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

[MonocularVision]

Reading through the last 3 days of experiences for this ride at WDW are making me nervous. For a while there, it seemed that as long as you got there early enough to be in the park at opening, you would get a boarding pass. Now they go in like the first 60 seconds.

 

[disneylover102]

Reading through the last 3 days of experiences for this ride at WDW are making me nervous. For a while there, it seemed that as long as you got there early enough to be in the park at opening, you would get a boarding pass. Now they go in like the first 60 seconds.

That makes me nervous too! I feel like those who get there way earlier should have some kind of advantage to get on the ride...

 

[Skyegirl1999]

That makes me nervous too! I feel like those who get there way earlier should have some kind of advantage to get on the ride...

Yeah... I’m kind of disheartened. I was planning to get over there really early on the 17th (like, middle of the night, depending on what kind of lines were being reported), and then my husband was going to bring my daughter to join me around 7am before he headed to a meeting. This would involve her missing school, or at least the morning, which I’d be ok with for an opening-day ride. We’re big into special events.

Buuuuut, if they release all the BGs at park open and it’s a free-for-all for thousands of people in the parks, it might not matter if I got there at 2am or 4am - I won’t have any priority over people who got there at 7 (assuming we’re all in the park when it opens). We still might get locked out of a BG and not even ride (especially if we have any type of tech or service issue). Sooooo... maybe we just won’t bother with opening day after all. But that’s a bummer.

I hope they announce what the procedure will be in advance so we can at least plan accordingly.

 

[dieumeye]

Yeah... I’m kind of disheartened. I was planning to get over there really early on the 17th (like, middle of the night, depending on what kind of lines were being reported), and then my husband was going to bring my daughter to join me around 7am before he headed to a meeting. This would involve her missing school, or at least the morning, which I’d be ok with for an opening-day ride. We’re big into special events.

Buuuuut, if they release all the BGs at park open and it’s a free-for-all for thousands of people in the parks, it might not matter if I got there at 2am or 4am - I won’t have any priority over people who got there at 7 (assuming we’re all in the park when it opens). We still might get locked out of a BG and not even ride (especially if we have any type of tech or service issue). Sooooo... maybe we just won’t bother with opening day after all. But that’s a bummer.

I hope they announce what the procedure will be in advance so we can at least plan accordingly.

This is exactly the same situation I’m in. Was planning to go super early opening day, but now I just might skip it and wait until later in the long weekend to see how things shake out.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but we still don’t know when they will open BGs, right? Whether it will be at gate open (like the initial WDW days) or at park open (like WDW currently). That obviously makes a difference.

interesting thing is that DHS was prepared to open substantially early those first few days. At some point, DL CMs are going to know whether they will be prepared to do something similar, if needed. Any word from local CMs on any possible schedule changes?

 

[Skyegirl1999]

This is exactly the same situation I’m in. Was planning to go super early opening day, but now I just might skip it and wait until later in the long weekend to see how things shake out.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but we still don’t know when they will open BGs, right? Whether it will be at gate open (like the initial WDW days) or at park open (like WDW currently). That obviously makes a difference.

interesting thing is that DHS was prepared to open substantially early those first few days. At some point, DL CMs are going to know whether they will be prepared to do something similar, if needed. Any word from local CMs on any possible schedule changes?

The CMs I’ve talked to don’t know anything yet. They are previewing the system the week it opens, so hopefully they’ll have some feedback from that.

And no, we don’t know when the BG will open yet.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Reading through the last 3 days of experiences for this ride at WDW are making me nervous. For a while there, it seemed that as long as you got there early enough to be in the park at opening, you would get a boarding pass. Now they go in like the first 60 seconds.

Wow. How is that possible?

 

[midnight star]

Reading through the last 3 days of experiences for this ride at WDW are making me nervous. For a while there, it seemed that as long as you got there early enough to be in the park at opening, you would get a boarding pass. Now they go in like the first 60 seconds.

ugh! don't tell me that. I'm going to WDW later this month, and trying to do this ride is a main priority for my friend who loves star wars. I would just skip it and wait until I got back to DL, but since she doesn't go to Disney parks often we are going to try and do the boarding groups.

 

[disneylover102]

I think I’ll still plan on getting there super early. If I can only ride once per day, I want to be 100% certain that I get that one ride in each of the 2 days we will be there while ROTR is open (we will be there the 15-18). Even if getting there super early probably won’t help that much, I don’t want to risk anything. I’m also nervous how this will work with EMH which I will be taking advantage of on the 18th.

 

[JMommyof3]

With MP and with FP+ at WDW, you can get a FP from another park (at WDW, the first 3 that you get in advance have to be in the same park but after that they can be in any park if you have a park hopper). I know that with the BGs at WDW, you had to be at HS but there is a significant difference between DLR and WDW- the distance of parks. The only park where you can even walk to HS is Epcot and that’s a half hour walk. But at DL DCA is literally right next to DL. There are also 4 parks at WDW, not 2. Because of this, I think it would be really dumb if people couldn’t get BGs from DCA.

