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

[Skyegirl1999]

We’re waiting for our bus back to Toy Story - quite a long line of people leaving; we’ve been here eight minutes and no bus has come. I’m planning to ask one of the Toy Story lot CMs what time they’re opening tomorrow.

Both parks are pretty dead. There are a number of people sleeping on benches and the Animation building and places like that. Very curious to see the long-term impact of ROTR on crowd patterns!

 

[TikiTikiFan]

This has been SO helpful to who knows how many DISers here on this board and who knows how many lurkers.

*eats popcorn* lurk lurk lurk

 

[EmJ]

We’re waiting for our bus back to Toy Story - quite a long line of people leaving; we’ve been here eight minutes and no bus has come. I’m planning to ask one of the Toy Story lot CMs what time they’re opening tomorrow.

Both parks are pretty dead. There are a number of people sleeping on benches and the Animation building and places like that. Very curious to see the long-term impact of ROTR on crowd patterns!

I hope you had a great day!

 

[MonocularVision]

Today would be a bad day to judge that, since so many people arrived crazy early. Now that word is out that getting there early doesn't help - if a similar number of people arrives around 7am, it could take a lot longer to get in.

Even more importantly, they opened the gates over 2 hours before park opening. That makes today non-comparable unless they do it again.

 

[DLgal]

We’re waiting for our bus back to Toy Story - quite a long line of people leaving; we’ve been here eight minutes and no bus has come. I’m planning to ask one of the Toy Story lot CMs what time they’re opening tomorrow.

Both parks are pretty dead. There are a number of people sleeping on benches and the Animation building and places like that. Very curious to see the long-term impact of ROTR on crowd patterns!

I agree. The parks were dead today, considering. I think Disney is shooting themselves in the foot with the Boarding Group nonsense. Word will get out and people won't even bother coming if they can't be there at opening.

If they want crowds, they need to use a standard standby line. People need to know that if they WANT to wait in a line, they have that option. The local AP population doesn't support needing to be in the park at opening time to even have a chance. It's unsustainable. Too many people arrive later in the day. The demographic here isn't like WDW and should not try to operate the same way.

This is a repeat of the opening day GE hype. The first day brought the early birds and then that was it. I was on a FB group that was spewing the same nonsense about how today was going to be a "zoo" and so many people stayed away, but I had a feeling it was going to be kinda dead, because of this boarding group garbage.

My son and I had a very enjoyable day in a mostly empty park. Didn't want to try and ride RotR and didn't even arrive until 8:40.

 

[CastAStone]

In May/June, it did take a few days for people to stop arriving stupid early. Not many, but a few.

People are still arriving stupid early at DHS

 

[EmJ]

Well, I ended up working from home today, and while not specifically due to the ROTR opening, it did make it convenient to follow along Overall, this seems to have been a pretty successful day for Disney and SWGE. Only one major downtime (so far), and they're pushing 100 boarding groups with hours to go.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

We’re waiting for our bus back to Toy Story - quite a long line of people leaving; we’ve been here eight minutes and no bus has come. I’m planning to ask one of the Toy Story lot CMs what time they’re opening tomorrow.

Both parks are pretty dead. There are a number of people sleeping on benches and the Animation building and places like that. Very curious to see the long-term impact of ROTR on crowd patterns!

Long day! You guys are troopers!

 

[EmJ]

I agree. The parks were dead today, considering. I think Disney is shooting themselves in the foot with the Boarding Group nonsense. Word will get out and people won't even bother coming if they can't be there at opening.

If they want crowds, they need to use a standard standby line. People need to know that if they WANT to wait in a line, they have that option. The local AP population doesn't support needing to be in the park at opening time to even have a chance. It's unsustainable. Too many people arrive later in the day. The demographic here isn't like WDW and should not try to operate the same way.

This is a repeat of the opening day GE hype. The first day brought the early birds and then that was it. I was on a FB group that was spewing the same nonsense about how today was going to be a "zoo" and so many people stayed away, but I had a feeling it was going to be kinda dead, because of this boarding group garbage.

My son and I had a very enjoyable day in a mostly empty park. Didn't want to try and ride RotR and didn't even arrive until 8:40.

Do you think? Someone here got their boarding group, went home, hung out, had a nap and came back. Even if they had a standby line, suppose it was like Hagrid's (and I can't imagine it wouldn't be). Would the locals be more likely to turn out if you had to be there hours before opening to stand in an 8-10 hour line? Either way, it seems like it will be awhile before visitors can arrive after lunch, say, and have a chance to ride in less than a couple of hours.

 

[KPeterso]

Has anyone who rode today at DL used DAS? Or spoken with someone who used DAS? I know that Disney has said that all riders must get a BG, then request a DAS if needed. I'm assuming that, as with MFSR in the beginning, a DAS for ROTR can only be requested from the Information Kiosk in SWGE. Please post if you have any experience! TIA!

I can report hopefully tomorrow. We have a das and will be trying to ride tomorrow. At wdw, I know that they send people with a das via the fastpass line.

 

[montreid]

I agree. The parks were dead today, considering. I think Disney is shooting themselves in the foot with the Boarding Group nonsense. Word will get out and people won't even bother coming if they can't be there at opening.

If they want crowds, they need to use a standard standby line. People need to know that if they WANT to wait in a line, they have that option. The local AP population doesn't support needing to be in the park at opening time to even have a chance. It's unsustainable. Too many people arrive later in the day. The demographic here isn't like WDW and should not try to operate the same way.

