Out of the 227 days so far in 2021, only three have had a lower average wait time than today at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Data from thrill-data.com shows that, with just about an hour left in park operations, Disney’s Hollywood Studios attractions averaged a 25 minute wait. This is just 2 minutes longer than the lowest average wait this year, recorded on January 22nd.

Whether it’s the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred spinning out in the Gulf of Mexico, or having school back in session, it was a wonderful day for (mostly) short waits at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Here’s a look at a chart for wait times throughout the day.

While low waits are great, we also saw some really interesting behavior for Rise of the Resistance boarding group distribution. The day started as normal, with Rise of the Resistance boarding groups being distributed in seconds as usual. As guests waited to test their cell tower proximity for the 1pm drop and refresh in a split second for a boarding group, something weird happened. The boarding groups were still available after 5 seconds, then 60 seconds, then an hour, and only closed after 6 full hours of availability around 7pm. This is unprecedented for a 1pm drop at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and almost mirrors some of the wonderful availability we’ve seen out at Disneyland. As of publish time, there have been 180 boarding groups called, and if the attraction continues to operate smoothly, we could see a pandemic-era record of more than 200 boarding groups called in a single day.

So, why did boarding groups stay open so long? We think it has to do with a couple of factors. First, the low waits point to lower crowds within the park. Yes, there were moments of large crowds, but on the whole, there were simply fewer people at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Combine that with the fact that guests who are park hopping are ineligible for a boarding group, and it becomes clear that if boarding groups aren’t sold out in 60 minutes, they probably won’t sell out in the next 60 minutes. Simply put, anyone who was eligible to ride Rise of the Resistance was able to. Combine that with the fact that you can only ride once per day, and it’s easy to see why boarding groups stayed open so long with so few people in the park.

It’s also important that Rise of the Resistance was reliable throughout the day, and especially important that it was reliable in the first part of the day. There only appears to be one significant delay of about an hour around 5pm. If the attraction is running smoothly, more boarding groups can be distributed. We hope to see some extended 1pm availability over the upcoming weeks as Disney World likely continues to see lower crowd levels ahead of its 50th Anniversary celebrations in October.

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!