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!
How does getting an early morning reservation at Oga’s effect getting a boarding pass? Does it help or hurt? Thank you.
Heh tom
I eagerly await your posts and appreciate your sense of humor. In regards to your party for rise of resistance my daughter and I will be there in April being 8 she doesn’t have a phone 🙂 so how does the app know that’s the whole party is there ?? We have friends going who are linked in my disney experience, will they be considered part of the party we are all coming down on different days and are only going to be meet up occasionally so I dont want them to hinder us from getting the boarding pass ??
Thanks Carol
Hi Tom, thanks for always writing such informative posts. You might want to update your readers that they’ve narrowed the return window for Rise of the Resistance to 1 hour. I rode it tonight (2/4) in boarding group 114 and only had a 1 hour return window. My husband was in boarding group 103 and also had a 1 hour return window.
I was there on Sunday Jan 26 and, based on these very helpful posts, arrived at DHS at 6:40am. (I’d actually intended to get there earlier but had to wait much longer for a Lyft than we otherwise ever did – and I could actually see that my driver was first dropping someone else off at DHS before picking me up – so I do recommend allowing extra time for that!) But despite my 10 min delay I still got into the park very quickly (it helped that I didn’t have a bag) and I decided just to sit down on a store windowsill as I didn’t want to push my way further with the hordes of people. Around 6:57am I quit the app and immediately re-opened it, and then I just watched the clock on my phone, not letting my eyes stray. As soon as it turned to 7:00 I clicked “Find Out More”, clicked to join a boarding group, and managed to get Group 8!
Then I helped a mother & daughter next to me who were having difficulty with their app (only one of them was attempting it) and they finally got group 80-something.
Now that I could relax, I saw that the lines for all the other rides were already long (and I hadn’t pushed my way forward) so I just started meandering further into the park when I got a push notification at 7:11am that my group had been called and I should return by 8:11. Even though I’d read your advice here not to immediately proceed to the ride, I was nervous about it breaking down, and also I was by myself while my friend (who’d decided to sleep in and skip this insanity) was going to join me at 9am, so I just went to the ride immediately – and was rewarded by walking right on with literally no wait at all. True, by the time I got off the ride, the lines for everything else had gotten insane; but I cared most about RotR and had a great experience riding it. Later, as we were making our way out of Star Wars Land around 2pm, I overheard someone saying that the ride had been down for about an hour, they were currently on group 60-something, and the person speaking was in group 153. So if getting on this ride is important to you, it’s worth waking up early! Lastly, I will mention: After my friend joined me we did single riders line for Smugglers Run and even still got seated together. We were both engineers but we waited maybe 15 min while standby was 2 hours, so it was a worthwhile sacrifice.
So another question i have is, how do you pull up the virtual queue on the MDE app? I don’t find a way to do it away from disney, but does something happen when you are there that you have to go to in the app? How do I start the process?
We are at Disney now and planning on Hollywood studios wed. Feb. 5th. I noticed the opening time will be 8 am. Do you have any thoughts on what time to enter to see ROR? Thanks for all of your helpful articles. Your restaurant suggestions were spot on at Disney springs.
Curious to know if you have to have one of your 3 fast passes free to get a boarding group or if this ridiculous process is completely separate from fast passes?
This is completely separate from the fast pass system. You can try for a boarding group and use your 3 fast passes still.
Please give me some advice. We are slated to go to Disney World the week of Feb 10th. Our son is 10 years old. Since he’s on my account, my husband can’t add him to his account making the strategy of multi people launching the app to score a low boarding group impossible unless our child is 13. Can I lie about his age on the app so my husband can add him to his account too???
Ok…what if we delete the account from my husband’s phone and he logs into the account with my username and password??? Can multiple people be in the same account trying to score a boarding pass or will we totally glitch.??
Wondering the same thing!
We were at Hollywood Studios on January 25, and my wife was able to put myself and our two kids (both under 10) in a boarding group. I was able to (attempt) to do the same thing, at the same time, but her request came through quicker for a boarding group of 22. You and your husband should be able to both put your son in your “My Family and Friends” list on My Disney Experience. If you have other people in that list, I’d suggest (at least temporarily) deleting them before your Hollywood Studios day, so that you can hit “select all” when you can get into the virtual queue part of the app. You can also do a “test run” from home at 7AM ET, although it won’t let you actually get a queue spot if you haven’t signed in to the park.
