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

[DLgal]

We've always enjoyed the first 2 or 3 hours of the day with minimal crowds, with the big influx not hitting until 10 or 11am. I don't know how many people are in a boarding group, but now we have 70-80 boarding groups in the park at 8am sharp so the relaxed early mornings are over, sorry to say. Thanks, Batuu.

Nah. Yesterday between 9am and noon was basically like a quiet Sunday morning.

 

[dina444444]

AP holders will still come. Local, day guests might not. That ticket special is being heavily advertised, along with "Rise of the Resistance--NOW OPEN." (Like, in the same commercial) But, if it's a gamble whether or not you will even get the chance to ride the new ride, THOSE people may decide it's not worth it. Think of all the people who may take advantage of the tickets knowing they have as much of a chance to ride the new ride than any other ride in the park. Once they find out that's not the case, they are bound to be pretty annoyed.

Here's the thing. EVERY other ride Disneyland has ever opened has done just fine with a standby line and fastpass. I don't really understand the justification for using this system on JUST this ride. They built the queue large enough to hold several hours worth of a standby line. Disneyland guests tend to be fine with standby waits up to about 3-4 hours, as evidenced by RSR. They are okay with that. What makes anyone think this ride would suddenly command such drastically longer standby waits long term? Look what happened with MFSR...waits were crazy initially but have settled to 30-60 minutes on average. The line will regulate itself.

This Boarding Group system is nothing more than Disney trying to squeeze more money out of guests by keeping them out of a long line. However, rides need people in lines, in order to keep the crowding to a minimum in walkways. If no one is in line, and you have thousands of people loitering in SW land, sitting against buildings (NOT spending money, as happened yesterday), all that is accomplished is making the park feel cluttered and mismanaged.

The ride is currently taking in at most half of its optimal capacity an hour and they don’t want a hagrid’s situation on their hands.

 

[HydroGuy]

My Advice there is that if you can, try to book a MP right after entering the park (before BGs drop). If you can do that for all in the party, then you know it recognizes you as all in the park. If not, it will error on the MP booking and you will hopefully have time to go to GS before BGs drop.

This is a really great tip! Thanks!

 

[Mathmagicland]

I’m curious - does anyone know if someone has been successful getting a BG at either the Buzz or Splash FP locations vs the app? Not sure how that would work - ie if you’d have to put your ticket in a machine, it does not seem possible at this point to get more than one with as fast as the BGs have gone.

 

[montreid]

Here's the thing. EVERY other ride Disneyland has ever opened has done just fine with a standby line and fastpass. I don't really understand the justification for using this system on JUST this ride. They built the queue large enough to hold several hours worth of a standby line. Disneyland guests tend to be fine with standby waits up to about 3-4 hours, as evidenced by RSR. They are okay with that. What makes anyone think this ride would suddenly command such drastically longer standby waits long term? Look what happened with MFSR...waits were crazy initially but have settled to 30-60 minutes on average. The line will regulate itself.

MFSR is nice, but it's not ROTR....not even close. 3-4 hours okay. POF is often this still. 5+ hours? 7 hours? That's a PR issue that Disney clearly is trying to avoid.

 

[Aurora0427]

We chose to stay near the entrance between Flag pole and stairs to Main Street station. 3 phones on their own accounts, a new iPhone 11pro (Verizon), a Galaxy S10 (TMobile) & mine a One+ 7pro (TMobile). At 7:59 I opened the DL app, kept it at home page, at 8 am selected Find Out More, Join Boarding Group was active, selected it, chose everyone in my group, then 1-2 seconds later I was awarded with BG 7.

While the 11pro was on a 5g network, my One+ on a 4g was the one that snagged the boarding group. The signal was good and I didn't want to be surrounded by buildings. My One+ has a very good processor that may have helped. Or the short prayer I made before 8am

This is super helpful and we will follow this strategy next weekend!!!!

 

[DLgal]

The ride is currently taking in at most half of its optimal capacity an hour and they don’t want a hagrid’s situation on their hands.

