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

[mikejs78]

During Christmas through New Years they close off the parking lot entrances at times, and it doesn't result in people parking on the side of the road, waiting for them to re-open. If people were denied entry to DHS for being too early, they would likely be informed of when the parking lot will open, and go find a parking lot somewhere.

Also, maybe I'll end up eating my words on this, but the standby line wouldn't necessarily be as long as the virtual queue times. A virtual queue pass, once you have it, requires no commitment. Once a ride's physical standby line starts reaching the two, three hour mark, people would start saying "no thanks, I'm not doing that." Having the option to queue up is at least more fair.

Hagrid's proved that to be false. People will line up for 10 hours...

And FoP has gotten up to the 4-6 hour mark on many occasions.

 

[AshaNeOmah]

Yes you do. You are going in two week and staying at a resort.

I have not seen you take up the cause of AP holders, DVC holders or any other group.

"Buses should run when they're announced to run. Parks should open when they're announced to open. Anything else is dishonest when complete trips are planned around one attraction."

 

[Timmay]

No, I don't and I'm tired of arguing that with you.

It’s easier just to ignore him. The constant straw man arguments get tiresome.

 

[VaderTron]

With separate tap points and fences like every other EMH morning. People are excited to ride RotR but aren’t behaving like wild animals.

Wait...this can't be right!? Everyone else is saying that the crowds are out of control and Disney is at the mercy of their riotous power! They MUST open their gates and they MUST let the stampeding herds through the turnstiles hours before planned opening for safety reasons! They don't have any other options!

 

[mikejs78]

Wait...this can't be right!? Everyone else is saying that the crowds are out of control and Disney is at the mercy of their riotous power! They MUST open their gates and they MUST let the stampeding herds through the turnstiles hours before planned opening for safety reasons! They don't have any other options!

But they are still allowing people to line up at the turnstiles. And the argument is that once a sufficient number of people lined up, it doesn't make sense to just hold them off. That way more people get to ride in a given day.

 

[marni1971]

Annddd... it’s down.

 

[VaderTron]

I heard from someone that they got a boarding group shortly after 8. I'm wondering if the signs went up before they turned off access.

Someone may have dropped their boarding group not wanting to wait all day? Just a guess...

 

[Timmay]

Annddd... it’s down.

Hey, you need to take these status reports over to the reports forum and not post them in the early-opening-argument forum...oh, wait. Sorry.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

MMRR was meant to be the pressure relief for a two attraction SWL. It was meant to open within a month before SWL. Two weeks beforehand for softs at the minimum.

Then it all went south.

That was a solid plan until you realize that it probably would have compounded the problem not relieve it. It would have just drawn more people to the park. Then the sign out front would have been, "We're Sorry but the park is at capacity".

 

[Touchdown]

It also didn’t open until 45 after the park this am.

 

[Elizabeth Swann]

All DHS hours for January 6 - February 1 have been changed to 8am-8pm

EMHs that were previously scheduled for 8am-9am have been moved to 8pm-10pm.

 

[mikejs78]

Hey, you need to take these status reports over to the reports forum and not post them in the early-opening-argument forum...oh, wait. Sorry.

Seriously, can we put a pin in this discussion? It's been beaten to death and at this point it is what it is. I'm more interested in hearing reports about downtime, people's experience, how the boarding groups are working, etc.

Aside from whether or not you agree with Disney's handling of park opening, the way they've handled people who have not been able to get to their boarding groups has been a class act. I don't think anyone can complain with receiving a park hopper good for 11 years....

 

[DryerLintFan]

"Buses should run when they're announced to run. Parks should open when they're announced to open. Anything else is dishonest when complete trips are planned around one attraction."

I agree with this. Especially for day one. That was a mess. But it's been almost a week now with the same scenario all week. And it hasn't been a secret.

At some point, you have to adapt instead of stubbornly sitting there saying "but they SAID this....!!!!"

 

[Piebald]

What did you base that planning on? Did you rely on any posted information by Disney or the OLC? If you do that here, you're not riding Rise.

Blogs and random people on the internet. Tokyo Disneys site wasnt super helpful, minding the fact most of it was also in Japanese.

 

[VaderTron]

...the standby line wouldn't necessarily be as long as the virtual queue times. A virtual queue pass, once you have it, requires no commitment. Once a ride's physical standby line starts reaching the two, three hour mark, people would start saying "no thanks, I'm not doing that." Having the option to queue up is at least more fair.

100% this ^^^


No one will stand in a 12 hour standby line. Not even the die-hards. (They would be near the front anyway...but I digress.) My guess is the line would cap around 5 hours, probably longer on the first few days. However, I would see it settling in around 3-4 hours after that.

I've said it before, there is a reason Disney is opening early and allowing all boarding groups to distribute first thing in the morning. Those people in a virtual queue are now tied to the parks till their number is called. Most will stay in DHS if they have a relatively short wait. If they have an afternoon or evening time estimate they may stick around all day if they have a one-park ticket. Others may go to another park. Others will go back to their resort. Many will buy merch, food, and drinks while waiting. Very few are so local they can go home. If Disney was even smarter they would have made it so the boarding group required you to remain on Disney property or it would be forfeited. But, they still get a huge percentage that do that anyway without the additional cost of developing that extra layer of tracking. It's like a leash that Disney attaches to the animal "guest" to keep them nearby in hopes they will keep spending money. It's a fact the longer an average guest is on Disney property the more money Disney makes.

 

[flynnibus]

Standard rope drop procedures are totally fair.

And where is disney publishing this “standard” procedure so its guests will know?

 

[AshaNeOmah]

I agree with this. Especially for day one. That was a mess. But it's been almost a week now with the same scenario all week. And it hasn't been a secret.

At some point, you have to adapt instead of stubbornly sitting there saying "but they SAID this....!!!!"

I completely agree. This debate started waaayyyy back Friday morning after the cluster that was Thursday. The argument just won't die.

 

[DisneyJoe]

No one will stand in a 12 hour standby line. Not even the die-hards. (They would be near the front anyway...but I digress.) My guess is the line would cap around 5 hours, probably longer on the first few days. However, I would see it settling in around 3-4 hours after that.

Harry Potter rides had 8-10 hour waits at the start.

 

[flynnibus]

Ok, so I talked with a friend in the know about these questionable opening procedures and was told that the reason they are doing it is because they want the "at capacity" sign out in front of the tapstyles as early as possible because of 2 reasons. 1. The attraction is running at a low capacity. And 2. The parks capacity as a whole is pretty low and those with higher boarding groups are left wandering the park until their time is called. They want the "at capacity" signs out front early to encourage folks to go to another park instead of DHS. If they wait until the scheduled opening there would be more people who can't get on the ride in the park, and the park as a whole would be slammed.

Then putting the signs out IN the park is kinda “too late”. If that is their real motivation they need to be heading people off before they even make the decision to head to the park.

Imagine you are a guest without park hopper... now what do you do?

 

[VaderTron]

Harry Potter rides had 8-10 hour waits at the start.

no one will stand in a 12 hour standby line (apparently not even HP fans) √
my guess is the line would cap around 5 hours, probably longer on the first few days. √

Thank you for validating my points.