Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has been using a boarding group system to permit guest entry to the new ride since it opened on Thursday in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Some love the system for allowing them to go do other things instead of waiting in a long line, while those who arrive later sometimes find all of the boarding groups to be gone, even before the posted park opening time.
If one arrived early enough the last few days, it was possible to grab one of the earliest boarding groups, get into the attraction, and book another before they ran out for the day. As of Sunday, December 8th, guests are now only permitted to have one boarding group a day by the MyDisneyExperience app.
This change will allow more guests to experience the attraction daily, but it leaves little advantage to this morning’s Extra Magic Hours offering.
does anybody know how early you can reserve a boarding group for your party? can it be done like a fast pass 30 or 60 days out?
You have to actually be present in the park on the day you plan to ride it in order to join a boarding group. The “join a boarding group” button unlocks when you scan your ticket or band to enter the park. Though you can group your party together, you all have to be in the park. So one person can’t go early and add the rest of their party to the group. They’ve been opening the gates at 6:30AM since Rise opened. I’m not sure how long this will remain the case. The boarding groups are usually full by between 8:30am and 9am. I got there at 5:30AM and was pretty far back in the crowd. When I got it I got group 19 and my group was called at 7:30AM. I left the park at a little before 9am and seeing the massive crowd of people coming in I felt bad for those who see the park hours listed as 9am and show up expecting to ride Rise, only to be informed that every group is filled for the day.
I believe the instructions stated you have to be inside the park (Hollywood Studios) to be queued for the boarding group. You ticket or Magic Band is connected to the GPS so they know you are inside the park requesting via Disney app to join the boarding group.
The screenshot above from the app states that you must be inside Hollywood Studios to reserve.
It can only be done the day of while you are at the park. No advance booking. Once demand dies down, I’m sure they’ll enable proper advance FastPass booking.
The boarding group can only be joined that morning, once your entire party is physically in the park through ticket check. No preregistering.
You can ONLY join a boarding group once you’ve scanned your magic band and entered the Hollywood Studios park. The boarding group system is entirely separate from the Fastpass system. On Sunday, the boarding queue opened at 7:20am, and was completely full by 7:50am, yes, in just 30 minutes. We were group 31, and our friends were group 98. Group 95 was the final boarding group of the day to be called. So even if you get a boarding group, you’re still not guaranteed to ride
So I just called Disney customer service about this so you can’t do it before like fastpass instead the second you swipe/tap your magicband or park card when you enter Hollywood studios you can go to the myDisney experince app or to guest services at the entrance and get signed up for a boarding group. your phone will be notified when your group starts boarding.
from what i have read, you cant make a normal “fast pass” like other rides, you need to be in Holly wood studios between 6-730ish am, and they release the boarding passes around 7ish. and while your in the park you go on the disney expeirence app, and it will say “join boarding” and you hit that and it should give you a boarding group. then after you get that group once your group is called you have 2 hours to get to the ride from that time. they give out 150 boarding passes but if you are farther up the list the less likely you may be called they have given out fast passes and park hoppers to people who have not been able to ride the ride, if they had a boarding pass that didnt get called. you can also leave the park after you get a boarding pass and come back when its time for your pass.
I was there for extra magic hours on 12/8. The cast members at the entrance said boarding group access would begin at 7:45am (so near the end of early magic hours but before the regular opening). At about 7:15am there was a general park announcement over the sound system explaining the boarding group system for Rise of the Resistance. About half-way through the announcement, I went to the Disney app and tried to reserve a boarding group and successfully collected #25. All of the boarding groups were assigned for the day by 8:15am, which prevented most of the non-Early Magic guests from getting a boarding group. Lesson learned – if you want a Rise of the Resistance boarding group, be ready to request one in the app AS SOON as the ANNOUNCEMENT starts on the PA system. This means at least one person in your party needs to be waiting for the announcement and not riding other rides during the Early Magic hours because the announcement may happen at any time and if you are in the middle of Toy story Mania you might miss it. Getting to ride R of R was certainly worth getting up for Early Magic. Group #25 was called around 12:30pm but there was about an hour and a half down time between groups 13 and 14. Once the ride was back up, the groups cycled through pretty quickly.
Does anyone know if you can leave the park while you are in the virtual queue? Like if my entire party showed up in the morning and got boarding group 50, could we then park hop until we got the notification that our boarding group is ready? Or are you locked into Hollywood Studios until your group is called?
Yes you can. We joined a group at 7:40am on Sunday and got called to ride at 8:30pm. We spent several hours at the park then went home, ate, napped, watched a movie, ate again and then went back. You have a 2 hour window from the time your group’s boarding comes up. We were watching the boarding party numbers and realized how long we had since park closed at 9, we weren’t going to get the 2 hour grace period so we just made sure to be back in the park in time.
Thanks for the info!
If only one person in your group wants to go on it, can they just go to the park early and get a boarding pass? Thanks!!