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

[vikescaper]

Went to DHS briefly this morning before driving back home and took advantage of early entry. I didn’t really pay attention to how long the wait took but it was less than an hour. It was very weird not trying for a boarding group, though.

 

[KevinPage]

 

[KevinPage]

So they apparently allow multiple BG’s per day

 

[JohnD]

8:30pm - posted wait 30 minutes. Finished and off in 23 minutes.

You doing the same thing for Remy?

 

[Purduevian]

I miss this daily thread, but after tracking it for almost 2 years I finally got to experience the ride this past weekend for the first time with five people that went in blind.
Sunday 10/17 around 4:15pm, on the Star destroyer at 5:28pm (posted wait was 105 minutes I think). Both preshows were running, don't think the probe droid laser was working, guns 2 and 3 were not moving, and final Kylo in B mode.

Things that wowed the people that went in blind:
1) going outside after first preshow
2) door opening on same side of shuttle to star destroyer
3)Storm trooper room
4)Interaction/Interrogation with FO CM (he was great and I wish I had grabbed his name)
5) AT-AT room
6)Drop/simulator
7)Exiting outside

I want to thank everyone again on this thread. While I did not have to use the VQ for this, it your tips prepped me for RAT the next day (even paused for a split second to not get group 1 lol). Fantastic ride, I hope they make a TON of money of the ILL for this and it encourages them to build more massively expensive and intricate rides like this in the future.

 

[Touchdown]

Effects watch:

-Final Kylo has been 101 for at least 2 days now
-Walker lift Finn was motionless yesterday/lightsaber elevator not working either
-Everything else worked on side lift
-Cannons as ever aren’t working

 

[mergatroid]

It would appear then that standby is manageable then? I believe that shows that Disney were perhaps wrong in having it as a virtual queue for so long? And in their defense it shows they apparently have designed a ride that can accommodate guests despite claims on here that this ride couldn't.

 

[Haymarket2008]

Standby was posted as 60 minutes at 8:30 this evening. I did the entire experience in 29 minutes from queue to disembarking. I was shocked by how quickly this queue moves when things are running well.

2nd & 3rd cannons were down & no final Kylo AA

 

[disneygeek90]

Entered the queue just before 8pm last night, posted time was 45 mins and it was 46 mins when the last preshow ended. We were at a standstill for several minutes a couple times which I can only attribute to LL. Overall 45 mins wasn't a bad wait, but LL definitely made that longer than it needed to be.

Still exited with enough time to mobile order a ronto wrap and a beer right before close, so a pretty solid night.

 

[FromMaldonia]

Taking that further, we were there a week ago (11/6) and Rise was down in the morning. By afternoon the posted wait was 220 mins at one point, and may have peaked higher. It was slowly coming down and we hopped in at 140. It was odd because when we walked by at the 220 wait and again when we got in at 140, the actual end of the stand by line was not overflowing the queue. I was confused how the wait could be so long when you could hardly see anyone waiting outside. It was painfully obvious once we were in line. We'd wait 10 minutes to move 10 feet. Clearly the Lightning Lane was taking the vast majority of capacity and there were lots of LLs to get through thanks to the earlier downtime. Our wait turned out to be 206 minutes!

In summary, as always the reliability of the ride is the main problem. It's the biggest reason to purchase a Lightning Lane. I fall in the camp with those that find it ridiculous to pay for individual rides on top of the high ticket price, but if I had known it would be 3+ hours of waiting, then I'd have spent the money on Rise instead of Genie+. We actually missed out on 3 LLs because of our time in line (it was going to be tight to make one of them with a 140 min wait, but 206 plus the ride time killed it). We fortunately were able to ride everything anyway.

My advice if anyone cares: if Rise is a must-do for you, just pay for it (consider doing it instead of Genie+) or rope drop it. If you are okay skipping it if it has a bad day then you can risk waiting for a shorter afternoon/evening line and get more done at rope drop with other rides (we did Mickey/Minnie, Tower of Terror, and Rock 'n' Rollercoaster in the first 45 mins of the day). Or if you have more than one day at the park, then you should be fine at least one of the days as I don't think the reliability is a problem most days now?

 

[disneygeek90]

Taking that further, we were there a week ago (11/6) and Rise was down in the morning. By afternoon the posted wait was 220 mins at one point, and may have peaked higher. It was slowly coming down and we hopped in at 140. It was odd because when we walked by at the 220 wait and again when we got in at 140, the actual end of the stand by line was not overflowing the queue. I was confused how the wait could be so long when you could hardly see anyone waiting outside. It was painfully obvious once we were in line. We'd wait 10 minutes to move 10 feet. Clearly the Lightning Lane was taking the vast majority of capacity and there were lots of LLs to get through thanks to the earlier downtime. Our wait turned out to be 206 minutes!

