Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance opening reports and using Boarding Groups at Disneyland

[DanielBB8]

Make a visit to Main Street customer relations to see what they can do if you have a day pass. I’m sure APs won’t be accommodated. Not sure what they will do for multi-day tickets. They’ll ask you to try again until your very last day pass, then maybe give you something.

 

[Darkbeer1]

Rise of the Resistance doesn't have a virtual queue - it's a lottery

www.themeparkinsider.com

>>Guests must be inside the park to join the virtual queue, which opens at the park's published opening time. But guests are slamming the app as soon as the queue opens, resulting in all of the day's boarding groups being claimed within minutes. And it's getting worse each day. This morning, all the groups were gone for the day within just two minutes.

In practice, this isn't a virtual queue if all the day's boarding spots are going that quickly. What Disneyland has for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is really a lottery, instead.<<

>>People were forming a physical queue to enter the virtual one. Disney didn't want the hassle of maintaining that physical queue in the pre-dawn hours every morning — or to take complaints from guests who didn't want to have to get up at 2am on their vacation in order to ride the most popular new attraction at the resort. (Even as every jet-lagged British tourist chortled quietly at the advantage the early start provided them.) So Disney changed the system to open the virtual queue only at the park's published opening time.

Disney would continue to allow people to enter the park about an hour or so early, as it always does. But there would no longer be any advantage to showing up in the middle of the night. So long as you were tapped into the park by 7am, you had the same opportunity to get into the virtual queue as anyone else inside the park.<<

>>But for now, in California, you show up and you take your chances. Could Disneyland have managed this differently? Sure. Disneyland could have done what it did with the entire Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge land last spring, when it assigned advanced reservations online to visit the land during its first month. That system kept anyone from making a trip to the resort in vain, as you knew in advance of your visit if you would be getting in or not.

That system also lead to an overall decline in attendance at the resort as many people chose to visit only when they had a Galaxy's Edge reservation... or not to visit if they could not get one. Disneyland isn't about to chance that happening again, so an advance reservation system for Rise of the Resistance was out of the question.

But Disneyland also isn't about to risk a virtual queue/lottery situation that causes hotel guests to cancel their reservations because there's no guarantee that they will get on Rise of the Resistance, either. If park guests keep wiping out all the boarding groups within a minute every day for next few weeks, that becomes a real risk. In that case, I would not be surprised to see Disneyland publicize that it will offer an Extra Magic Hour on the ride for hotel guests only, or guarantee them a boarding group assignment, or give them a one-time-use Fastpass for the ride.

Ultimately, I love that Disney has been trying something different with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Parks should be looking to innovate and adapt as much with their operations as they have been with their ride systems, placemaking, and storytelling. But innovation does not stop with an attraction's opening. Great operations teams learn and adapt as their cast members watch how the public is using a new attraction. The Disney's Hollywood Studios team made the change they felt necessary to make its system work better for everyone.

Soon, Disneyland's management might have to do the same.<<

 

[TP2000]

Darkbeer, thanks for that article! All valid points there.

But what this seems to prove is that the hourly and daily capacity of this new ride is very, very low. I had originally guesstimated that they were giving out about 8,000 Boarding Group ressies per day, but then we had a discussion that it might be higher in the 12,000 to 15,000 per day range. Even though we're only three days in, I think the reports that all BG's are gone within a few minutes each morning and there are thousands of people in the park who don't even get a BG at 8am before the App closes it down tells me that the 8,000 per day number is probably more accurate.

Even if my 8th grade math is wrong and the total number of Boarding Group reservations per day is closer to 12,000 instead of 8,000, either one of those numbers is a ridiculously and shamefully low number for Disneyland's first big E Ticket in 25 years. At a theme park complex that gets 28+ Million visitors per year for an average of 76,000 visitors per day. Seriously not good short term or long term.

How did WDI and TDA allow that to happen???

 

[Darkbeer1]

TP2000, looking at other parks with low capacity rides... They convert them into Upcharge attractions.

So at what price point do you get to 12,000 rides? Do you do the Hotel Room thing, and disguise the upcharge?

Call it MaxPass plus? Cedar Fair does that with their Fast Lane option at some parks.

Or do you bring back the Dream Machine, where random visitors throughout the day (on first entry to the park) get a Boarding Group Number for X amount of people....

 

[Disney Analyst]

This ride actually has a theoretical of I believe 2,000 but they are hoping to hit 1,700. The issue is they can’t hit 1,700 yet, let alone 1,000.

 

[TP2000]

They had a nice run this afternoon from about 2pm to 5:45pm, but then they broke down again for 90+ minutes until about 7:30pm. They are at BG 73 now at 8pm.

@waltography I'm raising a toast of a very good Cabernet I'm enjoying this evening to the theme park gods with a wish that you make it on tonight!

