Rise of the Resistance BOARDING GROUPS Superthread Part 1 *No Ride Spoilers Please* *PLEASE READ POSTS 1-4*

[e_yerger]

Hi everyone! New to this forum - AP holder since September, first time in my life (haha, 35 years old).

My wife and 4 year old are headed to DL on Wednesday. I’ve seen a few posts about “rider switch” or “child swap” on ROTR. can anyone who has done this at Disneyland confirm that it is being allowed? And elaborate on how it’s done? Official website does not list it as a rider switch ride and most posts on the web refer to WDW. If this info is elsewhere then I apologize and please point me in the right direction.

Thank you all!

I believe both you and your wife will need to be apart of the BG in order to use rider swp

 

[socaldisneylover]

This ride is pathetic. Can't even go half the day without breaking down. Over 2 hours awol at this point.

Almost 4 weeks in operation, and ZERO improvement. Can't even release more than 81 guaranteed groups.

 

[ironband74]

This ride is pathetic. Can't even go half the day without breaking down. Over 2 hours awol at this point.

Almost 4 weeks in operation, and ZERO improvement. Can't even do more than 81 guaranteed groups.

I would disagree with zero improvement. If you compare the first 10 days with the last 10 days, The best days are better, the worst days are better, and the averages are better. Is it still unreliable as heck? Yes. But to say there has been zero improvement just doesn't match the data.

 

[socaldisneylover]

I would disagree with zero improvement. If you compare the first 10 days with the last 10 days, The best days are better, the worst days are better, and the averages are better. Is it still unreliable as heck? Yes. But to say there has been zero improvement just doesn't match the data.

I'm basing my assessment on the fact the guaranteed # of groups has not changed at all since the roughly 80 groups that were in place on Day 1 last month. The fact they're not willing to up that, indicates they have no confidence that the ride will safely achieve anything much higher, otherwise the # would be increasing. Every day, they're still in a very definite range of from 90 to 130 groups. That latter # is not increasing either, and that's because even on a good day, they expect the ride to be down for hours at a time. The shutdowns also seem to be getting longer in some cases, there have been a couple of 4 hour breakdowns in the last few days, and today we're approaching a 3 hour shutdown, stuck at group 79.

I truly wanted to believe the stuff I've heard on other sites was over reaction, but clearly they were right. Disney has no idea if/when this ride will become more reliable. And we're not even in the busy season. Just wait until summer, when the park will be packed.

 

[StarGirl11]

Or ya know maybe they don't want to start having to issue comps like DHS does if your guaranteed doesn't get called. Just a thought. Especially since they've shown adversion several times now to comping even a recovery FP for a three hour downtime.

Look most rides are going to have an issue and I'm with @ironband74 here it is improving overall. Like it or not an increase in the trend is an improvement. Eventually they'll start calling more BGs they're just playing it cautious at the moment.

Though honestly, I wonder if the BGs will survive summer. Not because it's not the best method but if the guaranteed are gone in a minute during the 'slow time'.

 

[jacandjan]

It seems to me that socaldisneylover just likes to stir the pot. Most on this thread are glass half full types and looking for helpful info not a dooms day attitude.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

I would love to see the ride become more reliable than it is. Obviously. Everyone would love to see that... Disney probably most of all.

But I don’t find it “pathetic” currently. And if I’m being honest, I don’t know that I expect it to improve that much, at least not anytime soon. I don’t really share @ironband74 ’s optimism; I think we might be looking at the norm for the foreseeable future. And I still don’t think that makes it a failure.

If the ride had way lower capacity than it does, it could run “reliably” and still accommodate less people than it currently does. And I mean, I was stuck in a 2-hour line last weekend after it started up 2.5 after park open, totally throwing off our day - so I’ve felt the pain of its unreliability firsthand. But it is what it is. And thousands of people are enjoying it in spite of the issues.

 

[ironband74]

Well, we're back up. Let's see if it holds.

