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

[hokielutz]

Again, no. Your example would be valid if you, for example, left your hotel room at the Polynesian and 8:30 for a 9pm show, but didn't factor in the monorail being a disaster and lines at the turnstiles. However, Disney was explicitly telling guests that you want a chance at a boarding pass just be in the park by the posted park opening time. They explicitly stated no boarding passes would be available until 8am. That's it. That's the deal. Plan your morning how you want, just be past the tapstiles by 8am. Whether that means arriving at 4am or 730, just be in the park.

What sucks is that people are doing everything Disney has asked, and more, by arriving early. They're in the park, excited they made it. Alas, they found out that despite Disney telling them explicitly that no boarding passes would be given out prior to 8am, they were all given out by 7:20am. That is deceitful, at best. At worst it's an outright lie.

It's like saying 4 front row tickets to Hamilton will be given out at 5pm and you must be present for your name to be called. So you trek all the way to Times Square, grab a coffee and make it to the theater by 4:30 to snag a good spot, only to find out that they did the raffle an hour ago and you lost by default for literally no reason. "Why'd they do it early?," you ask an usher. "No reason really, just looked like a lot of people had gathered."

This horse has been beaten to death far more than is necessary....

 

[KC00]

Until people start parking on the shoulders of the road leading up to the park... then they start blocking ramps... then you have aggressive people trying to 'cut the line' but now with 4000lb rams.. And now you have to involve the police, and how many do you need to effectively manage a huge expanse like the road network? It's messy, its dangerous, it makes the problem bigger (not smaller), its more expensive, and less effective for your customers.

Having people hover on the roads is the LAST thing you want. Why do you think airports have 'cell phone' parking lots now? To combat the very type of problems this 'solution' creates.

Exactly. People will do what they are going to do and organizations come up with the best strategies they can for dealing with that. The last thing Disney wants to do is call in law enforcement to get people to back off just like I never want to involve security at my organization to break up a line. It has awful optics. Also I can’t imagine the inherent danger of having people circling and circling the parking lot entrances and trying to cut in as soon as they open. Driving the roads around Disney is already a dangerous nightmare without adding what essentially becomes vehicular line cutting into the mix as people battle to be the first in and get the closest spots so they can then run to the front. I can guarantee the reason they open the lot earlier is to spread things out for safety reasons.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

This horse has been beaten to death far more than is necessary....

I mean, no one has still provided an adequate rebuttal.

 

[disneygeek90]

While you kids continue to bicker and name call...

Any news on a shutdown? Been at group 70 for quite a bit now.

I noticed that too. Looks like it hit a snag.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I noticed that too. Looks like it hit a snag.

Yes, but it made it 6 hours before a shutdown, which is excellent for the ride thus far.

 

[el_super]

I don’t understand the insistence that the procedure is fair because “you should know Disney better then that.”

It was fair, in that everyone was given the same information regarding an 8am opening. A massive group of people interpreted "8AM" differently, and showed up early. Disney adjusted to accommodate them. Nothing about this was unfair.

Opening the attraction early, would have benefitted more people as they had additional time to accommodate more people.

If the ride isn’t ready it shouldn’t be open yet. Its **** poor customer service to have done what Disney has done.

Even if the ride was operating at full capacity, the current demand would still exceed it.

 

[Bob Harlem]

Exactly. People will do what they are going to do and organizations come up with the best strategies they can for dealing with that. The last thing Disney wants to do is call in law enforcement to get people to back off just like I never want to involve security at my organization to break up a line. It has awful optics. Also I can’t imagine the inherent danger of having people circling and circling the parking lot entrances and trying to cut in as soon as they open. Driving the roads around Disney is already a dangerous nightmare without adding what essentially becomes vehicular line cutting into the mix as people battle to be the first in and get the closest spots so they can then run to the front. I can guarantee the reason they open the lot earlier is to spread things out for safety reasons.

Christmas week strategy, get dropped off at Boardwalk at 2:30 or 3AM, walk over.

 

[PJBuckeye]

Christmas week strategy, get dropped off at Boardwalk at 2:30 or 3AM, walk over.

Now I don't feel too bad about canceling the Christmas trip.

 

[WilliamK99]

We'll be arriving next week so obviously I've been following along here. My question is what (if anything) might be open in the park before opening time? With currently available info I'm anticipating arriving at HS around 6:30 - 6:45ish and wondering what we can expect to be able to do in the time after securing our boarding group. Just fyi, we won't be there on Sunday so no HS EMH's for us even though we're staying onsite. Tks!

Toy Story Land and the Starbucks near the main entry was open along with Galaxys Edge along with Millenium Falcon ride, other rides opened up a little after everyone entered the park. This may change JT seems they shake things up daily to find the sweet spot.

 

[raymusiccity]

You already get one i live so close that i drive and pay extra per night because of it. I couldnt fly into orlando if i wanted to but im still penalized for driving.

Okay. Maybe a 3 hr. drive perimeter would lessen the crush of visitors to new attractions. Just set it for the first 60 days.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I'm not Len, but thrill-data.com has a nice graphing tool that allows you compare individual parks, attractions, etc. That being said, RotR seems to be having its best morning so far (note that they show "Wait in Minutes" as the y axis units, when it reality, it should be "Boarding Group #")
View attachment 431795

This is useful only if the number of people in each boarding party is the same throughout the day and every day.

