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

Darkbeer1

Well-Known Member
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So, do you really want your vehicle compared to the reliability of Rise before Dawn?
 

Communicora

Premium Member
Fantastic! I'm so glad everything worked out after a tense morning. It is an impressive ride experience overall, isn't it?

Also good that they finally opened. Longest morning delay they've had thus far, with Disneyland opening at 8am but the ride didn't open until 12:30pm. Yikes!

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Thanks for the good vibes yesterday. I’m crediting you and the rest of this board with my successful visit yesterday. My jet lagged self wrote a little review here: https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...eviews-criticism-deep-thoughts.962188/page-55

I thought I’d share what I did yesterday so that we have another data point in the pool.
1. I restarted my phone after we got into the park.
2. Found a bench at the Main Street Railroad station. My reception was excellent in that location.
3. Opened the app a few minutes before park open.
4. Counted down the seconds until 8 and hit find out more and then join boarding group.

I’m sure many of these tips came from this board. Thank you!

We are bowing out of the race today. It is tempting to try again, but I’d rather avoid the stress and leave two spots open for someone else. I hope other WDWers have a good experience this morning.
 

Ismael Flores

Well-Known Member
The ride reopened a few moments after I posted that. Now calling Boarding Group 47!
Funny how that works. :cool:

But still, today is below the previous all-time low as represented by the black dotted line here....

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It is interesting that even though the ride opened very late at 2pm it evened out with previous boarding groups called for that hour. looks like it even surpassed the called boarding group numbers at around 3:20 before closing down again.

Did that mean that even though the groups were called the queue was more full than usual?
 

WDWTrojan

Well-Known Member
Wow. Both rides are off limits to VIP plaid tours?!? I kind of understand Rise Before Dawn, even though you'd think for those prices they could just pull out a couple hundred Boarding Group ressies per day for the VIP groups. But also Target Run?!? That one is just baffling, since the ride rarely gets more than a 45 minute wait and has a dedicated Fastpass lane that is currently going unused.

Maybe they are just trying to keep all the VIP groups out of Star Wars Land entirely because they know they can't get on Rise Before Dawn. Still, somehow I'm surprised that TDA is able to shoot themselves in the foot like this. And for people spending thousands of dollars on a VIP tour!! Just baffling.

This is not entirely correct. Was on a tour a few weeks ago. Standard VIP Tours have access to MFSR. There is no access to ROTR whatsoever. The sole exception to this is if you spring for the $12,000.00 "Land of Dreams Tour," they do offer you access to ROTR - along with a private tour of the Dream Suite, Walt's Apartment, all food included and a few other "perks" above the standard tour.

By comparison, the standard VIP Tour is $425-650/hour, depending on the day, while the "Land of Dreams" tour is a flat charge of $12K for up to 12 hours.

This is the exact same situation in Florida, which offers an upgraded "World of Dreams" tour.
 

SSG

Well-Known Member
Just got home from 4 days at Disneyland and I have to say that I didn’t find the Boarding Group procedure to be overly difficult. We planned to be in Disneyland last Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Our hotel was about a 15 minute walk and we hit the DTD security tent just a bit after 7:00. This side wasn’t crowded and we breezed through pretty quickly.

Side note: we got through quickly in part because I had all the pockets of my backpack open and ready to be pawed over, and we had everything out of our pockets to get through the metal detector. Don’t be the people who can’t figure out how to negotiate the security line.

We got a coffee at Starbucks and hit the esplanade around 7:25 am. We joined a line and at 7:30 we started to move. About 12 minutes later we were in. We found a shady spot by Refreshment Corner and waited for the big moment. From seeing YouTube videos and reading about other peoples’ experiences, this is what we did.

Used cellular data, not the park WiFi.

Closed all other tabs and made sure the Disneyland app was working properly and we were signed in on our Disneyland accounts and our passes were linked.

We had moved the clock icon on our phones next to the Disneyland app. This gives an accurate countdown clock in the same view as the Disneyland app.

At the stroke of 8:00 I hit the app. It opens right to the RotR page, and I hit Find Out More. When this page opened, I hit Join Boarding Group. We got a number (32 on Wednesday; 30 on Thursday) and I hit Confirm.

That was it. Took about 4 seconds. It wasn’t difficult, but we followed the steps.

All in all, a weird experience. The eerie silence as the clock moves toward the hour, a frantic few seconds and then cheers. And some disappointment. One family of five by us didn’t get in and the kids were upset. From eavesdropping it was clear that dad had not done any forward recon and was fumbling around at the moment of truth. Not fun.
 

shambolicdefending

Well-Known Member
From eavesdropping it was clear that dad had not done any forward recon and was fumbling around at the moment of truth. Not fun.
I know this is basically a dead horse at this point, but I don't really care to blame the guests who don't have it all figured out on their first attempt.

A good business should not be putting high-paying customers in a situation where a few seconds of dexterity with an app matters so much.
 

Ismael Flores

Well-Known Member
anyone there today? wanted to do the early thing today hoping the chances were better without all the extra AP.
couldn't do it but thinking of tomorrow or Monday. how are the crowds?
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
This is not entirely correct. Was on a tour a few weeks ago. Standard VIP Tours have access to MFSR. There is no access to ROTR whatsoever. The sole exception to this is if you spring for the $12,000.00 "Land of Dreams Tour," they do offer you access to ROTR - along with a private tour of the Dream Suite, Walt's Apartment, all food included and a few other "perks" above the standard tour.