In summary, as always the reliability of the ride is the main problem. It's the biggest reason to purchase a Lightning Lane. I fall in the camp with those that find it ridiculous to pay for individual rides on top of the high ticket price, but if I had known it would be 3+ hours of waiting, then I'd have spent the money on Rise instead of Genie+. We actually missed out on 3 LLs because of our time in line (it was going to be tight to make one of them with a 140 min wait, but 206 plus the ride time killed it). We fortunately were able to ride everything anyway.

My advice if anyone cares: if Rise is a must-do for you, just pay for it (consider doing it instead of Genie+) or rope drop it. If you are okay skipping it if it has a bad day then you can risk waiting for a shorter afternoon/evening line and get more done at rope drop with other rides (we did Mickey/Minnie, Tower of Terror, and Rock 'n' Rollercoaster in the first 45 mins of the day). Or if you have more than one day at the park, then you should be fine at least one of the days as I don't think the reliability is a problem most days now?

Sheesh. The fact that you legitimately waited 3.5 hours is wild. While the queue is nice it does get a bit claustrophobic at times. It’s not as bad as getting stuck in the Hagrids queue, but that’s a long time to be in those caves.

I know boarding groups had their drawbacks and complaints, but at least people could enjoy their day and go on other attractions while they “waited.”

 

[arich35]

Sheesh. The fact that you legitimately waited 3.5 hours is wild. While the queue is nice it does get a bit claustrophobic at times. It’s not as bad as getting stuck in the Hagrids queue, but that’s a long time to be in those caves.

I know boarding groups had their drawbacks and complaints, but at least people could enjoy their day and go on other attractions while they “waited.”

I am kind of upset VQ is gone, in May we got a boarding group both days and were able to enjoy the ride. Now in December I really don't want to wait close to two hours and not sure if we will want to spend the $32 it will cost and skip Genie+

 

[FromMaldonia]

I was very impressed with my 7 year old for handling the wait. We knew when planning that we'd probably have to find a time for a 1.5 to 2 hour wait. I was hoping we'd have your experience if we waited until the right time, but it seemed obvious that wasn't going to happen that day (Unverified, but I later heard someone say they cut off the line a while before the park closed because it was so long.) A posted wait of 140min with Touring Plans expecting 95min seemed okay. Oops. One silver lining: every wait we had for the rest of the trip "didn't seem so bad"!

I think blogmickey (maybe some other site) recently posted the supposed ratios cast members use and at peak LL times it can be 90% LL guests admitted past the merge point of the lines. I have no doubt that was the case for Rise that day. I certainly feel confident that the virtual queue would have worked great for us (brag alert: I got group 1 for Ratatouille), so in this case I personally would have preferred VQ. Do you think the current process lowers demand? No offense to @disneygeek90 and others (I would do the same thing in their shoes, and the info and tips they provide here are incredibly valuable), but the locals that have ridden it multiple times now have to either pay to ride or wait in line. I assume it keeps them away more than VQ, which seemed to make it easier to sign up for a time and have a guaranteed ride. I don't know if that's enough people to make a difference. In the end, a bad day for the ride is a problem regardless of the system. It just manifests differently and in this case we got the wrong end of it. With VQ, maybe we don't get to ride at all because our boarding group is never called.

 

[Rich Brownn]

Sheesh. The fact that you legitimately waited 3.5 hours is wild. While the queue is nice it does get a bit claustrophobic at times. It’s not as bad as getting stuck in the Hagrids queue, but that’s a long time to be in those caves.

I know boarding groups had their drawbacks and complaints, but at least people could enjoy their day and go on other attractions while they “waited.”

Of course, both times when we hit the "3 hour" queue it was less than an hour in actuality, so you can't go by the wait time sign there.

 

[Giss Neric]

 

[Texas84]

I did rope drop on 11/8 and it was down. Got a paid reservation right at 0700 for 1630. Decided to brave the line when it opened. Posted wait time was 140 and Wait Times app said 90. Ended up around 120. But got to ride twice in one day!

 

[Zeromancer]

Do you miss a lot when you use LL?

 

[DCBaker]

Do you miss a lot when you use LL?

No, you merge right before the first pre-show.

 

[SplashJacket]

Do you miss a lot when you use LL?

I've only been on Rise through the LL queue (just not for LL) and I still think it's the best ride in the world. Doesn't lose much.

 

[Touchdown]

It’s too much of a gamble to rope drop this, Slinky is far more reliable and with its shorter ride time allows you to knock out TSMM, ToT and RnRC with short waits. That just leaves Mickey and Rise (MFSR is not a must do ride for me) I’ve never waited more then 90 min for Rise, and most of the time I wait less then an hour. The trick I learned is don’t get in line just after it comes up from being down unless you know the line has been emptied out and you are one of the first 100. They will essentially do LL only as people overwhelm that line. It’s easy to tell if this is happening, if the ILL line goes all the way to the enterance then they are doing this. Come back in 30-40 min, as long as the ILL is back in the cave you are good to go.