News Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance Standby Line and Boarding Groups at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Minthorne

Well-Known Member
MK Guest Relations told us to be to the park by 8:30 and two friends extended their trip ($400 in change fees) to stay and ride. Imagine our frustration when we arrived at 8:25 and all boarding groups were gone.

They took a chance but...

1575664952812.png
 

Purduevian

Well-Known Member
So...then... What should Disney have done when there are thousands more people that want to ride a ride than the ride can handle?

How would any of you do things differently that would not result in people camping out or parked along a highway waiting to crash the gate at more and more ridiculously advanced wait times, which would exclude guests with children from ever riding it?

Not an expert, but I think the 8 or 9am opening time was given because of ROTRs issues. They were not confident that ROTR would be able to open both days at 6am and planned for the worst. What should they have done?

At 6am open the standby line, but force everyone to tap their tickets or magic bands to enter the queue. Run the ride as much as you can to start reducing the standby line. 30 minutes before park opening, close the standby line. 30 minutes before park opening, allow boarding passes to be distributed to all those that have entered DHS, but are not or have not been in line for ROTR today. Boarding groups start as soon as the standby line from the early risers gets down to appropriate levels.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
What exactly is preventing them from telling people to leave when they show up 3 hours early?
Very angry guests.

If you say "you can't show up till 7AM" then you'll have a major traffic jam as everyone attempts to arrive at exactly that time.

The earliness of time usually keeps that from happening, but in this case, you have ten thousand people jockeying trying to make sure they get a ride. And they all know that it all depends on beating other people into the park.
 

dclfan

Well-Known Member
As an annual Passholder who lives in Saint Pete Beach I feel the need to chime in here. People staying “onsite” are given an advantage immediately because they are close. Anyone staying on site complaining that they weren’t informed or that the buses started only at 3AM are entitled and shouldn’t be listened to. You are 5 minutes away from the park if you missed out it’s your own fault. I set my alarm for 5:30 AM in Saint Pete and knew full well the chances of me getting a boarding group were slim but still went on the off chance. Instead I spent my day at festival of the holidays and visiting “uncle Walt” at magic kingdom for his birthday like a true Disney fan. I’ll try again at some point this week and might even get a room because waking up in Disney world is already early access you dumbs dumbs
 

AshaNeOmah

Well-Known Member
So amongst all this arguing, does anyone have any actual advice on what to do if I wanna ride RotR tomorrow and take resort transportation?

From the sound of it you need to be to your transportation between 3 and 4 AM, probably by 3, and wait until the people who drive in scare management enough to start bus service. Your wait will be between 1 and 4 hours.
 

Kman101

Well-Known Member
If safety was the true concern, you would open the park as a corral but not open the rides til 9—kind of like how MK opens at 8 but the rides at 9.

I got the typical PR response "we surprised and delighted our guests by opening early". Yeah, and what, to heck with everyone else who believed it was 9am? I mean, that's great and all they opened early but they bring this backlash on themselves. If folks show up at 4am, turn them away until 6am.

Considering I was on the way and found out, and it's an hour and a half drive for me, stupid me I guess, but it's pretty crushing when you found out you wasted your time because, sike, park opened at 6! So I'm slightly extra salty, but if I were a hotel guest, I'd be absolutely furious.

Guests shouldn't have to strategize this hard, be glued to social media, etc.
 

Kman101

Well-Known Member
So amongst all this arguing, does anyone have any actual advice on what to do if I wanna ride RotR tomorrow and take resort transportation?

Apparently we have to be there at 4am when park opening is 9am. I have zero issues with those who got their early getting a pass and by 9:01, sorry, we're full. Fine. Don't open at 6am when published park time is 9am and have boarding passes already done with an hour and a half before SCHEDULED park opening (and yes, all of us are aware they are free and clear and do change their scheduled operating hours on a whim). They're trying to meet the demand but saying "to heck with the rest of you". There's no real perfect solution here.

They COULD start boarding times at 9am. You can enter the park at 6, sure, but Rise opens at 9am. They could also have it so you can't get a second boarding group after riding once. They can turn cars and guests away at 4-5am and tell them to come back at 6 or 7am. They don't care.

I hope they learn from their mistake. But they keep making them.

They clearly had staff in place for an early opening.
 

Kman101

Well-Known Member
opening day dec.5th

And apparently today they've had more issues with the ride (to be expected) and also having to fulfill those guests who couldn't ride and had a boarding pass yesterday. It's become a cluster ...

Happy for you that you got to ride! I would have been at opening day but unfortunately my car decided not to be cooperative, naturally (and when I could have gotten there, it would have been too late for a boarding group). It hasn't been a great week and this "sike, we opened at 6am" sure didn't help me today, LOL. Oh well. First world theme park problems and all that LOL
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom