An odd scenario played out at Disney’s Hollywood Studios this morning that was actually a result of a more widespread issue being reported across America. According with sources familiar with the situation, the My Disney Experience app and Rise of the Resistance virtual queue functionality was impacted this morning as part of a widespread IP outage experienced by CenturyLink. The issues were not caused by any glitches or downtime with Disney services.
For their part, CenturyLink acknowledged the issue on social media around 9:30am, but users of the My Disney Experience app started to see some odd functionality shortly before that. As you can see in the screenshot below, the My Disney Experience app indicated that the Rise of the Resistance boarding groups had opened shortly after 9:20am as the My Disney Experience app began to encounter glitches. No guests were able to sign up for a boarding group at that time due to the app being unable to create a friends and family party.
Sources told BlogMickey.com that the Rise of the Resistance virtual queue functionality actually relies on services hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which was impacted by the CenturyLink outage. Giorgio Bonfiglio, of AWS, noted some CenturyLink issues around 6:50am EST, and the news only got worse from there.
The My Disney Experience app was unable to enable the Rise of the Resistance virtual queue functionality at 10am and no guests were able to make boarding group reservations at that time. Disney was able to push a notification to the My Disney Experience app to let guests know that a few different digital services were impacted. We received reports of issues with the dining reservation services and Disney Park Pass reservation system.
The Rise of the Resistance boarding groups wouldn’t open until 12pm. Guests were notified of the change in boarding group reservation windows via an in-park announcement as Disney implemented guest communications on the fly.
The Rise of the Resistance boarding group functionality opened as announced at the 12pm window, but unfortunately virtual queue spots where filled within seconds. This isn’t out of the ordinary though as Disney continues to provide a difficult guest experience when it comes to the actual operations of the Rise of the Resistance attraction. While the attraction was running smoothly in the first few hours of the day, guests were unable to ride it due to the CenturyLink outage. Within 30 minutes of the 12pm opening, the final Kylo Ren encounter had malfunctioned and guests were presented with the “B-Mode” seen below.
Minus the initial virtual queue distribution issues caused by the CenturyLink outage and the Kylo Ren encounter running in “B-Mode”, Rise of the Resistance has operated really well for the remainder of the day. As of publish time, Rise has pushed through 82 boarding groups which is actually better than it’s done in recent days without the hurdles it has faced this morning. All in all, Cast were extremely communicative this morning and we were impressed with the quick in-park announcements that played everywhere from Sunset Blvd to the far reaches of Batuu.
Rise of the Resistance will return to 10am and 2pm distribution times tomorrow.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!