That's nice and all but even with that there are advantages to showing up early, so people still will. And we have no idea what Disneyland will do, perhaps they think first come first served is more fair the first few opening days (as was true with Hollywood Studios at opening).
So since people just show up early anyway, why should Disney keep the plan to not release BG until after the park is filled with far more people that can have one...
It seems like getting through Disneyland gates is a lot slower so 10 minutes might be pretty questionable...
Getting there early lets you double check things like you being recognized as in the park. It still gives you front of the line rope drop for other attractions. It lets you get set up however you like to monitor boarding group release.
Heck it even can let you be first in line for coffee/pastry ahead of the crowds. So why not risk it when it might also help get a good boarding group.
I followed the DisneyWorld thread for quite a while, I don't think it made the crowds show up much later at all. If the crowds were really showing up later they would not continue the park early opening as they have been.
Getting there very early also means you can get in position very close to a cast member with an iPad who can check you in if the app has any issues.
When there's a huge demand for something there are just going to be a lot of people that show up early period... and when you are talking Star Wars stuff, you have a lot of very dedicated fans that have been battle hardened for years to accept extreme lines and long waits.
I do not think DLR will let it be first come first served because that will encourage people to spend the night every night or camp out or whatever to get to the front of the line. Those folks won’t care if they are first for coffee or first on Indy; they are there for ROTR. And when they did that at WDW, people were parking at 2AM. Now that they have changed it, it is still a massive amount of people, but reports on that thread are that if you arrive at 4am for a 7am open, you will have very little company at the gates now that they changed the system. I think they started with 6am openings during the holidays to simply get more time for the ride to operate in a park day (they have also extended close time several nights, often when there were tech issues with the ride and it looked like they would not get through all of the BGs). But I have followed every page of the WDW thread, and people there report that the new “not” first come first served method made people comfortable to show up later.
You are correct that being at the front of the pack may help you get to a CM to help if your device or app fails. Lines at those folks have been long at WDW, and when BGs were going in 1-2 minutes there last week, unless you had your face in the CM ipad right at park opening, you could not have gotten them to help you in time to get a BG anyway. I suspect the first days at DLR are going to be similar with BGs gone in minutes.
I agree that 10 minutes will be inadequate on opening weekend to get through the gates, but maybe not when things calm down. It was meant simply to illustrate that arriving hours early or just in time to get through the gates give you equal chance to get an early BG, all things electronic being equal and no app failures.
Yes there are many other advantages to getting there super early, as you listed. I just wanted folks here to know that if they do it like WDW, you don’t have to be hours early to get a BG, you just have to be in the gate. I figure most people aren’t reading that thread every day, so sharing what they are doing there might help someone. I don’t know why they would do drastically different procedures at WDW and DLR, because many of the logistical challenges of having thousands of people standing in front of a closed park for hours are similar.
And I agree as well that there are many hard core SW fans who will line up as early as they are allowed onto the Espalade, no matter what the procedure is. But for the regular fan, I think most of us just want to understand how to have a good chance of riding ROTR without spending the night out on the pavement!
and also make waiting all night miserable. I am anxiously waiting to hear how this is all going to work. I’m feeling stressed about how it’s all going to effect the week we are there.
) but he said they were using the boarding group system. Seems like they are testing out the entire process & system, which is great.