By comparison, the standard VIP Tour is $425-650/hour, depending on the day, while the "Land of Dreams" tour is a flat charge of $12K for up to 12 hours.

This is the exact same situation in Florida, which offers an upgraded "World of Dreams" tour.

Thank you, that's very interesting, and helpful to have the rumors sorted out.

I'm laughing at the twelve thousand dollar "Land of Dreams Tour". What a hilarious name! 🤣
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
All in all, a weird experience. The eerie silence as the clock moves toward the hour, a frantic few seconds and then cheers. And some disappointment. One family of five by us didn’t get in and the kids were upset. From eavesdropping it was clear that dad had not done any forward recon and was fumbling around at the moment of truth. Not fun.

It was heartbreaking for me to see those who didn't win, especially the family with crying children as I walked past Coke Corner. It really put a damper on my few minutes of excitement after I won by using finger warm-ups and strong AT&T data up by the train station. :mad:

I'm saying this one more time so the universe hears it... For people who don't win a Boarding Group, but know enough to go through the motions of fiddling with the App at park opening time with registered tickets, they should be rewarded with a consolation prize of one bonus Fastpass for the ride of their choice other than Rise Before Dawn.

It would help calm down the crying children at the very least.

A good business should not be putting high-paying customers in a situation where a few seconds of dexterity with an app matters so much.

Bravo!

I think it's not just an issue of what a good business should do, it's what good people with a kind spirit should do. It's a lottery, I get it, but it just seems kind of mean spirited the way it plays out each morning.

I understand that the Disneyland team is saddled with a turkey of a ride system that is not yet ready for prime time, but there's just got to be a way to tweak the Rise Before Dawn lottery so at least there are winners and runners-up instead of winners and losers.
 

SSG

Well-Known Member
It was heartbreaking for me to see those who didn't win, especially the family with crying children as I walked past Coke Corner. It really put a damper on my few minutes of excitement after I won by using finger warm-ups and strong AT&T data up by the train station. :mad:

Totally agree. And from the small sample size of folks I chatted with over our stay, it was clear that many had no idea what the real world process would be like. Though I tried to help out where I could. We struck up a conversation with a couple and their two adorable daughters while having lunch. They were going to try for Rise the next day. Mom had tried to figure out what to do and she had a general idea of the process, but not of the finer details. I told her what we had done on our two successful tries. Then we all got out our phones and did a couple of dry runs. I really hope they got on.
 

DisneyDrum

Well-Known Member
We've ginned up another strangely pro-Disney Los Angeles Times article: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-14/disneyland-rise-of-the-resistance-capacity-riders

Found via a very positive Facebook post:

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Congrats @TP2000!

Let's look at the numbers from the article:
The attraction is estimated to be serving 1,100 to 1,500 visitors an hour but can increase to 1,900 passengers an hour when the attraction operates without glitches. That means that 17,600 to 30,400 people can ride the attraction on a day when the park operates for 16 hours, according to Touring Plans and other estimates.
So for the comparison they go with the highest estimate, 1,900 people per hour. Then they do comparisons:
By comparison, the Matterhorn Bobsled ride and Space Mountain at Disneyland each serve about 1,500 visitors an hour, while the Jungle Cruise attraction serves fewer than 1,000 people an hour, according to Touring Plans, which has also counted riders exiting these and a handful of other rides.
Ignoring that touring plans says Pirates of the Caribbean loads 3,430 riders per hour. They compare Rise to roller coasters, with this bit ignoring that Rise is a long ride.
Roller coasters have among the highest hourly capacity rates partly because the ride itself typically lasts less than three minutes.
Then at the end of the article:
That is of little comfort to the crowds of park visitors who each day fail to get a boarding group reservation and are forced to return to try another day. Even if the ride operates at optimum levels and serves about 30,000 visitors during a 16-hour day, that means that less than half of the typical daily park attendance, about 65,000, will get to experience Rise of the Resistance each day.

So we go from "Higher capacity than you might think" in the Facebook post to "actually only half the visitors can ride under the best circumstances"

The only new bit in the article is that they estimate the size of each boarding group is 150. Not sure where that comes from though.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
anyone there today? wanted to do the early thing today hoping the chances were better without all the extra AP.
couldn't do it but thinking of tomorrow or Monday. how are the crowds?

Disneyland and DCA are PACKED today. It's Presidents Day weekend and it is sunny and 68 degrees. Huge wait times for all E Tickets this afternoon. At 5pm with the lines starting to die down a bit from their 2pm peaks...

Small World, Splash Mt., Pirates, Star Tours, Submarines - 45 Minutes
Buzz Lightyear, Soarin', Chase-A-Baby, Thunder Mountain - 65 Minutes
Millennium Falcon: Target Run - 75 Minutes (Look at you with a decent line! Dream big!)
Matterhorn Bobsleds, Guardians of the Galaxy, Indiana Jones - 90 Minutes
Space Mountain, Radiator Racers - 120 Minutes


All the C and D Tickets are in the 40 to 60 minute range, except Midway Mania at 75.
 

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