This is a repeat of the opening day GE hype. The first day brought the early birds and then that was it. I was on a FB group that was spewing the same nonsense about how today was going to be a "zoo" and so many people stayed away, but I had a feeling it was going to be kinda dead, because of this boarding group garbage.

My son and I had a very enjoyable day in a mostly empty park. Didn't want to try and ride RotR and didn't even arrive until 8:40.

Then BG has no impact on you. BG is essentially FP with no standby line. It's actually the complete opposite of SR. It makes no sense to have a Standby line for this when it can be accomplished virtually.

Not everyone are local. Once things settle down, they may flip to a standby line only a la MFSR, but not if 82 BGs going in :00:52.

Edit: it was dead because it's weekday mid-jan. It's been dead all week with nearly walk-on status on both sides of the park. Wait times throughout today looked a bit busier than all week earlier with 30-40 wait times throughout the day

 

[ahhhcrap]

Just got home after a long day at the parks. Parked car at the Toy Story lot at 6:30AM. Through security, shuttled over and scanned into the park at 6:45. Sat on the benches at the Main St train station facing the castle and scored boarding group 24 for 4 of us. Entered the queue at 10AM and, even with a delay, we were off the ride at 11:15. Thought the ride was amazing and I cannot wait to go back on Monday to try it all over again. I never go to the parks before noon but I am making an exception for this ride.

 

[MonocularVision]

If they want crowds, they need to use a standard standby line.

I don’t think they want crowds: I think they want customer satisfaction. People hate waiting in lines for hours at a time way more than they hate getting up early in the morning.

 

[DLgal]

I don’t think they want crowds: I think they want customer satisfaction. People hate waiting in lines for hours at a time way more than they hate getting up early in the morning.

There were lots of upset people talking to managers on Main street this morning...

And a VERY long line at Guest Services at 8:40. I doubt most of those people were happy.

 

[EmJ]

I don’t think they want crowds: I think they want customer satisfaction. People hate waiting in lines for hours at a time way more than they hate getting up early in the morning.

Actually, once I finally got around to watching Imagineering, there was a quote near the end of the series that I found really interesting.

Spoiler: Spoiler alert if you haven't watched all of Imagineering

Whoever was being interviewed was talking about how efficient switch-back style lines are at holding large numbers of people. However, he said that as a society, we've become very intolerant of waiting in lines, because we hardly have to wait for anything anymore. So, he said Disney is experimenting with new ways to queue people or to engage people while they are queued so that they don't feel as though they are being made to wait. Boarding groups are basically the epitome of that.

 

[brightlined]

If they want crowds, they need to use a standard standby line.

It doesn't work that way. You'd end up with "crowds" that would mostly not have a chance to ride it, and a four-hour-plus line of people who aren't spending money in the park.

(I'm curious how much of a crowd that side of Galaxy's Edge could actually handle.)

 

[Winnowill]

I don’t think they want crowds: I think they want customer satisfaction. People hate waiting in lines for hours at a time way more than they hate getting up early in the morning.

That's us, in a nutshell. None of us are morning people, but we get up early on Disney days (in fact, for ANY type of attraction - we rope-dropped the Louvre, for heaven's sake. Which, as an aside, was stupid. Don't do it.) I'd much rather wait in a short entry line and get in quickly than wait in a long attraction ride for an hour.

 

[DLgal]

Do you think? Someone here got their boarding group, went home, hung out, had a nap and came back. Even if they had a standby line, suppose it was like Hagrid's (and I can't imagine it wouldn't be). Would the locals be more likely to turn out if you had to be there hours before opening to stand in an 8-10 hour line? Either way, it seems like it will be awhile before visitors can arrive after lunch, say, and have a chance to ride in less than a couple of hours.

They could easily cut the line off when it reaches a set amount of time, like 2 or 3 hours and then only let more people in as it empties. There are other ways to control a line. It doesn't need to ever get to 8 hours, because that is just ridiculous.

A better way to do the BG is at the top of every hour, release a new set of boarding groups in the app. This makes more sense than releasing all of them for the entire day at once. This way, people don't have to commit to staying all day. I am willing to bet that some of those people who got higher boarding groups will have gone home rather than waiting around all day, not knowing when they would be able to ride.

 

[EmJ]

They could easily cut the line off when it reaches a set amount of time, like 2 or 3 hours and then only let more people in as it empties. There are other ways to control a line. It doesn't need to ever get to 8 hours, because that is just ridiculous.

A better way to do the BG is at the top of every hour, release a new set of boarding groups in the app. This makes more sense than releasing all of them for the entire day at once. This way, people don't have to commit to staying all day. I am willing to bet that some of those people who got higher boarding groups will have gone home rather than waiting around all day, not knowing when they would be able to ride.

This is certainly an option and has been kicked around the WDW board a lot. The general consensus comes back to the early bird gets the worm, and if there are enough visitors willing to get there at dark o'thirty to line up, Disney is unlikely to change procedures to court later-arriving guests. However, as you pointed out, DL is not WDW. I expect we will know within a few weeks whether The Boardroom is happy with park attendance; if they're not, they'll change *something* to goose the numbers.

 

[Theok029]

Does anyone know what the parking lot opening times are for Saturday and Sunday? Thank you all for your great knowledge and experiences!