ROTR lottery needs to end.

[DavidNYC]

Disney needs to get rid of this system, or at least supplement it. If someone wants to wait six hours for the ride after they pay their park admission, then they ought to have that chance. Do the boarding groups of fast passes, but at least have the standby option. i know it would suck, but it's better than a family coming to Disney, paying all the money and effort, and then not being able to see a top attraction no matter what they do because their internet connection wasn't fast enough.

Won't work. The number of people trying standby would still greatly exceed what they'd be able to get on the ride in a day. They'd basically have to cut off the standby line mid-morning (since the ride needs a certain down time each night so they can't run it hours past closing). Not to mention the odds that the ride could go down so after waiting on standby for 5 hours you still don't get to ride it that day. Much better to know right up front so you don't waste your day.

 

[wideeyedwonder]

I agree it needs to change (I’ve suggested a daily lottery the day before for everyone with a park reservation, or at least those that indicated wanting to ride), but with a limited “resource” like RotR, even standing in line for hours wouldn’t guarantee that you get to ride. And if that happened, not only didn’t you ride RotR, but you also didn’t ride anything else.

I agree that it might have been a downer for those kids, but I’d like to think that just being at WDW is more than many kids get to experience, and that there was so much more than RotR at WDW to get them to the “happy place” in their heads.

 

[VandVsmama]

I totally disagree.

 

[nerdboyrockstar]

Agreed. They need to get the ride in a reliable working order so that it doesn't NEED a lottery. Embarrassing that it's even still necessary at this point.

 

[PetePanMan]

It isn’t perfect but neither is waiting in standby for hours

 

[Darklord77]

I've been on both ends of this. Got a boarding pass one day and missed out the next. What was the difference? No clue, maybe a nanosecond behind tapping my phone on the second try. I think a reasonable caveat would be to limit the number of boarding passes any one guest can have in a 90 day period.

 

[DL1WDW2]

Doesnt Universal open early one hour without the virtual Q ? Kinda like Gideon’s for their system . It kicks in when it becomes needed.

 

[winterwhite]

cannot imagine a worse disney experience than trying to wait in line for 4+ hours with three little kids, just to ride one ride.

 

[WickstarRunner]

I think a reasonable caveat would be to limit the number of boarding passes any one guest can have in a 90 day period

This is where the change needs to be, and I cannot believe it hasn't been already. Each ticket should be given access to ONE boarding group for it's entire lifetime, regardless of length. APs should only be able to get one in a set period of time (45 or 90 days perhaps). This way everybody can at least get a boarding group and ride in once. After boarding groups are complete THEN open the standby line.

I like the boarding group system, but after missing riding Rise on our April trip by one group (we were 118, they got to 117 that day), combined with seeing some of the Disney bloggers being able to ride it many times over a short period, this is a situation that needed immediate adjustments months ago.

 

[scrappinginontario]

I preface this by saying my family was able to get a pass, so it's not sour grapes. They didn't get the 7 am one, but went to the park anyway to have fun., They were sitting at the QS place there on the road toe ToT, and 1 pm rolled around. Suddenly everyone dropped everything and hit their phones. That's not great, but then a few seconds later, there was a lot of cheering. Including from my wife and kids.

But the family sitting next to them didn't get it. Three little kids, all in SW stuff, and they just couldn't get in because some people were faster on their phones, had a better connection, got luckier, They'd done everything right, and still missed out on a premier attraction. My wife was heartbroken for them, but it's not like there's anything she can do. But it took a lot of the fun out of the day for her.

Disney needs to get rid of this system, or at least supplement it. If someone wants to wait six hours for the ride after they pay their park admission, then they ought to have that chance. Do the boarding groups of fast passes, but at least have the standby option. i know it would suck, but it's better than a family coming to Disney, paying all the money and effort, and then not being able to see a top attraction no matter what they do because their internet connection wasn't fast enough.

The challenge is the ride can only carry a set number of guests each day even when it works perfectly. The demand for the ride is higher than its capacity it can offer even if it functions perfectly from park open to close.

This change of allowing a standby line still would not work as they would need to close the standby line after x number of guests to ensure they could ride.

It’s not about what type of line, it’s about supply and demand and the demand is always higher than the supply.

 

[Nabas]

One idea is to modify the current system so that it delays 1 second for each time you’ve ridden.

Have someone who has ridden 5 times? The system would automatically delay them 5 seconds before checking for BG availability.

Some Annual Pass Holders will hate it but it’s fairer for everyone. I’ve read far too many posts along the lines of “Today was my 50th time on ROTR!”

I’ve stood in line and chatted with a local APH who said to me, “I ride at least once a week and have to get back to work after I ride it today.” He told me he’s been on over 100 times. This was a solo rider using up an entire car (which seats 8) due to COVID restrictions (no plexiglass at the time).

For some, getting a BG has become an addiction.

There are far too many stories of families with little kids in Star Wars clothes not getting a BG to make anyone believe the current system is fair.

 

[Brett Wyman]

I actually don't mind it. I tried for the queue 3 times now on 2 separate trips and got it all 3. With a regular queue I'd potentially be standing in line for hours. With the virtual queue I'm in line for a fraction of the time which allows me to do other things rather than sitting my butt in a long line.

