Disneyland's Rise Of The Resistance - Reviews, Criticism, Deep Thoughts

[RobWDW1971]

She's neat, tidy and well groomed.

I um...uh...am not going to touch that one.

 

[TP2000]

ooh good to know. I didn’t see Mix Magic on the calendar

It's kind of a crappy show, so it's easy to miss.

 

[el_super]

That number is my fault.

Oh..... that all makes sense. Still hard to gauge that based on a single snapshot at the end of the day. There were a lot more people at the park 16 hours ago, and not all 15,000 would ride at once. The real interesting question is how many of those APs that woke up at 3AM, got to the park at 6AM, got Boarding Group 85, actually stuck around all 13 hours to ride rather than just going home. I wonder if they had a lot of no shows toward the later hours.

I assumed as such, as these wait times seemed average for a January Friday. But is that why they spent a Billion dollars to build this mega-land, to just pull the same amount of crowds and lower the wait times for everything else in the park by 5 to 10 minutes?

Well no... They built the billion dollar land in order to raise prices, sell plastic swords to adults and make more money. The crowds going back to normal just seems to be a side effect.

But I do think it's important that we give this a few days to settle in. Let's review on Monday evening what this holiday weekend was like overall. That said, you can easily imagine there's some nervousness with TDA and Burbank execs this weekend that the huge crowds did NOT show up today.

If they thought it was going to be THAT busy though, wouldn't they have blocked out the APs? They seemed to have known the attendance would have been light when they wrote up the AP calendar and decided to open the ride this weekend. I don't see how this is all that unexpected.

 

[TP2000]

Oh..... that all makes sense. Still hard to gauge that based on a single snapshot at the end of the day. There were a lot more people at the park 16 hours ago, and not all 15,000 would ride at once. The real interesting question is how many of those APs that woke up at 3AM, got to the park at 6AM, got Boarding Group 85, actually stuck around all 13 hours to ride rather than just going home. I wonder if they had a lot of no shows toward the later hours.

True, I imagine there were plenty of now shows the past few hours this evening.

But the 15,000 figure now seems very generous. It might be closer to my original estimate of 12,800. Maybe even lower.

We know for a fact that all Boarding Groups were gone within the first few minutes of park opening this morning. The OC Register is saying all BG's and all Backup BG's were gone by 8:06am. So it's easy to look at this morning's photos of the Central Plaza and Main Street USA and ask "Is that 10,000 people? Is it 15,000?" My amateur opinion is that it's closer to 10,000 based on these photos...

It was like this all the way thru the Central Plaza. That's a lot of people, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking its tens of thousands. It's a healthy ten grand at least, maybe 12,000. They obviously started very conservatively today with the Boarding Groups, but this is not a ride that's going to be able to handle 40,000 riders per day like Pirates of the Caribbean can.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

I don't remember if I mentioned it, but one element of Rise I enjoyed was all the music. There's lots of it being prominently piped in on the muzak. This obviously isn't the case for the rest of the land aside from the weird cantina music and it suffers because of it. It's quiet and depressing like a graveyard.

 

[RobWDW1971]

I don't remember if I mentioned it, but one element of Rise I enjoyed was all the music. There's lots of it being prominently piped in on the muzak. This obviously isn't the case for the rest of the land aside from the weird cantina music and it suffers because of it. It's quiet and depressing like a graveyard.

And as we said from the beginning, WDI instantly throws out their ridiculous immersion rules when convenient as there wouldn’t be orchestral music playing in a prison transport in a star destroyer. Not that I’m complaining about actually having music being played, but it shows how silly their “rules” are and how they need to throw in the towel on the depressing, awkward silence of the land.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Where is this music coming from when Rey's hologram appears? Is there a sound system on the star destroyer playing orchestral music? This isn't immersive! Get rid of the music!

 

[THE 1HAPPY HAUNT]

Where is this music coming from when Rey's hologram appears? Is there a sound system on the star destroyer playing orchestral music? This isn't immersive! Get rid of the music!

BB-8 has a built in boom box

 

[DanielBB8]

I assumed as such, as these wait times seemed average for a January Friday. But is that why they spent a Billion dollars to build this mega-land, to just pull the same amount of crowds and lower the wait times for everything else in the park by 5 to 10 minutes? Judging by the type of person Mr. Chapek has proven himself to be, I highly doubt that was the guiding principle behind the Star Wars Land expansion.

Just like Rise of Skywalker attempted to do “fan service” to correct the multiple problems of the sequel trilogy especially with The Last Jedi, Galaxy’s Edge needs more classic Star Wars Trilogy that everyone has fond memories. People will like Rise of Resistance attraction, but Batuu is an nonentity. They still have the blue hair character walkabout character as if people care about this side story that falls between TLJ and ROS. Fan service means there should be walkabout Luke Skywalker (Force ghost), Admiral Leia, Lando, and C3PO. More fan service.

 

[phantazmick25]

I’m coming back home in March and a Disneyland visit is in the works. Hopefully, the crowds stay like this until my trip.