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[waltography]

@waltography I'm raising a toast of a very good Cabernet I'm enjoying this evening to the theme park gods with a wish that you make it on tonight!

Thanks, but it seemed to have been in vain; 81 was the last boarding group they called, and they didn’t call the backup boarding groups at all.

I can’t say I’m not heartbroken (1 boarding group away!) but I guess I’ll try some other time.

 

[flynnibus]

Darkbeer, thanks for that article! All valid points there.

Meh... mr niles sets up that there is a big problem in that not all guests are getting boarding passes.. but then later quotes their estimate that is only 10% fall in that category.

He even contradicts himself in the effort to try to oaint disneyland as different and thus needing something different. He paints the picture that at DHS everyone at opening is getting boarding groups... because he’s including backup groups. Where as in his dl scenario, those backup groups aren’t a “sucess” in his narrative.

He advocates against the virtual queue because of this mere 10% of people excluded... in favor of a model that likely would exclude a far greater number of people. Once again someone cites the word “fair”... but promotes a system that is not fair, it simply doesn’t exclude people who are willing to pay any price in waits. That is not more “fair” - it is simply prioritizing one style (that usually the person writing is usually a part of).

The lottery (he, congrats to him picking up on stuff pointed out here on wdwmagic ages ago) is almost by definition the most fair. It does not however serve the most diverse set of customers.

Everyone is also assuming the bg sizes are the same between the two resorts - we dont know that for sure yet.

Also, DL has onky been running for three days... youd think you’d want a bigger reference point.

But what i think the most confusing is... why he doesnt address the elephant in the room. Why is DL’s version running so poorly when its had far more time to build out than DHS’s... and also had more than a month’s experience from DHS to build upon...

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Maybe they should just construct a second version of the ride to meet demand. It is an absolutely massive show building, so there probably isn't room for it to be duplicated and it also makes the low capacity seem all the stranger. All that space and they can't even handle the number of guests that such an immersive groundbreaking kaboom experience should.

Thankfully, guests have so much more to do in Galaxy Edge...

 

[socalifornian]

 

[MisterPenguin]

Not a good day...

 

[NateD1226]

Not a good day...

View attachment 442440

I am more worried for tomorrow

 

[TP2000]

Thanks, but it seemed to have been in vain; 81 was the last boarding group they called, and they didn’t call the backup boarding groups at all.

I can’t say I’m not heartbroken (1 boarding group away!) but I guess I’ll try some other time.

I purposely held off on responding to this, not because I was drinking Cabernet, but because I didn't want to jinx it for you.

But it appears that they are already done for the day. Since Friday they have closed the ride daily before 10pm, regardless of whether the ride has been running for the previous hour or not. My only guess is that this is a strategy to allow extra hours for nightly maintenance work, particularly because DHS never stays open past 10pm but Disneyland is routinely open until Midnight. That's just.... dumb.

And is this the first major ride in Disneyland history that purposely closes before park closing time? (Not including daylight only rides like the Canoes or Tom Sawyer Island, obviously)

I think this daily planned early closing time is a Disneyland first, and obviously the slimy underbelly of the Boarding Group technical capabilities.

But let's review today, Sunday, January 19th with an 8am to Midnight operation for Disneyland. A holiday weekend.

The Resistance ride opened late, with the first Boarding Group called at 9:35am. Then it had 5 hours and 15 minutes of sporadic downtimes during the day, with about 5 hours and 45 minutes of even more sporadic operation. The ride then closed early for the night at 8:25 with the last Boarding Group called at 81, even though Disneyland is open until Midnight. So that gets us....

Disneyland Operation 8am to Midnight = 16 Hours
Resistance Ride Late Opening & Early Closure = 5 Hours
Resistance Ride Breakdowns = 5 Hours 15 Minutes
Resistance Ride Total Operating Hours = 5 Hours 45 Minutes

Yikes!

At least the fireworks looked nice tonight.

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[Darkbeer1]

There is one more way to add capacity, the Jungle Cruise method.

Many old timers remember when the skipper used the half speed during the cruise, with stops and long dialogue.

Today, you feel the skipper is on a race to beat the fastest time set by another skipper.

So, can Disney find ways to shorten the total experience?

 

[Th3 DUd3]

I did ask a CM on the 17th how many boarding groups they were averaging during the CM previews and she said around 40. So you can take the info as you see fit.

If there was a pain point for me its the “extra” “if we need them” boarding groups. I personally just think it’s too much of a carrot being dangled. Yes, you can go do other things, but you’ll still be attempting to plan around something that may or may not exist. This said my suggestion is that they need to come up with a cut off time(So new people and only people remaining can participate). 5-10 minutes later the extended queue opens for X amount of recruits they can manage expectations or they keep it closed. Another option is to have a new lottery after 81 every hour/two as you will need to board within the hour or lose it(no excuses/disclaimer before). I just really hated waiting around for a potential when it could be cancelled at anytime. I was extremely satisfied to ride being in group 90, but I had to wonder and wait all day.