So? Let 3x the hourly capacity into the ride queue amd then let in the hourly capacity every hour. So, using made up numbers, if the capacity is 1500 per hour and they are running at 50%, that would be 750 per hour. Open the line and count in your 750x3. Let in 2250 people. After an hour, if the ride is still operating reliably, let in 750 more. Repeat every hour. It's not that hard. This would be the same as releasing "boarding groups" once an hour. At park opening, release 2250 people worth of boarding groups. Release 750 people worth of boarding groups every hour. This will discourage people from loitering around the ride entrance, but will put everyone on an equal playing field at the top of the hour. When the ride goes down, temporarily stop issuing boarding groups. This makes a lot more sense than appeasing those folks with free tickets, fastpasses to come back later, etc.

 

[rteetz]

So? Let 3x the hourly capacity into the ride queue amd then let in the hourly capacity every hour. So, using made up numbers, if the capacity is 1500 per hour and they are running at 50%, that would be 750 per hour. Open the line and count in your 750x3. Let in 2250 people. After an hour, if the ride is still operating reliably, let in 750 more. Repeat every hour. It's not that hard. This would be the same as releasing "boarding groups" once an hour. At park opening, release 2250 people worth of boarding groups. Release 750 people worth of boarding groups every hour. This will discourage people from loitering around the ride entrance, but will put everyone on an equal playing field at the top of the hour. When the ride goes down, temporarily stop issuing boarding groups. This makes a lot more sense than appeasing those folks with free tickets, fastpasses to come back later, etc.

That makes 0 sense.

 

[DLgal]

That makes 0 sense.

Can you elaborate? Why not?

 

[Lesley Wake]

So? Let 3x the hourly capacity into the ride queue amd then let in the hourly capacity every hour. So, using made up numbers, if the capacity is 1500 per hour and they are running at 50%, that would be 750 per hour. Open the line and count in your 750x3. Let in 2250 people. After an hour, if the ride is still operating reliably, let in 750 more. Repeat every hour. It's not that hard. This would be the same as releasing "boarding groups" once an hour. At park opening, release 2250 people worth of boarding groups. Release 750 people worth of boarding groups every hour. This will discourage people from loitering around the ride entrance, but will put everyone on an equal playing field at the top of the hour. When the ride goes down, temporarily stop issuing boarding groups. This makes a lot more sense than appeasing those folks with free tickets, fastpasses to come back later, etc.

That just seems like absolute hell. You WILL have people just camped out around the ride entrance all day.

Yes, the virtual queue is not ideal. But really when you have a ride with this high of a demand, nothing is going to be a perfect situation. Everyone’s perfect situation is that they get to ride. For every person that gets to ride, there are so many more who weren’t able to. Honestly the VQ is the best method for the current situation.

 

[DLgal]

That just seems like absolute hell. You WILL have people just camped out around the ride entrance all day.

Yes, the virtual queue is not ideal. But really when you have a ride with this high of a demand, nothing is going to be a perfect situation. Everyone’s perfect situation is that they get to ride. For every person that gets to ride, there are so many more who weren’t able to. Honestly the VQ is the best method for the current situation.

People are already camping out, waiting for their BG number to be called. You should have seen the people in GE yesterday just standing around, doing nothing.

 

[Mathmagicland]

That just seems like absolute hell. You WILL have people just camped out around the ride entrance all day.

Yes, the virtual queue is not ideal. But really when you have a ride with this high of a demand, nothing is going to be a perfect situation. Everyone’s perfect situation is that they get to ride. For every person that gets to ride, there are so many more who weren’t able to. Honestly the VQ is the best method for the current situation.

Totally agree - I’d rather be stressed, and disappointed if necessary, once during the day rather than once per hour for 12 or 13 or 14 times during the day.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

So? Let 3x the hourly capacity into the ride queue amd then let in the hourly capacity every hour. So, using made up numbers, if the capacity is 1500 per hour and they are running at 50%, that would be 750 per hour. Open the line and count in your 750x3. Let in 2250 people. After an hour, if the ride is still operating reliably, let in 750 more. Repeat every hour. It's not that hard. This would be the same as releasing "boarding groups" once an hour. At park opening, release 2250 people worth of boarding groups. Release 750 people worth of boarding groups every hour. This will discourage people from loitering around the ride entrance, but will put everyone on an equal playing field at the top of the hour. When the ride goes down, temporarily stop issuing boarding groups. This makes a lot more sense than appeasing those folks with free tickets, fastpasses to come back later, etc.

