Two Big Changes for Star Wars: Rise of Resistance
Walt Disney World has announced more virtual queue changes for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Hollywood Studios. In this post, we’ll cover how it’ll work & differ from the previous boarding pass system, and offer some recommendations if you’re planning a visit based on our recent experiences.
In case you’re unfamiliar with it, the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance virtual queue and boarding pass system has been a divisive issue in the months both before the closure and after the reopening of Walt Disney World. We’ve had a roller coaster relationship with the system, visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios more than any other park from last December through this October.
We won’t rehash all of that here since most of you probably are familiar with it, instead fast-forwarding to the weeks immediately before the closure. At that point, frustration was setting in for us and most Walt Disney World guests, leading us to proclaim “this isn’t working.” Things were better immediately after the parks reopened, but came full circle with our latest update, asking should skip Disney’s Hollywood Studios?
Our latest Disney’s Hollywood Studios photo report concluded with some recommendations. The first, near-term step is increasing the attraction’s hourly throughput. The ride-through portion currently accommodates one party per vehicle, which could mean a single rider or a family of 8. Disney has already begun testing and installing plexiglass barriers between the front and back row, which should help immensely. That move alone could increase capacity by 50%.
Earlier this week, Walt Disney World did exactly that. This has already been a positive development (another full photo report coming soon on that) and has alone helped address many of the lottery woes with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
Beyond that, we implored Walt Disney World to consider other solutions to manage expectations and make for a more guest-friendly experience in trying to do Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
Our recommendations for that included allowing guests with Park Pass reservations to attempt joining the virtual queue without tapping into Disney’s Hollywood Studios, testing an actual random-drawing lottery that guests can enter throughout the day (a la Tokyo Disney Resort), or a way for on-site guests to attempt pre-booking the virtual queue and allowing them to switch parks if they’re unsuccessful. Given that the status quo was a train wreck, a range of alternatives are worth testing.
Thankfully, they’re going to do exactly that. In a new announcement, Walt Disney World indicated that to better help guests visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios plan ahead for their day at the park, they’re piloting a new approach to the virtual queue system for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Starting November 3, 2020, here’s how the virtual queue will work:
- Guests with a valid ticket or annual pass and a Disney Park Pass reservation for Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be able to access the virtual queue system and check for an available boarding group starting at 7 a.m. on the day of their park reservation. This can be done before you leave your Disney resort hotel, or wherever else nearby you might be at that time.
- Just as can be done today, the virtual queue will reopen daily at 2 p.m. for anyone who wasn’t already able to join a boarding group earlier in the day. For this second drop, guests must be inside Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and access to a boarding group is subject to availability and not guaranteed.
Walt Disney World indicates that it is hoping this new approach will make a day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios more enjoyable and relaxing, as guests no longer need to be inside the park each morning to request a boarding group for the first virtual queue opportunity.
This leaves two big unanswered questions. First, whether guests will be able to book Disney Park Pass reservations for a different park (pending availability) if they are unsuccessful at joining the 7 am virtual queue for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
If so, that will be a huge improvement for resort guests and theme park ticket holders, who often have same-day availability for other parks. Our guess is that such last-minute changes will be possible. At least, we’re really hoping so!
Second, whether guests will actually have to be inside Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the 2 pm drop or simply will have to tape into the park at some point during the day prior to then.
We’re aware that Disney’s announcement states the former, but that has literally never been the case in the past with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Up until now, the virtual queue has not used geolocation–it has instead validated whether guests tapped into the park. Our guess is that this remains the case and the announcement is just misworded.
No matter how these questions are answered, this should ultimately result in lower rope drop crowds and a lower-stress day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. That should be the eventual outcome, especially over time as word gets out that you don’t have to be in Disney’s Hollywood Studios at rope drop.
Even though this change will be covered far and wide, it always takes time for word of mouth to spread. (It took roughly a month for many guests to realize that Disney’s Hollywood Studios was quietly opening well before the official park hours back last winter when Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance debuted.)
Over time, one unintended consequence of this will be that wait times will no longer peak at Disney’s Hollywood Studios within an hour of park opening. Another likely result is that crowds will not drop off so significantly in the last two hours of the day.
Instead, we’d expect attendance to normalize throughout the day, reflecting the established patterns of every other park at Walt Disney World, including Hollywood Studios prior to last December. Of course, we’ll continue with regular DHS crowd reports to let you know what actually happens, our observations, firsthand experiences, etc.
Ultimately, we’re very pleased with this development and the other steps that Walt Disney World has taken in the last few days to make Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance more accessible, to manage expectations, and redistribute crowds.
With the popular Christmas season right around the corner, it was imperative that Disney changed something, and they’ve stepped up with two big tweaks that should improve things markedly. Of course, this renders obsolete our recent post addressing whether you should skip Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but we are 100% fine with that. Kudos to Walt Disney World on this one!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on these changes to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance? Do you think these moves will help, hurt, or have no impact? Have you visited Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the last month or so? What was your experience? Thoughts on lines and crowds? Success or failure with the virtual queue for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance? Do you plan on arriving at rope drop, or will you utilize a late arrival strategy? 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!