 

[mmkaiser]

I’ve been reading through this thread and can’t find an answer to our situation. My brother and I are going on a siblings only birthday trip Feb 8-10. We have a 7:30 reservation on Saturday Feb 8 for Minnie’s breakfast. Where will we go to ensure we are at our reservation on time? Do they have a breakfast entrance line? Thank you!

We are doing this exact same thing this Saturday. How did it all work out? Were the crowds crazy and were you able to get to your breakfast reservation by 7:30? Hoping to get our ROTR BG from breakfast at the Plaza Inn with our iPhones/Verizon. Were you successful? Appreciate any tips! Thanks.

 

[Going2DisneyAZ]

This ride is pathetic. Can't even go half the day without breaking down. Over 2 hours awol at this point.

Almost 4 weeks in operation, and ZERO improvement. Can't even release more than 81 guaranteed groups.

I have been thinking on this issue for a few days now. I honestly believe that the internet has caused the issues of downtime to be blown out of proportion.

In 1995 I was an annual pass holder and witnessed the launch of Indy. Arguably ROTR is the biggest technological leap for an attraction since Indy.

I recall vividly the number of breakdowns that attraction suffered in its first months if not years of operation.

The difference is the speed at which information and analysis by fans is calculated and spread.

If these boards existed in 1995 my God we would have had Indy shut down and buried by now.

Lastly as one that spent several visits waiting HOURS in lines that stretched out of adventureland and down mainstreet to ride Indy I for one love the VC . Is it perfect? Probably not. Is it better than back in the day? Hell ya.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Hi everyone! New to this forum - AP holder since September, first time in my life (haha, 35 years old).

My wife and 4 year old are headed to DL on Wednesday. I’ve seen a few posts about “rider switch” or “child swap” on ROTR. can anyone who has done this at Disneyland confirm that it is being allowed? And elaborate on how it’s done? Official website does not list it as a rider switch ride and most posts on the web refer to WDW. If this info is elsewhere then I apologize and please point me in the right direction.

Thank you all!

You can use rider switch on this ride. Both you and your wife need to have a boarding group. If you get one, when they call your number, approach the line with all three and let them know you need a rider switch. The waiting parent will get something loaded on to their ticket with a return time (I imagine roughly 45 minutes after the first rider enters). I suggest you screen shot it in case it goes poof.

But are you sure your 4-year-old can’t ride? Height minimum is only 40 inches. My son hit 40 inches a month shy of his third birthday.

 

[ironband74]

It seems to me that socaldisneylover just likes to stir the pot. Most on this thread are glass half full types and looking for helpful info not a dooms day attitude.

I don't get that feeling at all. I just think that people's background figures into their outlook. I've done a lot of engineering projects, and have recently been learning a lot about risk management and economics. I assume that folks involved in this project from Disney's perspective have similar backgrounds, and so I try to imagine how this colors things.

I, for one, appreciate the counterpoint, since the filter through which we view these things puts us at risk for confirmation bias when we look at the data. I have to ask myself "Do I see positive trends because I want to?"

One way to test one's filter on the data is to make predictions and see how the filter predicts.

@socaldisneylover 's filter says that this will be how it is for a long long time.

My filter says that it will improve steadily and then dramatically.

We'll see which filter more accurately predicts the future state.

 

[jacandjan]

I can appreciate your point of view and I like you see things improving little by little. I don't mean to be down on socaldisneylover I just choose to see the bright side. I come here for info both good and bad but not doom and gloom with a side of it will never be any good.

 

[jacandjan]

Sorry, things have drifted of topic...…..enough said

 

[ironband74]

Sad times...we're down again.

Though honestly, I wonder if the BGs will survive summer. Not because it's not the best method but if the guaranteed are gone in a minute during the 'slow time'.

Personally, I think that the timing of the opening of the attraction here is specifically designed to ensure that BGs are not in use when the Summertime comes.

Yeah, yeah, I know the company line.

But I think they carefully timed this to miss the busy holiday season, open in January with the BG system, with an eye on having about 5 months of operation to get reliability to a reasonable enough level to do away with it and move to either pure standby or standby + fastpass or pure fastpass. They've got enough "busy times" in there with holiday weekends and Spring Breaks to stress test things, but they aren't quite so busy as Summer and Christmas, so not totally insane.

So I guess I'll predict that by early June we'll see Boarding Groups fall by the wayside. In a worst case scenario, BGs could persist into the summer, but I don't see that being plan "A."

 

[Etonduf]

Eh, I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s true for all non-MM days, particularly Sundays...

I think a bigger predictor of success at this point is the number of phones in your group. If someone tells me they’ve got a group of six people who all know what they’re doing trying at rope drop? I’d absolutely take the bet that they’re getting a guaranteed BG on any day, MM or not. But a single person? Or just two, maybe? That starts to get more dicey for sure, and the lack of competition on MM days becomes more favorable.

I agree with this. Prior to my visit I theorized that having someone helping from home was a sure bet for a low BG based on our practice before the trip. But the process is just...glitchy and fluky. In our case, two phones helping from home got beat by a crappy iPhone 6S operated by a 10-year-old child on a slash-rate data carrier in a crowded area of the park. On both days we tried. I got the red button once but got the "something went wrong" error.

So yeah, leverage as many phones as possible. Have everyone practice from home a time or two, or at least watch videos of the process.

 

[ironband74]

I truly wanted to believe the stuff I've heard on other sites was over reaction, but clearly they were right. Disney has no idea if/when this ride will become more reliable. And we're not even in the busy season. Just wait until summer, when the park will be packed.

I think Disney knows that it will take about five months to make the ride more reliable.

 

[Etonduf]

This ride is pathetic. Can't even go half the day without breaking down. Over 2 hours awol at this point.

Almost 4 weeks in operation, and ZERO improvement. Can't even release more than 81 guaranteed groups.

I can't really imagine what Disney would gain by increasing the number of regular BGs, so I don't see that as a meaningful metric at all. Even if they're pushing through 200 groups per day, why not just give out 120 backups?

 

[socaldisneylover]

I realize that my criticisms tend to be all doom and gloom, and honestly wish I didn't feel that way. Believe me, like others who are analyzing trends, I would love nothing more than to start seeing days where the ride does not break down for hours at a time. A day where they get through the guaranteed groups by 1:00, and through 160 groups by park close.

I'm just fearful that what we are seeing now will become the norm for this ride. That they will reach a point where they conclude that this boarding group process is the only way to operate the attraction over the long term.

I also get annoyed that there is absolutely nothing in the advertisements of this ride to indicate these restrictions. I have no doubt that some are seeing the commercials of how fantastic this ride is, yet have no idea that there are multiple hoops to jump through, and really no guarantees that by paying your $100+ to visit DL, you will actually get on it. Surely there are people willing to wait multiple hours in a standby line, or are even expecting to have to deal with that, only to discover that scenario doesn't exist. You might get to park at 7:00 AM, yet 12 hours later, get a notification that you aren't getting on that day. It is very deceptive....and INTENTIONAL on Disney's part, I believe, to fail to mention this at all in their advertising. Heck, during the reservation period of Galaxy's Edge, it was a big bold statement on every ad, that you needed one in order to enter the new land.

In any case, I do hope things improve. I just fear that Disney is merely kicking the can down the road. Not necessarily because they want to, but because this extraordinary new ride is so advanced that when it breaks, and it does often, it more or less falls apart, resulting in 2, 3 or 4 hour downtimes.

 

[ten6mom]

I am super anxious for my son and his best friend who are going this weekend... I originally thought they'd have two full park days (saturday and sunday) but when I spoke to the friend's parents, their only "rope drop" day will be Sunday... so it's not looking fantastic for them. But it seems like the friends (whose idea this was) is philosophical about not getting on... which is good.

I'm personally going on my ladies' trip at the end of February and plan to try all four mornings.

Then we are taking a family trip near the end of June, so it'll be interesting to see if the BGs are still a thing by then!