But what if you don't have park hoppers? Can you get MP or FP+ at the other parks once you've scanned in? Like I said, I've never had single park per day tickets so I don't know the rules. And yes, the parks are very different in CA than FL but the idea is still the same. If I can scan into Epcot/MK/AK and join a boarding group to arrive w/in 2 hours, why does it matter if the proximity of the park is 2 minutes or 30 minutes. Also, I would think the capacity at DLR is similar to DHS in terms of ticket booths so really the entrance part should be equal. One big difference b/w WDW and DLR is the use of MDE. Most, not all, but most WDW guests use MDE but not sure how many DLR guests use it. You'd need to use it and get everyones tickets registered on it to join a BG.

But has DLR even announced the use of BG. I thought that DHS had announced it the day before and there was no idea how it would work until the day of and even after for the first few days it was constantly changing. If Disney really wanted to "reward" people who spend more money, there would be exclusive DHS/GE parties with access to both rides that many would pay $$$ for. WDW doesn't care about park hoppers, you just have to be in DHS to actually access it.

 

[disneylover102]

But what if you don't have park hoppers? Can you get MP or FP+ at the other parks once you've scanned in? Like I said, I've never had single park per day tickets so I don't know the rules. And yes, the parks are very different in CA than FL but the idea is still the same. If I can scan into Epcot/MK/AK and join a boarding group to arrive w/in 2 hours, why does it matter if the proximity of the park is 2 minutes or 30 minutes. Also, I would think the capacity at DLR is similar to DHS in terms of ticket booths so really the entrance part should be equal. One big difference b/w WDW and DLR is the use of MDE. Most, not all, but most WDW guests use MDE but not sure how many DLR guests use it. You'd need to use it and get everyones tickets registered on it to join a BG.

But has DLR even announced the use of BG. I thought that DHS had announced it the day before and there was no idea how it would work until the day of and even after for the first few days it was constantly changing. If Disney really wanted to "reward" people who spend more money, there would be exclusive DHS/GE parties with access to both rides that many would pay $$$ for. WDW doesn't care about park hoppers, you just have to be in DHS to actually access it.

You can’t get MP from the other park if you don’t have a PH. You can look at available times but it will stop you once you try to book a FP. I think it’s the same at WDW with FP+ but it’s been 3 and a half years since we’ve been there and we didn’t check then. I suppose it would make sense to let people get a BG at the other parks at WDW. I just think it does make at least a little more sense at DL to let people get a BG in either park to spread out the crowds but I guess it would’ve made sense to do that at WDW. Maybe they don’t want people there to try to make it in time for their BG but they miss it because the ferry took forever from MK or the bus from AK took too long or whatever? I don’t think getting people to use the app is such a problem but the WiFi at DL is far inferior to the WDW WiFi so that could definitely be a problem.

Yes, DL has announced that they will be using BGs. They haven’t given a lot of details but from what I read, it’s going to be the same thing that is currently used at HS but there may be some changes. CMs will be previewing ROTR the week it opens so hopefully we’ll find out details then.

 

[montreid]

Plenty of WDW don't use MDE. It was amazing to see how many folk where there using cards to scan in and totally oblivious to MDE and BG procedure the morning of.

Likewise for DLR - MDE App is NOT required -- just a heck of a convenience with the app to scan FP and Maxpass and Mobile ordering, etc etc etc.

The main difference at the turnstiles is DLR can be SNAIL SLOW with taking of the pictures and the bottleneck sometimes in the morning is crazy long. Think fingerscan x5 duration. Even at HS they turned off the fingerscans to move people through in time. That simply cannot happen in large enough volume on DLR. The solution would be to allow for both sides and all entrypoints (Monorail, Grand Cali, CA, DL) like the 30minutes early and then drop the BG on MDE like any MaxPass.

 

[matthewthompson87]

After reading that people were worried about DL because of the WDW RotR thread from the last few days... I went ahead and read all those posts.

And I don’t think that the WDW BG performance over the last few days in particular has any bearing on the success of DLR’s RotR BG system.

I think that it bears repeating that WDW is still seeing New Year’s Eve crowds that may stay until Sunday night. Imagine them as one big group that arrived and has been trying to ride RotR—many unsuccessful. As time runs out on their vacation in far away Florida, more and more will be trying to ride before they leave. AP’s are now unblocked. Some of the demand is even people who have FastPasses usable for RotR because of breakdowns earlier in their vacation. The more outstanding recovery ME FastPasses are outstanding, the fewer and fewer BG available to snatch in the morning at park open. AND the ride had some significant unfortunate downtime.

It’s working roughly as a lottery right now. If you’re scanned in the park by official opening, at worst you’ve probably got a 1 in 3 chance of riding.

