Just got back from a family trip to Disney this past week. Like everyone else (in the entire universe apparently) we hoped to be able to ride the newest attraction called Rise of the Resistance in the new Star Wars area. Sharing some info in case in can be helpful to anyone else who may be planning a similar experience in the future.
1- At least right now, this ride is heavily boosting overall crowds at WDW. The parks were jammed as compared to historical norms for the last week of February. It appears that several thousand extra people per day are coming hoping to get on this ride and of course then visiting all the other parks while they are there. So every park was very crowded. Perhaps over time this will slack off, but be aware they may stay above historical norms for some time.
2- If you really want to experience Rise of the Resistance, it is important to learn as much as you can ahead of time as to what minor things you can do to improve your chances. Disney is running what amounts to a computer generated lottery at exactly park opening every day (no fast passes are available for this ride). You must secure a "boarding group" with minutes (many days within 30 seconds) after the virtual que opens up at exactly park opening time. If you do not get a boarding group, you will not get to to ride that day. There is no standby line.
3- Everyone in your group who wants to ride must be inside the park (through the entrance gates) before official park opening time. Disney is letting people in an hour ahead of park opening time due to this requirement. You must have the My Disney Experience app on your phone setup for your group to be able to try and enter the virtual que. The only place you can try to get a boarding pass is on that app.
4- To say all this is causing people stress is an understatement. We were among the thousands of people who got up in time to be inside the park and ready to punch "the button" on their app right at park opening time. As you stand there doing that, you realize that half or more of the people around you will not likely get to ride despite going through all this just to get a shot at the lottery.
5- If you still want to do all that and give it a try, I can offer some minor tips we learned about and tried successfully to get a boarding group. We actually got boarding group 7 which is somewhat incredible so maybe these tips did help. There is no way to know for sure, but we got an early boarding group trying them. Here they are:
a- Turn off Wifi on your cell phone and use 4g instead. The assumption is that too many people are trying to use the park wifi at the same time probably clogging it up for those doing that and that using 4g works better
b- Power down your cell phone and have as few apps running as possible to try and improve response time. In this situation, every second (or perhaps even part of a second may matter)
c- If you use Verizon, there is a Verizon cell tower near the Toy Story Mania ride so you should go to the area of the park near Toy Story Land to try to access the virtual que. Not sure what may help if you have a different provider.
d- everyone in your group should try to get in to the que. It won't hurt anything and gives you more shots at it.
Using the above tips, my daughter who is on Verizon with a very recent iphone model got us Boarding Group 7. Again, I don't know if it will work the same for others, but that was our experience.
The ride itself - is it worth it? -- My answer would be yes. Of course we got to ride it so of course we felt it was worth it. If we had not gotten on, not sure how we would have felt. We saw lots of disappointed faces all around us and it is hard not to feel sorry for them after doing all that work.
The technology on this ride is over the top amazing. The whole immersive experience lasts about 20 minutes and without question is the best theme park attraction I have ever experienced. My daughter said the same.
Hopefully, this bit of info can be useful to others. If you have questions, just let me know and I'll try my best to answer them.
1- At least right now, this ride is heavily boosting overall crowds at WDW. The parks were jammed as compared to historical norms for the last week of February. It appears that several thousand extra people per day are coming hoping to get on this ride and of course then visiting all the other parks while they are there. So every park was very crowded. Perhaps over time this will slack off, but be aware they may stay above historical norms for some time.
2- If you really want to experience Rise of the Resistance, it is important to learn as much as you can ahead of time as to what minor things you can do to improve your chances. Disney is running what amounts to a computer generated lottery at exactly park opening every day (no fast passes are available for this ride). You must secure a "boarding group" with minutes (many days within 30 seconds) after the virtual que opens up at exactly park opening time. If you do not get a boarding group, you will not get to to ride that day. There is no standby line.
3- Everyone in your group who wants to ride must be inside the park (through the entrance gates) before official park opening time. Disney is letting people in an hour ahead of park opening time due to this requirement. You must have the My Disney Experience app on your phone setup for your group to be able to try and enter the virtual que. The only place you can try to get a boarding pass is on that app.
4- To say all this is causing people stress is an understatement. We were among the thousands of people who got up in time to be inside the park and ready to punch "the button" on their app right at park opening time. As you stand there doing that, you realize that half or more of the people around you will not likely get to ride despite going through all this just to get a shot at the lottery.
5- If you still want to do all that and give it a try, I can offer some minor tips we learned about and tried successfully to get a boarding group. We actually got boarding group 7 which is somewhat incredible so maybe these tips did help. There is no way to know for sure, but we got an early boarding group trying them. Here they are:
a- Turn off Wifi on your cell phone and use 4g instead. The assumption is that too many people are trying to use the park wifi at the same time probably clogging it up for those doing that and that using 4g works better
b- Power down your cell phone and have as few apps running as possible to try and improve response time. In this situation, every second (or perhaps even part of a second may matter)
c- If you use Verizon, there is a Verizon cell tower near the Toy Story Mania ride so you should go to the area of the park near Toy Story Land to try to access the virtual que. Not sure what may help if you have a different provider.
d- everyone in your group should try to get in to the que. It won't hurt anything and gives you more shots at it.
Using the above tips, my daughter who is on Verizon with a very recent iphone model got us Boarding Group 7. Again, I don't know if it will work the same for others, but that was our experience.
The ride itself - is it worth it? -- My answer would be yes. Of course we got to ride it so of course we felt it was worth it. If we had not gotten on, not sure how we would have felt. We saw lots of disappointed faces all around us and it is hard not to feel sorry for them after doing all that work.
The technology on this ride is over the top amazing. The whole immersive experience lasts about 20 minutes and without question is the best theme park attraction I have ever experienced. My daughter said the same.
Hopefully, this bit of info can be useful to others. If you have questions, just let me know and I'll try my best to answer them.
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