Ok, I’m going to be completely honest with you. I don’t claim to have a perfect answer to this oh so difficult question of “How to Get a Boarding Group for Rise of The Resistance” and I especially don’t have a fool proof strategy for getting a boarding group during this unprecedented time of capped attendance. However, I put a poll out on my Instagram page and asked if you all would like to hear my thoughts on what worked for me two days in a row to get a boarding group a few short weeks ago. The response was a little overwhelming so here it is! …And if you’re frustrated and in the park Googling this right now, don’t be alarmed. It is normal right now for some days boarding groups to disappear in seconds. I think I counted 7 seconds on my first attempt before they were gone.
Now, many may be asking why the groups are so difficult to get right now. There really is no one direct answer to that question and obviously Disney isn’t going to provide that information to the public or even the media. On the contrary, my best guess is that there are inherent limitations on the capacity of the attraction itself and when coupled with the lower attendance and social distancing measures in place it could have a coupling effect to drastically reduce throughput.
I also have a second theory… and it is simply that… a theory. Don’t take this as rumor, because it’s not, and it’s simply my thoughts, but I do believe the attraction could be facing grander technical issues that are further limiting the Rise of the Resistance Boarding Group availability. Here’s my personal rationale behind this thought process.
The day I got my boarding group and the following day, ride vehicles were going through the attraction empty and near empty in many cases. It could be the limitation of the interrogation rooms (I won’t spoil that experience), but it’s hard to believe some completely empty vehicles two days in a row developed from the distancing measures. Again, I could be very wrong on that. Either way, combine that reality with the serious downtimes the attraction has been facing recently and the theory holds up pretty well in concept.
That in and of itself is also something to be aware of. This attraction breaks down more than anything I’ve experienced (and that includes the early years of Test Track), but it’s easy to see why. It’s brilliantly complex and if one aspect of it fails it adversely affects the entire experience. A “B” mode would not do the experience justice so down time is basically the only solution when problems arise.
My Top Tips For Getting Your Rise of the Resistance Boarding Group at Walt Disney World:
Nonetheless, how do you get on the thing? Well, I wish there was a simple answer. By now, most of you know that a virtual queue system is in place and that at 10:00am and at 2:00pm you can use your mobile device to join the queue for you and whatever members your party are in the park. They must be in the park. However, the virtual queue “boarding groups” are limited and there is no guarantee you’ll get to ride even if you’re the first person in the park. If you’re standing in the park at 10:00am it’s an even playing field and as they say in the Hunger Games, “May the odds be ever in your favor…” Honestly, it’s that much of a dice roll when trying to get a boarding group.
I don’t fault Disney for this at all. I really don’t. I do wish they’d offer a standard queue and let folks judge for themselves if the wait time (likely extreme wait time) is worth their time to “self select” for lack of a better word. However, with the state of the parks right now, the boarding groups are what we’ll have for likely quite some time.
With the capped attendance and social distancing measures in place, the slotted availability for boarding groups is lower than it’s ever been. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some tips and tricks that could theoretically improve your odds of securing a group. In my experience, larger groups of 4+ guests are having a more difficult time securing groups. Additionally, folks with a long list of guests on their My Disney Experience account also have had a disadvantage in that you had to go in and individually select each member off of your list that was in the park. However, to level the playing field Disney has added a one tap “select all that are in the park” functionality in the queue system.
With that being said, shrink your party size or split up if you can, it could be beneficial (I’ve heard mixed results with this one). Additionally, and this is a weird one, I’d highly recommend getting away from the front of the park when you’re trying to join the virtual queue. It sounds ridiculous but everything loaded faster for me when trying to get into groups when I was in Toy Story Land in the morning compared to standing feet away from the entrance. My best guess would be that the crowd level may be overloading signal and wifi options up front. But again, that may just be a ridiculous theory lol. Correlation isn’t necessarily causation in this case. Event though both times I got through were in low traffic areas of the park at that given time of day.
Oddly enough, when this system first debuted everyone said that using cellular data opposed to wifi was a better route to go. So, I tried that and I didn’t have any luck with that route. However, when I used the park wifi it went right through (which I never expected). There’s also a secondary theory that floats around that if you force quite the app on your phone right when the time changes and then relaunch the app and hit the join boarding group button it works better. Again, I didn’t find that to be true. Instead, the best luck I had was with having the app open when the time ticked over, tapping it as fast as I could, selecting my party, and submitting. For me, that resulted in group 13 or 14 if I remember correctly compared to a 2:00pm back up group the day before using the other strategy.
Here’s where things get weird, you can literally submit your request for a boarding right next to someone and it will return polar opposite groups. Literally, you could be Group 3 and Group 48 even if your clicks are a millisecond apart. For some reason or another, the groups seem incredibly randomly distributed. I’m sure there’s a method to the madness to spread out larger groups, or speed things up with smaller groups at certain points, but one thing is odd, and that’s that the groups do not seem to be given out chronologically.
In the grand scheme of things your results may vary. Also, don’t be surprised if you get a boarding group and still don’t get to ride Rise of the Resistance. Break downs happen constantly and sometimes put the attraction down for hours. If it does go down while you’re in the queue, prepare to wait a while sometimes. The only way to escape this is if you have a dining reservation that is rapidly approaching and you have to leave the physical queue after your group has been called to get to your ADR on time. If this happens, you can find a cast member and they will (in my personal experience) give you a multi experience fastpass+ for anything in the park, even right now. That pass does include the opportunity to come back and ride Rise of the Resistance if it comes back up and you are still in the park that day.
None of these are fool proof tips, but hopefully these provide a starting point! Curious what traveling to WDW right now was like, be sure to check out this article.
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