At DLR, rather than worrying, it may be best to temper your expectations that your chances of riding in the opening month are probably the ride’s daily capacity (10k maybe?) divided by the maximum number of people they can get through the park’s turnstiles in that 30 minute period before official opening (unknown yet).

 

[Aurora0427]

So they should have a DISboards line?

Yessssss! Even better!

 

[Aurora0427]

Reading through the last 3 days of experiences for this ride at WDW are making me nervous. For a while there, it seemed that as long as you got there early enough to be in the park at opening, you would get a boarding pass. Now they go in like the first 60 seconds.

josh from easyWDW just did a write up on this. I need to go back and read, but the title of the blog was something like “how early arrival is no longer helpful” etc

 

[MonocularVision]

josh from easyWDW just did a write up on this. I need to go back and read, but the title of the blog was something like “how early arrival is no longer helpful” etc

That was and still is correct: it doesn’t matter how early you get there, you just need to be in the park before opening.

Here is the concerning part I was referring to. The BG’s are now getting snatched up in the first minute so even if you are in the park at opening, you may no longer be guaranteed a ride. I hope this trend doesn’t continue and doesn’t happen at DLR also!

 

[matthewthompson87]

The BG’s are now getting snatched up in the first minute so even if you are in the park at opening, you may no longer be guaranteed a ride. I hope this trend doesn’t continue and doesn’t happen at DLR also!

You should absolutely expect this to be the case for DLR during extreme demand periods, like the first month of operation at very minimum.

I applaud Disney for not incentivizing the insanity of arriving at 4am (or earlier!) for a first come first served system. The sense of entitlement among those crazy early arrivals gets problematic quickly.

Since everyone can’t get on who wants to ride, a reasonably fair lottery system plus a very generous recovery/compensation system for breakdowns and issues once a BG has been received is the best hope for the most number of satisfied guests.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Wish they would do the lottery ahead of time similar to how they did it when the land first opened. Then you would know you were for sure going to ride before you went to the park.

 

[disneylover102]

I get that it’s insane with all those people arriving so early. I think it’s also insane to have everybody trying to use the internet at the same time to get a BG. And I think those who are there earlier should have priority. With any other ride opening, those who get there earlier get to ride earlier so letting people who get there at the last second have the same chance of getting on as those who got there hours earlier just isn’t fair in my opinion.

 

[matthewthompson87]

I get that it’s insane with all those people arriving so early. I think it’s also insane to have everybody trying to use the internet at the same time to get a BG. And I think those who are there earlier should have priority. With any other ride opening, those who get there earlier get to ride earlier so letting people who get there at the last second have the same chance of getting on as those who got there hours earlier just isn’t fair in my opinion.

While it may not seem fair to one group, it’s likely the fairest for the largest number of people this way.

They do not *want* you arriving extra early. Early arrivals force cast members to work abnormal shifts that disrupt their lives; staffing parking lots/security/custodial hours and hours early incurs huge costs; and telling an average guest that they had to arrive at 4am to ride a heavily advertised new attraction alienates them.

Incentivizing early arrivals at all simply throws the balance of guest, cast, and financial results out of whack.

That said, the IT part of this is a very strong concern. A perceived app glitch or wifi outage or service interruption adds to the feeling the “lottery” process isn’t fair. However, this isn’t isolated to Disney. Concerts sold through the biggest ticketing IT providers on earth experience the same complaints: with venues the size of DL selling out in seconds.

I am a little surprised that the Boarding Group distribution for RotR isn’t a themed experience in-app though. It wouldn’t be beyond capabilities to turn the reveal of who has been accepted into BG and backup BG into a “show” in itself. I could see people eagerly entering the lottery for a BG, then the crowd all receiving push notifications at a specific moment in an in-park show. That would at least give everyone who showed up for park opening added entertainment if not a coveted ride itself.

 

[MonocularVision]

You should absolutely expect this to be the case for DLR during extreme demand periods, like the first month of operation at very minimum.

Probably a good expectation to have. We are making the trip from out of town at the beginning of February to try to get on this ride. Trying to keep our expectations in line but hard not to get excited. We are Flex AP holders so we can come back to try again but feel bad for people traveling from further away or just once per year.

I applaud Disney for not incentivizing the insanity of arriving at 4am (or earlier!) for a first come first served system. The sense of entitlement among those crazy early arrivals gets problematic quickly.

I think I agree. I am not sure the first come, first serve system is a good idea, even if it would probably benefit us. (We would be willing to get there very early since we are making the trip mainly for RoT)

Since everyone can’t get on who wants to ride, a reasonably fair lottery system plus a very generous recovery/compensation system for breakdowns and issues once a BG has been received is the best hope for the most number of satisfied guests.

Yeah, I think maybe having an actual lottery system might be better though if there are truly more that want to ride than capacity. As it is now, it seems to be a game of network connectivity and technology luck. But regardless, Disney is in a tough position with the demand.