I have a question: can you get a boarding pass when you scan into any other Park other than Hollywood Studios? Meaning lets say theres Magic Hours at Magic Kingdom, at 7am can you scan in at MK and get boarding passes for ROTR?
No, you have to be in Hollywood studios to get a boarding pass.
Can you enter galaxys edge to just look around without joining a boarding group?
Kelly, you can enter Galaxy’s Edge without a Boarding Group. When the land first opened at Disneyland they were assigning Boarding Groups just to enter but now it works like any other area of the park. You can enter, look around, shop, eat, and ride Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run; Rise of the Resistance is the only part that requires getting a boarding group assignment.
So lets suppose i have 3 adults and 2 9 yr olds in my party. Do we all have to be magic band scanned and finger tapped into DHS at the time the virtual queue opens or can the kids and one adult come later as 2 adults go early to the park to obtain a boarding group for all 5???
Every blog post we’ve read has said dont worry if you’re boarding group 80. We got 80 and felt confident and excited to ride, after getting our 4yr old to wake up and be in the park prior to opening. Disney informed us around 3PM that they will only board thru 71 and we didnt make the cut. This unfortunately occured on our last day of our trip, 1/31. Very unfortunate and extremely disappointing; especially explaining to our 4yr old that we werent going on the ride. Definitely ruined the Disney magic and put a damper on our trip.
We endured the exact same thing. Last day of trip, boarding group 89, two super excited kids and even more excited adults. Our “magical Disney feeling” we always feel when we come has definitely been tarnished. I would rather have waited in line for hours knowing we would definitely have gotten on.
Both January 30 and 31 were really rough days–the worst the attraction has had in the entire time it has been open. On literally any other day, you would’ve been fine with a boarding group in the ~80 range.
Unfortunately, attraction breakdowns happen and there is no guarantee you would’ve gotten on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance had you waited in a physical queue for hours. Other high profile new attractions have had guests wait in a physical queue for hours, broke down, dumped the queue, and then stayed down for the rest of the day. (This very scenario happened with Avatar Flight of Passage and Frozen Ever After a few times after they opened.)
I have a question: can you get a boarding pass when you scan into any other Park other than Hollywood Studios? Meaning lets say theres Magic Hours at Magic Kingdom, at 7am can you scan in at MK and get boarding passes for ROTR?
Im asking because just thinking if im in MK and get late oasses yhan i can travel back to HS.
You have to be in Hollywood studios to get the boarding pass. You have to be scanned in HS… You can’t be in another area or park.
No one else could control my kids’ profiles and add them for Fastpasses so we had to rely on just a single phone. It worked out for us but was very annoying when we wanted all possible chances. Since my kids are under 13 their accounts are linked to mine and no one else can control them based on what I found when I researched the issue.
Can my 13 yr old have a my Disney account to help us out? She has a phone. She is more savvy than my husband
We were there Friday 1/31. It was the only day I planned for all 4 of us to go to HS. I asked for help at my hotel (DVC) and they walked me through what I needed. My 12 yo son was giving us a hard time because he was super tired and cranky- wanted me to leave him alone in room(um…no). Called an Uber- he left his magic band in room to try to get out out of going. I was ready to have a break down thinking we were so late! Arrived at 6:45. Got through bag check and security pretty quickly. Couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get a boarding group then heard people talking about how you couldn’t get the group until 7. At 6:59 I thought I was going to vomit. When I was able to click on the join boarding group, select my family/friends for group and click- I swear I wasn’t breathing for this! It refreshed and said we were group 20! My daughter and I cried! Her boyfriend doesn’t speak Disney so he didn’t understand- my son was still convinced he wasn’t going on. Long story short- it was amazing, my son rode it then asked if we could do it again….
Thanks for this nail-biter story! Love the ending: “Can we do it again?” 🙂 Seriously, though, this anxiety is a little much. If we are spending money we don’t have to visit Disney World and competing with a Star Wars fan from DeLand, I think something is a little off.
I feel you are describing what I will feel this July if there are still boarding groups. Loved your story. Thanks!
I’d just give her my husbands phone for the <5 minutes it would take to book boarding passes.