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

[Chadisa]

Both parents will need a boarding group if both will end up riding.

Booo - I thought I cracked the code LOL

 

[CastAStone]

I've realized this is a completely pointless discussion, because everyone is just in favor of something that's best for them. All the people in this thread who believe the current system is the most fair system believe that because it's the best system for them. If a different system was better for them, they'd think THAT was the most fair system. And the current system probably doesn't work well/isn't the best for all of the people who don't think it's the most fair system.

Not meant as an attack on anyone, by the way -- just human nature to think that way for most people.

yup.

 

[jt04]

Yes I think you are correct. My guess is ROTR will slowly transform how it is accessed depending on reliability and whatever Disney deems necessary to make available to resort guests. My best guess is some sort of "blended" FP+ access along w BG. I think the BG system has both its pluses and minuses. But if this ride was 100% reliable and never broke down (like MFSR) it would already be on FP

Good to see you have caught on. You are on to something IMO.

 

[DANDAMAN1]

Reading all this worries me. I'm going in June. Hope things are a lot smoother by then. Arriving at park before 6am for a CHANCE to get a boarding group that may or may NOT be called that day, is not ideal for me. I got ONE DAY to try and ride RotR. If I don't get on, trip will be wasted.

 

[disneygeek90]

Back up at group 64. Well above the pace of recent days.

Reading all this worries me. I'm going in June. Hope things are a lot smoother by then. Arriving at park before 6am for a CHANCE to get a boarding group that may or may NOT be called that day, is not ideal for me. I got ONE DAY to try and ride RotR. If I don't get on, trip will be wasted.

There's no need to get there before 6am, and that's assuming they are still opening at 7.

 

[Parker in NYC]

Good to see you have caught on. You are on to something IMO.

I still think March 4

ABBA will reunite before this attraction goes into any kind of blended/FP+ situation. You'd need one heck of a nutribullet to make it work.

 

[SplashJacket]

I've realized this is a completely pointless discussion, because everyone is just in favor of something that's best for them. All the people in this thread who believe the current system is the most fair system believe that because it's the best system for them. If a different system was better for them, they'd think THAT was the most fair system. And the current system probably doesn't work well/isn't the best for all of the people who don't think it's the most fair system.

Not meant as an attack on anyone, by the way -- just human nature to think that way for most people.

Actually no, I spent a week at Walt Disney World with my immediate family, my 75-year-old disabled grandmother and her 64-year-old sister.

The best system for me would be an outright standby system that allows the disability return times even if there is an 8-hour wait. With this system, I could have easily ridden 2 or even 3 times through my grandma. I would classify this as a slight instance of exploitation but after riding it she proclaimed it to be the best ride she had ever ridden and immediately asked if we could do it again.

Instead of this, my 75-year-old disabled grandmother decided she wanted to join the rest of her family in waking up at 5:45 to ride the new Star Wars ride despite never having watched a Star Wars movie.

Despite the boarding group system not being the most convenient for myself, BY A LONG SHOT, it is very easy to see it is the most fair and beneficial system for the majority of individuals.

 

[SourcererMark79]

A guest on a 1 day, non hopper pass, decides to go to MK. They rope drop space instead of mine train. They spend all day on the park and queue up at mine train right before close, only to find 5 minutes later it's 101 for the rest of the day. Is it fair that person didn't get to experience mine train because they made the decision to wait too long to queue instead of trying earlier in the day?

 

[KevinPage]

ABBA will reunite before this attraction goes into any kind of blended/FP+ situation. You'd need one heck of a nutribullet to make it work.

 

[Parker in NYC]

View attachment 443250

If anyone isn't singing this in their head right now, there's a true disturbance in the force!

Also, OMG

 

[A Noble Fish]

I've realized this is a completely pointless discussion, because everyone is just in favor of something that's best for them. All the people in this thread who believe the current system is the most fair system believe that because it's the best system for them. If a different system was better for them, they'd think THAT was the most fair system. And the current system probably doesn't work well/isn't the best for all of the people who don't think it's the most fair system.

Not meant as an attack on anyone, by the way -- just human nature to think that way for most people.

You're right in saying that, but your issue is that you are doing that yourself, and ignoring a system that benefits the largest group of people.

I mean if you show up at park opening you are effectively guaranteed to get a group, and you enjoy the rest of the day like you normally would. How is waiting 10 hours in line, with breakdowns, or a select few getting Fastpass ideal?

 

[UNCgolf]

You're right in saying that, but your issue is that you are doing that yourself, and ignoring a system that benefits the largest group of people.

I mean if you show up at park opening you are effectively guaranteed to get a group, and you enjoy the rest of the day like you normally would. How is waiting 10 hours in line, with breakdowns, or a select few getting Fastpass ideal?

I'm not wrong. You're not wrong either. The select few getting FastPass isn't any different than the select few getting a BG when the park opens. You and others keep saying if you show up at park opening you are guaranteed a group, but that's just not true -- it's only been true because not enough people are choosing to show up at opening.

