It’s the second day of operation (third if you count Media Previews) for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and as we move towards day-to-day (read: not grand opening) operations, it seems that new issues are arising, with the attraction experiencing increased downtime, and Boarding Groups getting depleted hours before the stated park open time.
Yesterday, the attraction broke down in the early AM hours for a brief period of time. We know because we covered it extensively as one of the first groups on the ride and subsequently evacuated. (You can view our full ride evac video here!) This morning, the attraction has broken down twice already, leading to having the entire ride evacuated, including the queue. While it is not openly known what is causing these operational issues, downtimes have been relatively short, with the attraction back up and in operation soon after evacuation is completed.
Those evacuated from the queue, pre-show, or onboard the attraction have received same-day re-entry FastPasses, but it offers little solace after two back-to-back evacuations.
These operational issues and evacuations are in turn leading to lessened capacity on the ride. Last night, guests in later Boarding Groups were denied access to the attraction after having waited all day. Of course, joining a Boarding Group is not a guarantee that they’ll be able to experience Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Guests whose Boarding Groups were not able to be accommodated received an anytime FastPass for the attraction, plus 1-Day Park Hopper tickets as a means of guest recovery.
Today, despite an official listed park open of 9:00 AM, Boarding Group distribution ended at 8:10 AM, meaning guests who arrived nearly an hour before park open did not have a chance at obtaining a Boarding Group or a place in the virtual queue for the attraction. The park has quietly opened at 6:00 AM these past two days, unbeknownst to most Disney Resort guests. The number of Boarding Groups distributed has been severely capped to avoid the same capacity issues the park ran into last night.
Park open isn’t until 8, but Galaxy’s Edge is open and so is Toy Story Land pic.twitter.com/7xy4nQRT2d
— WDW News Today (@WDWNT) December 6, 2019
If you are headed to Walt Disney World to ride the new Rise of the Resistance attraction, do keep in mind that hours are constantly changing, and in order to be able to secure a Boarding Group, you will have to beat the crowds, which may or may not be there three hours before official opening time.
Do you have to be in the park in order to access a boarding pass on my Disney experience app?
yes
How secret can these 6am openings really be? Perhaps Disney isn’t actively promoting that early opening time, but the resort buses would have to be running by at least 5am, wouldn’t they? I wonder if the My Disney Experience app provides ETAs on those 5am buses.
No…. guests are driving in…
We were staying at All Star Music last week. On the night before, we got a voicemail on our room phone telling us that the extra magic hours for Sunday the 8th had been changed to 6-8 AM. After that, we knew to keep checking park hours for updates. I would assume they called all resort guests.
I am staying on property on Wednesday evening Dec 11th and plan on going to Hollywood Studios on Thursday December 12. Obviously I am going for the main reason of the new ride. Where can I track to see what time I need to be there so I can access a boarding pass? Im fine with getting up at 5 am if need be but would like to find out an official time?
There is no official time or way to track it. You have to go early in hope that it is open early or that you’ll be first in when it does.
Same a little disheartening there isn’t a set time. How do you get the inside scoop?
You have to just get there and try at 6 AM and hope it opens at that time. There is no way to know for sure what they will do!
Wow, thanks for this information. Very good to know. I’ll be sure to kick my son out of bed early enough to get that boarding group.
I also was in the park yesterday, the second official day. My husband and I arrived early in hope to wait in line for the opening so we could be one of the first to ride, as our kids are in daycare and we needed to get home asap to pick up my breastfed baby. We were surprised the park was already open when we walked in the gates at 7am. We got boarding pass 39 and our friends, who arrived at 645, had boarding pass 33. Less than a row of cars in between us, so not many people per boarding group. Due to the multiple breakdowns and the ridiculous number of fast passes from the previous day and that morning, our group was not called until 230pm. We checked again later at 6p and it was at 90. We waited almost 8 hours for our group 39, which we almost had to leave because I couldn’t pump and was in extreme pain and our daughter had run out of bottles. It is an amazing ride but we felt that we were severely disadvantaged by the previous days fastpass situation when it is clearly stated in multiple places that it isnt guaranteed for a ride. It made a snowball effect of unhappy people waiting and possibly not getting a ride.
Why doesn’t Disney simply run the ride 20×7 (with some break to allow changing of the day and cleaning crews) until the built up demand lessons into same day lines? I think that the evacuations are fine and would be much less concerning if everyone knew that could get their turn before they have to depart.
Is this typical for new rides at WDW? What were the Avatar rides like when they first opened? How long do you think it will be until you don’t have to be at the park at opening to get to ride? Weeks? Months?
This demand is never ever going to ease, and its unfair that people have to only “hope” that they can get in on the day they visit the park. The ONLY way to solve this is to implement a system like the Eiffel Tower in Paris where you go online and purchase your day and time-slot for the elevators that access the Eiffel Tower. They are booked weeks or months in advance, but you have the security of knowing that your spot is held for you on the day & time that you have reserved.
Of course, if you fail to show up, you forfeit your place and get no compensation, but Disney can just have a standby queue for the reservations that are no-shows. To avoid people booking up loads of “redundant” reservations, it would need to be somehow tied to your admission ticket. Perhaps retain a quota of entries per day that are not bound by that reservation system.