It is nice that they are doing this. Ultimately, it will even out the crowd. Still won’t be a great a feeling that at 7:00:30 that there are no more boarding passes available. Still need to have a better system. For instance, a way to track if you have been able to ride it within a three day window, that you are not allowed access to another boarding pass for 72hours. This can be done with the fast pass system. No reason it can’t be done with this too.
I remember back when the park first reopened, and people were saying “No Fastpass+, I wish it would be gone forever”. And I was thinking “You’ll be singing a different tune when the crowds come back”.
Whether the Disneyland or WDW version of FP is superior is a reasonable question, and one where the answers do, I think, depend not only on which park you are in but also what demographic you belong to and how you like to tour. No system will be the best one for everyone.
I think these changes, as well as the rumblings I have started to see from those now saying that the lines are longer than expected and after all maybe they do miss Fastpass+, highlight something important. People can cope with disappointment. And they can cope with having to make tradeoffs. What they don’t want is to be forced to put all their eggs in one bucket and have them smashed if their high risk/high reward strategy doesn’t pay out. Setups that completely kill flexibility are the ones that result in high levels of frustration and don’t fly.
“People can cope with disappointment. And they can cope with having to make tradeoffs. What they don’t want is to be forced to put all their eggs in one bucket and have them smashed if their high risk/high reward strategy doesn’t pay out. Setups that completely kill flexibility are the ones that result in high levels of frustration and don’t fly.”
Well said.
That just makes so much more sense. It’s bad enough when you don’t get a pass without getting to the park at a certain time to try with crowds.
I will go to Hollywood Studios once while there for a week if there are fastpass. But it’s a awesome option if you don’t get a boarding pass to switch parks. I really like this!
We were there last Friday. What a crap show! I follow many blogs, and multiple sites said all members of your group can try for a pass for your group.
My son was able to get us group 6, but only in my name. We went to a verrrrry nasty GET woman who asked us if multiple people were trying and that isn’t allowed. (I have re-read the email sent to us regarding RotR boarding and no where does it state that).
She refused to add the other 3 people of our group, all standing there in front of her stating all the spots are filled you have to try again at 2. I told her, “I know you can add the rest of our party in, I made a mistake (according to her), please help us”. She refused.
We walked away went around the corner to another GET member who said, “sure we can add them, here you go”.
I haven’t had that hard of an emotional swing in a long time! Depression to elation in 5 minutes!
Had we not persisted there is very little chance we would have ridden, and we currently have no plans to return for a year or so, so that day was our only chance.
As we were getting in line there was a very sad family thinking they would just get in line to ride, with no knowledge of the system. It is so messed up.
And ps, as an aside the crowds/lines were horrible.
That’s ridiculous, especially since they were previously limiting one party per Ride vehicle, so it is not like you were taking away another party’s opportunity to ride! And I’ve heard they made it easier to automatically select everyone in your party when trying for a boarding group. I’m glad that someone helped add your party to your reservation.
Ashley, you are correct, it was only one group per vehicle. The second GET man was awesome, but really a fair amount of stress for a process not very well defined.
And I don’t know what happened with the automatic process for pulling in all parties in your group. That is something I may have messed up.
This is wonderful news in my book! Thank you Tom for the update. I look forward to your reports in the following weeks on how it goes.
Tom – one strategy might be to book HS park reservations for multiple days during a trip, thinking that if you can’t score a boarding group at 7am the first day, you would change park reservation to a different park and try the next day. I guess the risk is that the other park would still have park reservation availability that day. What are your thoughts about that risk?
Re-reading your article, I do see that you addressed this. My thought is to stick to our plans, but now the lottery is 7 instead of 10. And if at 7 we are unsuccessful, take a look at park pass availability to see if it’s possible to make a switch.
Last week we were so stressed that we were doing everything “right” and of course we didn’t get a pass. Knowing at park entry that you do/don’t have a pass will make the whole day much more enjoyable. Hopefully lower am crowds as well.
Does anyone know what time the first boarding group is? I am trying to figure out.. if we hypothetically get one at 7AM and say it is for the earliest Boarding group, what time do we need to get to DHS at? An estimate of how long it take to get through the lines, we do have backpacks to check, plus the time needed to walk to the ride. Any help would be greatly appreciated. We are going to Uber over from OKW. Thank you!
Fantastic news!
I am a little confused, sorry. Do you have to be at a Disney hotel to join the 7am queue, or can you be staying at a nearby hotel? Thank you.
I’d ignore the hotel or “nearby” line in that bullet point. There’s no reason to believe location will matter in any way whatsoever. So long as you have a Disney Park Pass reservation for DHS, it shouldn’t matter whether you’re in Duluth or at Disney.
