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For my family’s trip to Disney World this summer, I’ve been keeping up with all the latest news for the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land in Hollywood Studios. One ride, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, is up and running on FastPass+. The biggest new attraction, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, has a virtual queue with online boarding groups.
I figured as long as I kept up with the latest news about how to get a spot in line, my family would easily get to ride both of these new Star Wars rides during our day at Hollywood Studios. However, recent reports of disappointed guests have me worried!
The Process to Join a Boarding Group for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
This post on the DISboards outlines the steps to get into a boarding group for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. It’s pretty easy:
- Arrive at Hollywood Studios
30-6060-90 minutes before opening. Go through the security check and wait inside the gates. Everyone in your party who wants to ride must enter the park. - When the park opens, refresh your My Disney Experience app, and there will be a big red button that says “Join Boarding Group”.
- Select the names of people in your group who want to ride, and cross your fingers that you are assigned a low boarding group number.
This YouTube video also gives detailed instructions along with screen videos.
The Problem with Getting a Boarding Group for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
Unfortunately, the boarding groups fill up within 2 minutes of the park opening. Two minutes! Yesterday, they were all gone in 75 seconds. While there are backup boarding groups available that may or may not get on the ride, those also fill up incredibly quickly. See this chart for all the stats.
So many things could go wrong. If you arrive to the park late, you’ll miss the window. If your phone freezes up, forget about it!
The ride is also prone to breaking down. Several of my friends have been ushered off the attraction mid-ride.
I’ve read sad posts from people who did everything right, but still didn’t get a chance to experience the ride. My family only has one day planned for each park, so that means we’ve got one chance at Hollywood Studios to make this ride happen.
Our Checklist and Backup Plan
We plan to check the park hours the night before to make sure we arrive in plenty of time. My husband and my son will both have the app on their phones and be will ready with me in case there are any technical difficulties. We will take screenshots if anything goes awry and ask for help from the Guest Experience Teams (cast members with blue shirts under blue umbrellas).
But even if we do everything right, we still may end up missing this ride. So, I want to set realistic expectations for my family and have a backup plan.
Our leisurely week at Disney World includes a break day after visiting two parks. We plan to go to our favorite character breakfast that morning and enjoy the resort pool. But if push comes to shove, we would consider buying another day’s admission and trying to get a boarding group on that day.
We also have some flexibility on our last day. I haven’t secured our flights home, but I’m hoping to get flights very late in the day. Our current plan is to visit Disney Springs that day, but we can also use that day as a backup day to revisit Hollywood Studios.
Hopefully, things will go off without a hitch, and we will get on that ride the first time.
Are you worried about getting on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance? When do you think the crazy crowds will start to level off?
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
My kids have been on it 3 times @ Disneyland, but it’s the most stressful thing ever. They got #19 yesterday…you can always email me or call me if you have any questions.
@Stephanie 3 times, wow! I may email you when I get closer to my trip.
“30-60 minutes before opening” Good luck. Look at the pictures of people there 2-3 hours before the park opens. We were down there the 2nd week of January. We heard about people and their disappointment having gotten the passes and than being denied boarding because of glitches in the ride or the ride reaching it’s quota for the day. It was over for them. No ride and Guest Experience was useless other than offering a pass for a date weeks later.
I’m sure as time goes by they’ll get it figured out but for now it’s led to some fans going away very disappointed. The whole area, however, was my favorite memory and totally awesome.
@Bill from Maine I’m glad you enjoyed the Star Wars area! You’re right, 30-60 minutes early might not cut it.
30-60 minutes early is completely fine!!! Though we intended to arrive earlier both days we went last week, we wound up getting there outside bag check only 9 minutes and 16 minutes early — got into the park with 90 seconds and 5 minutes to spare, respectively, and got groups 34 and 31 those days. Yes, we were cutting it too close… but as long as you’re tapped in before 8:00, you’re fine. Don’t let anyone try to tell you to get there crazy early (the long line photos are taken before they start letting people in; doesn’t look anything like that 10-15 minutes before park open), unless you’re also trying to get in good rope drop position for another ride — but that is another matter entirely…
All that said, I would relax on the whole thing for a few months and then jump into your “prep” a month before your trip. No sense worrying about it now when the procedures might totally change before you get there.
My best advice (assuming no change to the system) is to practice getting a group on the app from home. At park open time in the morning, you can go through every single step — including selecting all or some of your party members who are riding — before it finally stops you and asks if everyone is in the park. Doing this multiple times will get you comfortable with the process. You can also decide for yourself which works faster: Some people say you should have the app open to the My Status page and refresh that constantly once it’s time, while others suggest closing your app and re-opening it a couple seconds before the clock turns. I did the latter because I like seeing that bright red “Join Boarding Group” button after I open the app and click the Learn More button, rather than refreshing and not being totally sure if anything has changed. In fact, the first day when I didn’t see that red button, I just quickly closed the whole app and started over. Still worked out. Felt “safer” to me than hoping for a successful refresh!
As for WiFi vs cellular connection, we went cellular, but it seems like people have luck both ways. Again, as long as your connection is decent and you’re inside the park, it should go fine if you’re READY.
I truly feel (from reading between the lines of comments online) that people who aren’t getting a group just aren’t as prepared and wind up taking a little too much time to get through some relatively easy steps since it’s their first time REALLY seeing it in action. You don’t know what you don’t know, right? If you’ve practiced it before and KNOW what you’re doing, seems like only the bad luck of crashing app can stop you. And that’s where having multiple people in your party all doing the same thing can be the final safety net.
@Mike C Thank you for the detailed advice! I will wait until early May to see if or how the process changes, and then practice. 🙂
Going in November and hoping for the best. Demand for Galaxy’s Edge will be extremely high for a couple years. Flight of Passage at AK has been open for nearly 3 years and still routinely posts standby waits over 3 hours.
Going in March and dont have a set plan just yet. They’ve added hours for MK and AK and am waiting for themto add HS hours so I can make a plan.
@HML I expect them to keep adding hours to HS for awhile. At least I hope. 🙂