Agreed. Im not sure what mistake some people are making but if you follow the guides properly you will almost certainly always get a boarding group. We have never NOT gotten one in multiple tries. I'm guessing most people's issue is thinking you can start AT 7am, whereas if you don't actually start a few seconds early or EXACTLY on the dot synching with Apple time or similar, YOU WILL MISS IT. They are gone it literal seconds.

One idea is to modify the current system so that it delays 1 second for each time you’ve ridden.

That wouldn't work because that means they would basically never ride again. A better system would be max 2-3 rides per person in a 30 day period. That would weed out the locals who ride it multiple times a month or other guests riding it over and over during a stay.

 

[Skippyboo]

I absolutely agree its a HORRIBLE system. I also feel that riders who have ridden, say 3+ times, should be prioritized behind people who have NEVER ridden at all....but Im in the minority on that thought. The season pass holders clog up the lines a LOT and they get to go and ride several times a year. To this day, despite 3 trips since its inception, I have never gotten a FP for any of the Avatar rides but there are people who have ridden it many, many times. It is what it is and my suggestions will never fly but I do agree with you about the current ROR system.

With the FP system you can stay at onsite Disney property so your window opens at 60 days so you had a 30 day head start over general public. You also had the option to wait in the standby line. If they are filling every seat on ROTR and all the boarding groups are gone in 5 seconds that’s is piss poor designing by Disney. I have not been to Universal post Covid but I don’t see people complaining about not getting to ride Hagrid’s or new coaster like we see with ROTR.

 

[Brett Wyman]

With the FP system you can stay at onsite Disney property so your window opens at 60 days so you had a 30 day head start over general public. You also had the option to wait in the standby line. If they are filling every seat on ROTR and all the boarding groups are gone in 5 seconds that’s is piss poor designing by Disney. I have not been to Universal post Covid but I don’t see people complaining about not getting to ride Hagrid’s or new coaster like we see with ROTR.

1. Hagrid's use to have 6-8 hour stand by queue when it first opened. This is what Disney is trying to avoid.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/i-wai...hagrids-roller-coaster-and-it-never-happened/
2. The demand for Hagrid's has cooled a tiny bit since it opened ROTR is a much hotter attraction currently.

3. Hagrid's does now have a virtual queue and they do tend to run out sometimes as well even with the poor folks standing in multiple hour stand by lines.

4. Hagrids, much like ROTR broke down a lot early on. Its getting better. I think ROTR is still working out the kinks.

If all you want is the ability to stand in line for hours and hours in the Florida sun then I guess you can say Universal has a better system. Disney is ensuring that everyone that gets a boarding groups waits no more than an hour to ride.

 

[Nabas]

That wouldn't work because that means they would basically never ride again. A better system would be max 2-3 rides per person in a 30 day period. That would weed out the locals who ride it multiple times a month or other guests riding it over and over during a stay.

2-3 times a month? You mean 24 to 36 times a year? Who the heck needs to ride ROTR 36 times a year?

How about having 35 once-ever-few-years families get to experience it once, rather than have one local APH ride it 36 times every year?

 

[dreamer17555]

I think a factor that’s being overlooked is that with a standby queue there might be more abuse of the DAS system. I could easily see someone lying about the need for it to avoid a 5+ hour line- rush one member of the party straight to the attraction when it opens and get a return time…

Unfortunately there are people who are going to take advantage of anything they can to avoid waiting in line.

 

[whiporee]

I think it should work this way. When you make your park reservation you have an option to signup for ROTR lottery. Make it a true lottery. An automated system chooses riders from the list that have signed up. You get a text asking if you want the reservation and then the system gives you a timeslot. This process continues until all spots are filled.

While I'd rather see them take it to the FP/standby model they have everywhere else, this seems to be a fair way of doing it. Fairer than leaving it up to internet systems and glitches

 

[whiporee]

Because the line would wrap around the park immediately and people would pay for admission to the park just to stand in line all day for one ride. I'd rather try my luck with the online queue than wait in line for the duration of the park being open and hope it works out.

I'm not sure that's true. The cost getting into the virtual queue is nothing, just being up at 7 or ready at 1. The cost of waiting in line is having to wait in line. I think the waits would still be long and long for a while, but you'd have fewer repeat riders fighting for the available spots once the ride had been open a while. People on multiple-day trips might decide not to do it more than once, or locals might stay away or whatever. And there would be issues with ride breakdowns because there always are, but I think the ease of trying for the virtual line vastly increases the demand for the virtual line.

It would be interesting to see what the rider capacity for RoR is to get a feel for what percentage of HS guests are able to ride the ride. WDW would never release this number, but how many people AREN'T able to get boarding passes in the current system? That might add some facts to the discussion.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Won't work. The number of people trying standby would still greatly exceed what they'd be able to get on the ride in a day.

Would it? I don't think so. It's a good ride when it's operating but this system promotes frequent visitors riding it over and over and over again. That's great if the capacity were there. Now if there was a standby line that would eliminate a few, or maybe a lot of them as it breaks down and just having to spend the time vs get on your phone once or twice will stop it.

The virtual line adds rides that a standby would eliminate and a standby allows people to have a choice.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Disney is ensuring that everyone that gets a boarding groups wits no more than an hour to ride.

If only that were true.