This is a mess when the same people keep missing out on the BG drops all day long. Who is more annoyed, a person who attempts to grab a BG at opening and misses out, knowing they will not be riding all day, or the person who attempts to grab a BG at each drop, still missing out, but has now spent hours trying and failing to ride?

If you are correct and DLR guests behave significantly differently than WDW guests when it comes to this attraction, the problem should somewhat correct itself. BG will stick around longer. Certainly longer than 1 minute. RotR has proven itself to be a rule breaker for everything we know about WDW touring, wouldn't be surprised to see this repeat at DLR too.

 

[DLgal]

Totally agree - I’d rather be stressed, and disappointed if necessary, once during the day rather than once per hour for 12 or 13 or 14 times during the day.

Okay. I'd rather try and miss, knowing I will continue to have more chances than be out of the running a minute into a 16 hour park operating day.

 

[dina444444]

Okay. I'd rather try and miss, knowing I will continue to have more chances than be out of the running a minute into a 16 hour park operating day.

I wouldn’t. I would rather know at the beginning of the day what the day is going to look like compared to an hourly lottery.

 

[DLgal]

Why not just use Medium power saving mode and bring a battery pack? I used that on my S7 successfully with the DL app and push notifications came through. UPS mode is really when you are, like, stranded somewhere amd don't have any way to charge your phone and need it to last as long as possible.

 

[Lesley Wake]

People are already camping out, waiting for their BG number to be called. You should have seen the people in GE yesterday just standing around, doing nothing.

And that is proving your point! If people are already camped out around there waiting for a specific thing to happen, can you imagine if people are hoping to get on the ride! You would have shoulder to shoulder the entire area from the ride to Hungry Bear. Not what Disney wants you to do!

Okay. I'd rather try and miss, knowing I will continue to have more chances than be out of the running a minute into a 16 hour park operating day.

But now you have the rest of your day to do whatever else you want. If you had to keep track and every hour check, you wouldn’t be able to do anything else!

 

[DLgal]

And that is proving your point! If people are already camped out around there waiting for a specific thing to happen, can you imagine if people are hoping to get on the ride! You would have shoulder to shoulder the entire area from the ride to Hungry Bear. Not what Disney wants you to do!

But now you have the rest of your day to do whatever else you want. If you had to keep track and every hour check, you wouldn’t be able to do anything else!

How would you not be able to do anything else? That makes no sense. At the top of the hour, you spend the 30 seconds to try and snag the next set of BG. I'm not advocating Disney release them willy nilly, but on an hourly schedule. If you get one, cool. If not, you set an alarm on your phone for a minute before the top of the hour and try again. I already do a version of this when using Maxpass to keep track of when I can make the next one,

 

[VandVsmama]

I think that the boarding group solution that Disney has come up with is a pretty good one all things considered.

 

[Boku41]

So? Let 3x the hourly capacity into the ride queue amd then let in the hourly capacity every hour. So, using made up numbers, if the capacity is 1500 per hour and they are running at 50%, that would be 750 per hour. Open the line and count in your 750x3. Let in 2250 people. After an hour, if the ride is still operating reliably, let in 750 more. Repeat every hour. It's not that hard. This would be the same as releasing "boarding groups" once an hour. At park opening, release 2250 people worth of boarding groups. Release 750 people worth of boarding groups every hour. This will discourage people from loitering around the ride entrance, but will put everyone on an equal playing field at the top of the hour. When the ride goes down, temporarily stop issuing boarding groups. This makes a lot more sense than appeasing those folks with free tickets, fastpasses to come back later, etc.

So are you suggesting that to give people that can't show up at rope drop a chance, you would make the unsuccessful people at rope drop hang around and fail every hour on the hour all day? The result is the same amount of people going on the ride, but 50,000 more failed attempts at securing a boarding group and thousands of wasted hours trying. Plus penalizing those that do come at rope drop from enjoying anything else at Disneyland that day because they will need to worry about cell coverage and preparing for the top of the hour every hour.