 

[ThistleMae]

Too many are blaming others for their choice to take a passive approach to figuring what it was going to take to access the attraction instead of taking responsibility for themselves and figuring out what was needed to access. Nobody from Disney sent me any special information or special communication. I invested some time to figure out on my own that my best chance of getting in on Saturday was to get there as early as possible and go from there. It was important enough to me to actively search for the necessary information across multiple sources and take responsibility for myself instead of sitting back and waiting for someone to hand it to me and then complain when they didn't.

You said it was important enough to you, to actively search for the necessary information, across multiple sources and take responsibility for yourself instead of "sitting back" and waiting for someone to hand it to you. By this statement you are inferring that Disney does not provide the necessary information to access the ride. In fact, you are saying that a perspective Disney goer, must access multiple sources in order to figure it out. I don't think someone looking into the process by looking at the Disney site, is either expecting someone to hand it to him/her, but rather they are thinking Disney would be the most reliable source for getting the correct information. I do think think that the average Disney goer, is not aware how complicated this process can be, and that relying on Disney as an accurate source, is not always the best guide. In fact, we often have to investigate by trying to find other reliable sources to find out how the process is actually working. I know there are varying opinions about whether this is a "good" business practice or not, the reality is that just looking at the Disney site, does not totally provide accurate information.

 

[ladyjayhawk]

Thanks to everyone providing reports!! It’s very helpful. The arguing, not so much. Maybe agree to disagree? Please?

 

[Lirael]

It was fair, in that everyone was given the same information regarding an 8am opening. A massive group of people interpreted "8AM" differently, and showed up early. Disney adjusted to accommodate them. Nothing about this was unfair.

How is it fair to reward people that didn't believe and follow instructions?

But hey guys! Good news! Want to enjoy EMH without paying disney resort prices? Just come en-mass to the park during the EMH time and I guess disney will just go "oh hey guess they interpreted 'extra hours only for resort guests' differently so clearly our only option here is to let them all in during EMH!" and let everyone in, and this will be fair somehow!

 

[ThistleMae]

Anybody know if you have to have a very recent version of the app for boarding pass to work? I turned off auto updates for the WDW app to avoid any impact to checking for FP's so it's probably been about 6 months since it's been updated.

I read somewhere, among these many pages, that someone said make sure your app is updated.

 

[ThistleMae]

Bad analogy.
In the Hamilton scenario, you miss out then that’s it.

In the ROTR scenario you are still welcome to enjoy the rest of DHS or the other 3 Disney parks. If all you are coming for is ROTR only then you shouldn’t be so lazy and wake up early instead. Or just don’t go for 6 months till ROTR dies down a little bit.

the crux of the problem is lazy people who wake up late yet feel entitled to be one of the first ones to ride ROTR.

Just Wow....lazy people?

 

[ToTBellHop]

Back open.

 

[splashtest]

Boarding 63-73

 

[MisterPenguin]

For the last time, it doesn't matter. If Disney waits to open the gates at the correct opening time, 8 AM, and they go online at 8 am, you won't get a spot for ROTR because you are stuck in line outside the park behind 15000 people that got to the park between 5-7 am. The first 10000 people through the gate get the spots. So showing up at 7 or 7:30 put you behind everyone else. Now you won't get into the park until 8:30 to 9 as they process the thousands in front of you, you won't ride ROTR, and you lose some time enjoying the rest of the park since you are at the end of massive line outside the park.

Noticed a few others have mentioned the same thing I did. A line is a line, whether outside the gate, inside the gate, in the parking lot, on the road, whatever.

This.

People are lining up for the ride. Whether it is structured to get a VQ number, or, to physically fast-walk to the ride and get in the standby line, it's basically the same thing: they are lining up for the ride. And there are more people showing up than the ride can accommodate.

So, whether the line starts at the standby line, or at the tapstile, or at baggage check, or in the parking lot, or parked along the highways... it is still a line.

And unless you're in the front of the line, you don't get in. And your attempt to get in has now become a big waste of time.

So, what do you do? Well, tomorrow, you show up earlier. And if you didn't show up early enough, you show up even earlier the next day.

And several thousand people are doing the same thing to compete for the front-of-line (no matter where it starts). So you show up at 7 AM, then 6:30 AM, then 6 AM, then 5:30 AM... and so on.

All the while Disney is advertising an opening time. Which doesn't matter. Once several thousand people are being held either in the hub, or at the tapstile, or at baggage check, or in the parking lot, or parked along the highways (or circling in a giant traffic jam), well, Disney's going to let them in. Even if it's hours before posted opening.

So, there's no pain involved in showing up two hours before opening. There are enough people doing the same such they you'd only have a half hour wait before Ops freaks out about an uncontrolled mob and lets you in.

So, you show up three hours earlier. To beat everyone else. And everyone else is doing the same.

At least, the VQ is telling people that they're not getting on, so, they don't waste their time on a 10 line (unless the show up at 11 PM the night before and camp the park entrance). But the 10 hour line did have an advantage for Ops in that the pain of such a line turned people away. The very early morning race to be first loses any painful penalty if Disney opens up early for them.

 

[Tom Morrow]

I don’t agree that they should just let people park when they want. This is part of the problem. They’re a private property and can do what they want. If they want they can have a police force stationed at the parking lot entrances and patrolling so nobody attempts to camp. If they posted that the parking lot opens at X, the park opens at X, no exceptions, that would be more fair than the arbitrary openings they are doing now.