Rise of the Resistance had another banner day today at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The attraction, which has historically been a frustrating situation for guests who are unable to secure a boarding group, experienced “all day” boarding group availability for the second time this week. What made today historical is that boarding groups remained open until just 30 minutes before park close, whereas a system glitch closed the boarding group system more than an hour early the last time we saw this type of availability.

Let’s take a look at the factors that could be causing the unusual behavior.

We’ll start with the obvious – low wait times. So far, today has been one of the top 6 slowest days of the year in terms of average wait times at Disney’s Hollywood Studios according to data collected by thrill-data.com.

With an average wait time of only 25 minutes, it was a great day to visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios (if you could handle some afternoon rain).

The last time we saw this kind of behavior from Rise of the Resistance boarding groups, we speculated that Tropical Storm Fred was partially to blame. While there was a brief storm this afternoon, we’re leaning towards the “school’s back in session” part of our previous theory to explain the short wait times today. Historically one of the slowest times of year, we aren’t quite ready to chalk up low wait times to Delta variant impacts on the theme parks just yet. Instead, we think it’s a combination of kids being back in school and some guests postponing a visit until the 50th Anniversary celebrations in October that are leading to such low wait times now. Here’s a look at the data through 6:30pm.

Boarding groups remained open until 8:30pm tonight, setting a new record. It also helped that Rise of the Resistance had one of its best days ever with 186 boarding groups called before park close.

One last point of clarification – Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios has never had a standby line. There was a time earlier this week, and tonight, where guests could obtain a boarding group and be instantly called back, but Cast Members stressed that all guests would be required to obtain a boarding group to ride. Indeed, we saw guess who were turned away tonight who didn’t have a boarding group even though the vast, vast majority of guests who did have a boarding group were processed 15 minutes before the park officially closed.

Rise of the Resistance will be one of the handful of attractions that guests will be able to buy their way into when Lightning Lane debuts this fall. While we don’t expect this type of “all day” availability to be the norm, hopefully securing a boarding group won’t be the near-lottery system that it is now, and guests won’t be funneled into a mandatory Lightning Lane purchase.

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!