I forget, when does Spring Break start for schools In the US? Having lived in Japan for a year, I’m used to it being in March, but I think in the US, it’s April?

 

[DarkMetroid567]

I’m coming back home in March and a Disneyland visit is in the works. Hopefully, the crowds stay like this until my trip.

I forget, when does Spring Break start for schools In the US? Having lived in Japan for a year, I’m used to it being in March, but I think in the US, it’s April?

It depends on the school district, I've had spring break in late March and early April. When I went on college spring break last year (mid to late March) and took a trip to TDR, I could certainly tell it was spring break over there, too.

 

[BubbaQuest]

To generate a return on an investment of that size will require a staggering increase in attendance and admission/merch/F&B per cap spending as DL is already at theoretical capacity on its few hotel rooms.

That's one of the reasons I questioned SW in Disneyland. If DLR was already near capacity, how was Galaxy's Edge alone supposed to dramatically increase profit? I understand the argument that 15 new acres increases capacity, but DLR didn't have a problem attracting customers. How was this new land expected to only attract new customers instead of increasing the (already paid) attendance of their existing customers.

If reading the last few pages of forum posts is any indication, I think many of us expected the parks to be at least somewhat busy today on a Friday in January.

I'm still waiting to see the craziness of AP Sunday, but based on current treads, I'm assuming the numbers are not gonna look good for Disney.

 

[GrizzlyAdams]

Hmmm, is that indifference or contempt on Bob Chapeks' face staring at the adorable little girl running to R2-D2?

 

[flynnibus]

Wow! No kidding, this was not how it was supposed to go at all. It's a tad chilly tonight, already down to 54 in Anaheim, but there's no reason why the park shouldn't be packed without any AP blockouts tonight.

But then, when you've got Disneyland's first new E Ticket in over 25 years but it can only host about 15,000 people per day on a reservations-only basis, that's gonna be a problem.

Even so, I agree with you that they must be getting nervous in TDA about now.
Also Burbank, specifically Mr. Chapek's office suite.

yeah... but it's still mid January

 

[el_super]

It's a healthy ten grand at least, maybe 12,000. They obviously started very conservatively today with the Boarding Groups, but this is not a ride that's going to be able to handle 40,000 riders per day like Pirates of the Caribbean can.

I am dangerously underqualified to estimate crowd sizes, but if you figure that the river front for Fantasmic holds about 10,000 people, I would think Main Street and the Hub would exceed that number by a bit. 12,000 may be close.

If you figure from the boarding groups: they had a planned 13 hours of operation (from 9am to 10pm) and you give them a VERY conservative 800 people per hour, that's about 10,000 people that got a boarding group yesterday morning. We know some people weren't able to get groups, and certainly some people showed up completely unaware of what was happening... That easily puts you over 10,000 on Main Street yesterday morning.

 

[el_super]

That's one of the reasons I questioned SW in Disneyland. If DLR was already near capacity, how was Galaxy's Edge alone supposed to dramatically increase profit?

By justifying the dramatic increase in prices. This whole time that they've been saying attendance is down, their revenue has been up. They're making more money with fewer people in the park.

I understand the argument that 15 new acres increases capacity, but DLR didn't have a problem attracting customers.

They can attract lots of guests by making the place free... But that's not the end game here.

I'm still waiting to see the craziness of AP Sunday, but based on current treads, I'm assuming the numbers are not gonna look good for Disney.

So what numbers would look good for Disney? 90 minute waits for Finding Nemo?

 

[socaljoeyb]

I enjoyed the ride and the whole experience. The pathways seem packed to me today.

 

[britain]

Wow! No kidding, this was not how it was supposed to go at all. It's a tad chilly tonight, already down to 54 in Anaheim, but there's no reason why the park shouldn't be packed without any AP blockouts tonight.

But then, when you've got Disneyland's first new E Ticket in over 25 years but it can only host about 15,000 people per day on a reservations-only basis, that's gonna be a problem.

Even so, I agree with you that they must be getting nervous in TDA about now.
Also Burbank, specifically Mr. Chapek's office suite.

I am not a local, but if I were, I would stay away this weekend, simply for fear of crowds - more specifically because I’d figure it would be unlikely that I would get to ride the new attraction.

 

[RobWDW1971]

I am not a local, but if I were, I would stay away this weekend, simply for fear of crowds - more specifically because I’d figure it would be unlikely that I would get to ride the new attraction.

I feel like I'm experiencing deja vu as these are all exactly the same comments we all made when Batuu/MFSR opened. And the first weekend, became the first month, became the "lost summer"....

 

[britain]

I feel like I'm experiencing deja vu as these are all exactly the same comments we all made when Batuu/MFSR opened. And the first weekend, became the first month, became the "lost summer"....

It’s way early, but let’s play “what if.”

What if it’s established that RotR is a big hit for Florida, but less so for DL. What conclusions would Disney take away from that? How would that impact future investments in Anaheim?

I suspect the conversation would be less about WDI’s design choices & “Star Wars fatigue” and more about DL price/value/AP mix, etc.