 

[TDL]

Got to the park at 6:30 this morning. Was on the app right at 8. Only 10 seconds past the hour and my group got a boarding group... 116. We had a feeling it wasn't going to happen right then and there. But we still stayed all the way to 10:30 PM. The ride had over 4 hours of downtime in the afternoon, which was just ridiculous. I don't think they got out of the 30s until late afternoon. Then they seemed to jump through them super quick throughout dinner time and after... but they arbitrarily stopped at 81 (The last group they promised would get in)... over 3 hours before the park closed. I just don't understand it at all. The worst part is that I feel like this is how it will be for several months minimum.

If you can't even get on the ride after getting there early, and trying to grab a pass right at 8, I think the system just is simply not working. Not to mention the ride being down for about as long as it was actually operating, and not opening or closing with the park's hours. The whole experience is just so... un-Disney.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Sorry you couldn't ride. It's a mess.

 

[Hawg G]

Rise of the Resistance doesn't have a virtual queue - it's a lottery

www.themeparkinsider.com

>>Guests must be inside the park to join the virtual queue, which opens at the park's published opening time. But guests are slamming the app as soon as the queue opens, resulting in all of the day's boarding groups being claimed within minutes. And it's getting worse each day. This morning, all the groups were gone for the day within just two minutes.

In practice, this isn't a virtual queue if all the day's boarding spots are going that quickly. What Disneyland has for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is really a lottery, instead.<<

>>People were forming a physical queue to enter the virtual one. Disney didn't want the hassle of maintaining that physical queue in the pre-dawn hours every morning — or to take complaints from guests who didn't want to have to get up at 2am on their vacation in order to ride the most popular new attraction at the resort. (Even as every jet-lagged British tourist chortled quietly at the advantage the early start provided them.) So Disney changed the system to open the virtual queue only at the park's published opening time.

Disney would continue to allow people to enter the park about an hour or so early, as it always does. But there would no longer be any advantage to showing up in the middle of the night. So long as you were tapped into the park by 7am, you had the same opportunity to get into the virtual queue as anyone else inside the park.<<

>>But for now, in California, you show up and you take your chances. Could Disneyland have managed this differently? Sure. Disneyland could have done what it did with the entire Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge land last spring, when it assigned advanced reservations online to visit the land during its first month. That system kept anyone from making a trip to the resort in vain, as you knew in advance of your visit if you would be getting in or not.

That system also lead to an overall decline in attendance at the resort as many people chose to visit only when they had a Galaxy's Edge reservation... or not to visit if they could not get one. Disneyland isn't about to chance that happening again, so an advance reservation system for Rise of the Resistance was out of the question.

But Disneyland also isn't about to risk a virtual queue/lottery situation that causes hotel guests to cancel their reservations because there's no guarantee that they will get on Rise of the Resistance, either. If park guests keep wiping out all the boarding groups within a minute every day for next few weeks, that becomes a real risk. In that case, I would not be surprised to see Disneyland publicize that it will offer an Extra Magic Hour on the ride for hotel guests only, or guarantee them a boarding group assignment, or give them a one-time-use Fastpass for the ride.

Ultimately, I love that Disney has been trying something different with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Parks should be looking to innovate and adapt as much with their operations as they have been with their ride systems, placemaking, and storytelling. But innovation does not stop with an attraction's opening. Great operations teams learn and adapt as their cast members watch how the public is using a new attraction. The Disney's Hollywood Studios team made the change they felt necessary to make its system work better for everyone.

Soon, Disneyland's management might have to do the same.<<

Yeah, if I’m at the GC 3 or 4 days, I best get a damn FP for the new ride.

 

[Mickeyboof]

I wonder how much Operations labor this ride is costing them, and what the long term goal is.

Anyone know if the ride CMs are being double staffed, like was reported of WDW? Curious if backstage there are additional operations CMs as well (sorry, not sure the title for those engineers who return rides to operational states).

 

[disneygeek90]

There is one more way to add capacity, the Jungle Cruise method.

Many old timers remember when the skipper used the half speed during the cruise, with stops and long dialogue.

Today, you feel the skipper is on a race to beat the fastest time set by another skipper.

So, can Disney find ways to shorten the total experience?

It doesn’t feel like speeding it up would be a possibility. Aside from detracting from the experience, the whole ride portion is very meticulous and highly technical. I would fear even more downtime if they tried to mess with the speed of the cars and overloading the sensors, effects and AA’s.