Today marked the highly-anticipated grand opening of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The attraction opened to rave reviews from even the toughest critics, and despite experiencing some brief downtime in the early morning hours, operation has run rather smoothly throughout the day, with most Boarding Groups accommodated. However, as we near the end of park operations for the day (DHS closes at 10:00 PM), it appears that later Boarding Groups will not be able to experience the attraction.
Distribution for Boarding Groups, the virtual queueing system that’s been in place since the land’s opening (but was never put to use until today due to low crowds), ended earlier this morning at 9:00 AM with just over 150 Boarding Groups scheduled throughout the day. Currently (as of 7:30 PM publishing time), the attraction is now boarding Groups 97 – 108, and at an average of one new boarding group per six minutes, it appears they will not be able to accommodate many of the later groups. (Those reportedly affected range from group 137 to 154.)
In order to make up for it, it appears that Disney is distributing both anytime FastPasses to the Rise of the Resistance attraction and 1-Day Park Hopper Tickets to all guests who were promised a boarding time and will not be able to experience the attraction today. This is surprisingly generous of Disney, especially since plenty of warning was given that joining a boarding group did not guarantee the ability to experience Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
Annual Passholders who have been waiting all day to experience the new attraction have taken to social media both to inform other guests in later boarding groups and to express their frustration and hopes that they’ll be able to ride it before the first day is officially over:
Disney is giving free tickets to guests they weren’t able to accommodate that they issued boarding passes! pic.twitter.com/vBlcPRb1wf
— DisneyPhotography (@DisPhotography_) December 5, 2019
If you are in one of the later Boarding Groups and receive one of these messages, do let us know!