I feel much better about that too. We do want to try it out since it seems like a lot of fun our entire family will enjoy. And now I can just try for the reservations when I get up in the morning at the hotel. Definitely a perk of staying on site. We were going with the attitude that we will try it ans if we get it, great, if not, then oh well. Not really going to stress over it. But excited that this might be a possibility now. And hope the extra ride spacing thing will help too.
hmm… I haven’t decided how I feel about this change. Having to get up by 7am with my 5 kids to try doesn’t appeal to me on Vacation… I was hoping to let them sleep. I also don’t know if I like the idea of people who don’t score a BG switching to another park. Won’t that make all the other parks way worse as far as lines/capacity? Gosh, gonna have to think about this for a while. I mean obviously it doesn’t matter how I feel about it- it’s done, but I don’t like the plan changing on me! Ha! I also don’t have confidence that Disney will ACTUALLY be able to only let people who have a park reservation get a BG. I was able to get one from where I live, NOT near Disney a few weeks ago bc of a glitch…but as always Thank you for reporting the new change!
“hmm… I haven’t decided how I feel about this change. Having to get up by 7am with my 5 kids to try doesn’t appeal to me on Vacation… I was hoping to let them sleep.” You don’t have to be in the park, everyone can stay in bed except the one person tasked with getting the boarding group. They can do it quietly from the comfort of their bed if they want. Not sure why you’d have to wake the kids.
I must confess that although trying to get a boarding pass did cause some anxiety in our August 2020 trip, it was super exciting when my dad scored a boarding pass! It felt like we won the lottery! LOL…but I completely understand being super disappointed if someone was unable to score a boarding pass! This ride was pretty darn cool and we loved the stormtroopers! It felt so real! Unfortunately, we bypassed this area very quickly due to the speed of the line so make sure you stop and enjoy the ambiance and grab some pics even if it means letting some other parties pass in front!
NFP+ and Park Hopping next?
“For this second drop, guests must be inside Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and access to a boarding group is subject to availability and not guaranteed.”
Do you have any idea if that wording means they will actually enforce some sort of geofencing? Or if like before you’d be able to tap in and exit….
The powers that be must be following your blog :-). Thanks.
I highly doubt it’ll be geofenced, since they’ve literally never done that at any time with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. More likely, this means you will have to tap into DHS at some point during the day, but it won’t actually matter where you are physically standing at 2 pm.
Makes sense, hopefully it stays the same. Thank you.
Unfortunately what they added to the ride vehicles is the crappy plastic sheeting they use on the AK Safari ride too. It will totally take away from the experience of the ROTR ride when you are in the second row facing that ugly plastic. I am sure massive complaints will come. Not to mention those that do not know about the 7 am start for cue reservations and show up at 8 AM at the park only to find out all ROTR are gone. More complaints I am sure.
Some people will complain no matter what Disney does, but I’m willing to bet significantly less people will complain about the plastic barriers than the number who have been upset/disappointed about not getting on the ride at all. If you are going to Disney World anytime soon you are agreeing to certain concessions to the guest experience, I think most people will have a fairly good attitude about it.
I could see that. We stayed at Swan and got up a bit after 7, walked over to the park and were in line by 8:30-8:45. At ~9:15 we we’re on Mickey & Minnie and then got a BG while in the line for SDD. It would have been disappointing to go through all that and find that we missed the BG time by sleeping in a few minutes past 7.
On the safari, most of your viewing is to the side, so the sheeting matters little. On ROTR it’s a bigger deal. But getting to ride in the second row with the sheeting is still a lot better than not riding at all.
Sounds like an improvement. And it could reduce ride times at park opening as people may not rush to park just to get in the cue.
I wish there was a reservation system or something like fast pass at least for Rise of Resistance.
There is a reservation system for the ride. That is what they are changing to an earlier hour of 7AM
This is such a relief. We have a trip planned in December and I was so concerned about the stress of it all. Do we ride the skyliner? If so, what time do we need to get in line? Do we drive our car over, and if so, what time? When we get in the park, where do we need to be and do we get in line for another ride and try to access a group from within line? I understand we still may not get a boarding group, but we will know in the morning and can then simply adjust and enjoy our day whatever the situation.
I spoke with a Skyliner Cast Member one day last week asking that question. Apparently people start lining up for the skyliner around 7-7:30am to be the first ones on at each station.
They also said that the first 7 cars from each station get to “jump the line” and go right on the first cars to HS. So if you were the first 7 in the morning at Pop Century once it started operating, you should be able to go right to the HS cars instead of getting off and waiting in the line at CBR.
We still ubered there anyway. We were picked up from Pop Century around 8am, got to the park and at the gates by 8:30 and they were already letting people in the park. Now with this, it may be easier to just go on the skyliner at your leisure sometime around park opening when most have tried to make the mad dash to get there early. Unless you get a really early ride time you should be less stressed.
What I can see happening is guests will book DHS every day of their trip and try for the 7am lottery. If unsuccessful then switch to another park…
However anything is better than what we experienced last week with no luck at all in the lottery.
That might be hard to do in the near future considering HS is booked already for the entire 2nd half of Nov and almost all of Dec….but after that who knows. I personally wouldnt chance missing out to another park I wanted but it might be worth it for other guests.
WOO-HOO!! This should alleviate not only the stress of will I or won’t I score a pass today concerns, but also make the skyliner once again a “magical flight” to start your day instead of a nail biting race to the front of the line. Go Disney!
Good catch! This eliminates the *need* to rope drop HS. (I still can’t believe that they literally had the first boarding pass drop be exactly at official park opening time.)