flight of Passage. What do the experts think?
Hey Tom, over on the Disboards forum, they’re discussing the possibility that Disney has switched to using the Primary boarding groups only for people already in the park before 7am, so everyone that gets signed on in the first minute is guaranteed a spot, and everyone else goes into a backup group. If you look at Touring Plans spreadsheet, every day for the last week or so, the main groups have closed at 7:01. Do you have any insights on that? Would that even make sense for Disney to do?
I’m cannot confirm whether that’s true, but it seems highly plausible to me.
It would make sense because it limits WDW’s need to offer recovery options (FastPass and 1-day tickets) to those who arrived before park opening. The only downside to this is that it ignores those who still got up early, and only didn’t get into the park due to transportation delays or something else outside their control.
Yeah, it’d be interesting to see if Disney would say anything about that (highly doubtful). I would definitely think that those standing outside the gates waiting in line to get in at 7 should have the opportunity to get a regular group, but does seem weird that for a week or more, the main group was done at 7:01 according to the data. But, even so, if you get a low boarding group, which seems likely if you’re already outside the gates, then there will still be a high likelyhood of riding as it seems they are getting to at least group 130 most days, at least in the last week or so.
Mon 1/27, tues 1/28, and thurs 1/30, husband and I both were in the park before 7. He used cellular and opened app right before 7. I used wifi and pressed my status and then join boarding group right at 7 (I already had app open). Boarding groups 4, 3, and 3. I was the one that got the boarding group on WiFi- husband never did on cellular. There are only two of us so maybe that made us faster? But WiFi worked great- in main plaza, by incredibles area and on sunset Blvd. That was my experience to add to upcoming guests data to trend. Also, we have at&t.
Kudos! That’s both flawless execution of the strategy AND great luck. You should go buy a lotto ticket!
What kind of phones do you have?
I’m not sure that this tip is universally beneficial but it has worked very well for my wife and her friends who are on a girls trip to Disneyland right now and you may want to pass it along for others to try:
My wife is in a group of four and they all have different cell phone carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon) and some have been using WiFi and others their cell phone data but I have still been able to get their boarding pass before them every day they have been at Disneyland from several states away. I use your patented restart the app with 4 seconds until the hour trick while logged into my wife’s account on the app. Yesterday all the guaranteed boarding groups were gone within 30 seconds and all their phones were stalling trying to get a group, so it’s a good thing we had me as a backup option.
I’ve had success from both WiFi and from from my Verizon cell phone connection and so far so good. I’m curious if others have tried this with any success.
Thanks for all your hard work and advice – you’ve helped make their trip!
That’s really interesting, although not super surprising. Both your cell signal and WiFi presumably have less burden on them than those at Disneyland.
I doubt many (any?) others have tried this same approach, but I’d be curious to hear from anyone who has.
Do you recommend to use park Wifi instead of a low cost phone company? We got a family program (cricket)