If 10,000 people showed up at opening tomorrow, most of them wouldn't get a group. Heck, in another thread someone said all guaranteed groups were gone right at 7 AM today, which means there were plenty of people there at opening who only received a backup group at best. If the crowds keep increasing, eventually there are going to be lots of people who show up at opening and don't even get a backup group.

There isn't one right, objectively best way to do this, and there's no evidence that ANY of the ideas that have been put out in this discussion by me and others benefit the largest group of people. We have no way of knowing that.

 

[Parker in NYC]

You're right in saying that, but your issue is that you are doing that yourself, and ignoring a system that benefits the largest group of people.

I mean if you show up at park opening you are effectively guaranteed to get a group, and you enjoy the rest of the day like you normally would. How is waiting 10 hours in line, with breakdowns, or a select few getting Fastpass ideal?

You're wrong, and it's okay to be wrong, but it's not okay to fight to be right ignoring everything else.

I don't think this is a question of 10 hours in line vs. boarding group. It's now a question of close the darn thing and figure it out. It's like watching an injured dancer continue to perform instead of following doctor's orders to rest up and recharge. The 10 hour line argument doesn't fly with me anymore. Especially since, I feel, the boarding groups are a PR move by Disney to make you think you'll get on. Because they dropped the ball. I seem to be a little more fired up today because it's just reached maximum BS to me, now.

If Disney would rather this limp to its death than close it and work out the kinks (I can see the argument that they'd lose money from all the people coming to Disney specifically for Rise but I wonder how many of them get on the thing anyway), I'm sure many here would applaud them.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Reading all this worries me. I'm going in June. Hope things are a lot smoother by then. Arriving at park before 6am for a CHANCE to get a boarding group that may or may NOT be called that day, is not ideal for me. I got ONE DAY to try and ride RotR. If I don't get on, trip will be wasted.

Well, then, the ride as it exists for you may not be for you for this trip to WDW. There's no way to guarantee ridership without going to a lottery the day or two before. And then we'd get someone saying this isn't fair to them because their trip to WDW wasn't planned two days in advance or if they could get off work.

There is no way to guarantee ridership for a ride in which more people want to ride it than it can handle for the day. Even if you win the lottery that morning, the ride may break down and the 1 day hopper they give you as compensation is useless if that was your only day in Orlando.

There is no guarantee at any theme park that you will ride a specific ride that day. It's the nature of the beast. You have to decide if it's worth the gamble. If not, then don't go.

 

[disneygeek90]

Group 80 as 12:45, my friends were just called and they're in the queue!

 

[A Noble Fish]

A guest on a 1 day, non hopper pass, decides to go to MK. They rope drop space instead of mine train. They spend all day on the park and queue up at mine train right before close, only to find 5 minutes later it's 101 for the rest of the day. Is it fair that person didn't get to experience mine train because they made the decision to wait too long to queue instead of trying earlier in the day?

Yes, and Fastpass+ is worse for that person since they have to book weeks in advance to get good Fastpasses.

I guess they'll enjoy Philharmagic, Buzz, and Barnstormer!

Treat the ride as a bonus to an already fun time; it's not required for having a good time because the park was already there, and if this person planned a trip for it, then they only have themselves to blame.

If you get a boarding group, you experience the park and can hop on the ride at some point. If it wasn't for that, that guest will enjoy a once in a lifetime day waiting 10 hours in a switchback queue in the blistering sun. There's literally no way you can logically argue that it's a better system. Neither are perfect, but one is objectively FAR superior to the other one.

Oh and fun fact, Tokyo Disneyland is the best resort on Earth and lines routinely get cut off 90 minutes before close there due to Cast Members needing to ride public transit home. You should at least get the app to literally the most overplanned vacation spot on Earth.

 

[disneygeek90]

I don't think this is a question of 10 hours in line vs. boarding group. It's now a question of close the darn thing and figure it out. It's like watching an injured dancer continue to perform instead of following doctor's orders to rest up and recharge. The 10 hour line argument doesn't fly with me anymore. Especially since, I feel, the boarding groups are a PR move by Disney to make you think you'll get on. Because they dropped the ball. I seem to be a little more fired up today because it's just reached maximum BS to me, now.

If Disney would rather this limp to its death than close it and work out the kinks (I can see the argument that they'd lose money from all the people coming to Disney specifically for Rise but I wonder how many of them get on the thing anyway), I'm sure many here would applaud them.

Long Post... Worth the read, on the other thread. There's something being gained by having actual guests on this thing, and the days of opening a ride 100% ready is now unrealistic. The video game analogy is great. Every time I open up or load a game there is a new patch, fix, or enhancement.

Phew... there's a lot of things flying around in this thread. I'll bite on clarifying the one thing that is actually on topic - the ride itself.

