While the Skywalker saga may have concluded weeks ago, the Rise of the Resistance boarding group saga continues… and we’ve seen some concerning data over the past few days. While the conventional wisdom has said that you’ll be fine showing up within the first 30 minutes or so of park opening, that doesn’t seem to be the case right now. We’ll be heading out to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the morning to see if this is a trend or an isolated situation, but it seems like getting a boarding group is now more luck than anything else, let’s check out the data.
According to data collected by thrill-data.com, the distribution of Rise of the Resistance boarding groups was the quickest ever this morning, with boarding groups being completely distributed within minutes, and social media backs up that data. Twitter user Eric Laycock shared a screenshot of his Rise of the Resistance boarding group number, 101, within seconds of the window opening to guests this morning.
Other twitter users expressed similar dismay over how quickly the boarding groups were distributed this morning.
The data backs that up. In the graph below, plots for January 3rd on the far right show that no sooner had the boarding groups opened up then they closed again, with backup boarding groups being distributed until about 20 minutes after park opening.
Of course, backup boarding groups should not be relied on. The attraction has seen multiple breakdowns today, with guests being evacuated as seen in the tweet below. The open door on the left leads to a portion of the queue.
As a result of the breakdowns, guests with backup boarding groups are being notified that they won’t be able to ride the attraction today. Note that it’s possible that a guest might have obtained a boarding group just a minute or two after 7am. The fact that the attraction breaks down isn’t an anomaly either. It’s a very complex attraction that has been experiencing unreliability at times.
With regular boarding groups being completely distributed within minutes this morning, all touring plans beyond getting to the park at an unreasonable hour are out the window right now. Yes, it’s a busy time of year, so there is hope that the situation could become better in the coming days or weeks, but this likely isn’t the guest experience Disney wants to be providing for their headliner attraction for the resort.
Like we said at the start of this post, we’ll be visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios tomorrow to see if this is a one-time occurrence or if it will become a trend. We’ll be sure to update our Rise of the Resistance virtual queue guide with our experiences as well. As of right now, all you can do is set your alarms early and hope that today was the exception, not the rule going forward.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news and photos from around the Disney Parks.