Currently in Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios, all the buzz is about the newest attraction ‘Rise of the Resistance”. From the day the attraction opened guests have flocked to the park during the early morning hours to attempt to gain a coveted “Boarding Group” number. This process is the only way to get on the attraction currently. It’s essentially a virtual queue that works very similar to the FastPass system but with a few additional caveats. There is not an indication of when the attraction will use the traditional standby and FastPass system but until that time guests must utilize this new process for any hope of experiencing this amazing attraction (and trust me it is AMAZING).
These are your first steps Rey-Obtain a boarding group number!
The process to obtain a boarding group is simple, however, it does require a little bit of effort to achieve, namely getting to the park right at open (preferably an hour or so earlier than park open) when the virtual queue goes live on the MyDisney Experience app. The times at which guests can enter the park has been changing since opening day of the attraction but the basic rules remain:
- All guests in your party must be physically in the park. The boarding group process cannot be done at your resort hotel or even on the bus on the way to the park (I tried that on the first few days of the attraction being open)
- All guests must be screened through security and past the gates after scanning your ticket or MagicBand
- After obtaining a boarding group guests cannot experience the attraction until their official boarding group has been called
Now we wait-so what should we do?
Now, if you have received your boarding group number you must wait until your boarding group number is “called”. There are signs in the park with the current group numbers boarding as well as on the MyDisney Experience App. The MyDisney Experience app will also send you a push notification when your group is ready to board. I also found it helpful to check on “My Status” in the app every so often just to keep track of where we were in the waiting process.
The thing to note is that when you do get the notice that it is your time to board you have two hours to return and experience the attraction. This is great if you have dining reservations, if you have FastPasses you’d like to utilize and so forth.
We discovered that the two hours is ample time if you decide to go to another park for a while. This is especially true if you have a boarding group that is higher than groups 25-30.
Even though those numbers sound low, it does take time to get through the first phases of the boarding groups, especially since the attraction is still working out some technical bugs currently. The only negative thing I have to say is that the attraction does experience downtime on most days and so your waiting time may vary given the technical issues that still need ironing.
On the day we obtained our boarding group we had already made plans and had a breakfast reservation at 8:10am that morning in The Magic Kingdom. Because we knew we had to make some adjustments to try and get a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance we decided to get to Hollywood Studios very early that day, get our group and then head to the Magic Kingdom while we waited to be called. Low and behold, we got our group-Group number 49!
You might think this would not work out well for us, but it worked out great! The two-hour window and the wait for your group to be called gives you, in most circumstances, more than enough time to do other things; in or outside of the Hollywood Studios park.
So how did we do it?
So how exactly did we achieve traveling between two parks and in time to ride the attraction?
It was a pretty easy, other than an early start to our day. We got on a bus to Hollywood Studios from the Art of Animation resort at 6:45am. Side note, we would have taken the Skyliner system but they were not operating at that time of the day as of yet (more on the Skyliner system in a different post).
We arrived at Hollywood Studios a little before 7:00am and had obtained our boarding group by approximately 7:05am. Since our group was group number 49, we knew we had plenty of time to head to the Magic Kingdom for our breakfast reservation at the Crystal Palace.
So, we headed back out from Hollywood Studios and unto a bus headed for Magic Kingdom. There’s a bus directly from Hollywood Studios to the Magic Kingdom. We arrived at Magic Kingdom by 7:45 am, in plenty of time for breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends!
We then experienced a few attractions, visited Gaston and then started to head towards our Splash Mountain FastPass reservation between 10:30 and 11:30am. That’s when I got the notification that our group had been called. “Woo-Hoo” were my exact words…being a Star Wars fan my whole life, this moment was truly amazing and the only time I have ever been excited to leave the Magic Kingdom. However, we did have that FastPass for one of my favorite rides-Splash Mountain. Given that we had two hours my daughter and I jumped in the FastPass line and rode it before headed to Hollywood Studios.
I had received the notice around 11:20am and we had to be back at Galaxy’s Edge by 1:20pm to board our Rise of the Resistance group.
So did you make it in time?
After getting off Splash Mountain we exited the park and jumped on the bus back to Hollywood Studios. Note, I did have a little extra sprint in my steps because even though two hours is more than enough time to get back, I would have been beyond upset if I had let us miss our boarding group.
We got to Hollywood Studios at approximately 12:40pm and through the gates by 12:45pm. We still had plenty of time. We even stopped (twice) for bathroom breaks for my young children. By the time we checked in with cast members and they scanned for our boarding group number it was 1:01pm-ninteens minutes to spare!
We did it!
So, we made it and experienced one of the most jaw dropping attractions Walt Disney Imagineering has ever created. Getting up early, rushing into the park gates to try and get a boarding group number, even waiting in the queue for 3 hours (that’s also another post) when the attraction was down for a time; all worth it. This attraction is truly worth every effort made.
In Conclusion
To be fair there is more than enough to do and experience in Hollywood Studios while you wait for your boarding group to be called. Galaxy’s Edge alone is worth experiencing while you wait. All the detail in this amazing new land could keep me there all day! However, if you do have plans elsewhere it’s easy to get back and forth within the wait for your call and arrival window to board.
The only exceptions to this may be the following:
- Your boarding group number is under 20
- Crowd levels at any of the parks are at peak (i.e., Holiday weeks or when crowd levels are above a 7).
In any case, if you leave the park or stay, have an amazing time and enjoy every detail of this outstanding attraction. It’s worth it, trust me!