So, the en vogue discussion is how is the ride actually performing? Reality is that is performing better than people feared, not as well as it should; but, practically speaking - better than most expected. Actually opening the ride to the public has provided some real world feedback that is helping solve some the gremlins on the software/programing side of things; but, that creates a new problem. Time management.

When the ride goes down with a "known" software issue is that has been previously encountered - the focus is on simply resetting it as fast as possible and getting it back online. When they encounter something new, they spend a little bit longer capturing as much data as they can while still trying to put it back into service. This information is funneled straight into additional test and adjust work that happens after hours.

Unfortunately, there's still the other side of running a ride that has to be addressed - the mechanical side of the house.

Every attraction has normal mechanical wear that happens from cycling an attraction. These are the types of things that routine maintenance during non-operational hopefully prevents and when the abnormal mechanical failure happens during operational hours -things get repaired and attractions are placed back into service. The more cycles an attraction puts in - the more maintenance is required.

So, the last month and a half has helped with one side of the operational coin (debugging) and made things harder on the other side of the same coin (mechanical maintenance) because there is only so many hours in a day. When you take "x" hours to have the ride operational to the public and then try to divide up the remaining hours between the "proactive" functions of making adjustments to prevent future issues (which usually mean cycling the ride even more) and "reactive" functions like replacing parts that mechanically are approaching their end of life or adjusting things that need periodic adjustment - you quickly run out of time. That's the dilemma that is being faced right now.

The boarding groups and their ability to get the ride either opened late or closed early are a way to combat the issue of the variability of a "busy day" causing a 10:00 PM close leading to a 12:00 AM last guest off the ride situation, which would lead to even less time for the test and adjust/maintenance battle to occur.

For those that followed Hagrid's woes, it's a very similar situation. Time management is everything.

I will say that the boarding group system is more fair in it's way of communicating this variability than what Universal did with simply cutting Hagrid's line at some arbitrary point. At least with the boarding group, there is a method of updating people and providing an expectation.

So, was opening the ride last month the right choice? For those that have been on it, I think the majority would say it was. For those that tried to get on; but, couldn't - their opinion would likely be different.

Time management is always difficult no matter what the medium is. While theme park attractions and video games are different beasts (unless you are at Universal Creative), Nintendo genius Shigeru Miyamoto has this famous quote about video game development: "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever". I thought about this quote while waiting in line for RotR. Currently the quality of the attraction is good. Delaying the attraction further wasn't going to make the quality any better as the ride is and was show ready. At best, it would've helped the operational challenges it is facing. Would an additional six months in test and adjust resolved all of it's woes? It's hard to say because the initial six month delay didn't get it from 0% reliability to 100%. The reason why the video game analogy went through my mind last month is because in today's era of game production, releasing products with 0 defects has long past. Post release software patches are the mechanism to address those these days. Long gone are the days of burning a rom to a cart and what ships on launch day is what the game will be forever. Some companies, like Nintendo, are much better at quality assurance than others (names withheld to protect the guilty).

With these thoughts in mind, I think the theme park landscape has shifted. The days of "unadvertised" soft opening attractions are gone. With the rise of instant information via InstaTubeGrams, word that an attraction being available in a soft opening would get out immediately as this form of social media is the modern day equivalent of the old methods of advertising. The ability for a theme park have something open to test while not providing some form of guarantee that you won't be able to ride is much harder when you simply didn't have to run advertisements or have "Opening Soon" on a park map. This is why I think Disney and Universal have shifted their tactics to this new form of a ride opening on a specific date whether it's 100% operationally ready or not. This new method of "patching" in operation stability after the official open really isn't any different than what would take place under soft opening in the past. It's just that the attraction is officially open.

As long as theme park world doesn't adopt the patching in actual content doesn't happen like the video game industry... that would be a bad situation. DLC rides are not something I ever want to see.

 

[Disorbust]

So I have been watching this thread from the beginning and instead of this BG SShow getting better it has gotten worse. Does this really only have a 700 person/hour capacity? Plus the added bonus that goes done so frequently is really just not ok. My problem is they knew they had problems and opened anyway. It amazing that over at the Disney Institute they are having classes on "exceptional quality", where you can learn....

• Assess and improve your organization's commitment to quality service
• Differentiate and elevate your service to become a provider of choice
• Design standards for quality service and create a consistent service experience
• Gauge the needs, wants, stereotypes and emotions of your customers at an individual level
• Understand the processes necessary to develop a culture that consistently delivers exceptional service
• Recover effectively from a service failure and turn it into an opportunity to strengthen customer relations

REally they need to take their own classes.

 

[disneygeek90]

Friends just got to doors of first preshow. 35 min wait from entrance to preshow, about average.

 

[networkpro]

If anyone isn't singing this in their head right now, there's a true disturbance in the force!

Also, OMG

Ha, I remember watching Abba on the Mike Douglas show.