RotR Planning & Daily Boarding Group Discussion - *CLOSED*

[10CJ]

I have been keeping up on the way things have been going at the studios with what time the park is "supposed" to be open and when they are actually letting people in. So far today, Monday, the official opening time is 8am. Which means that the buses are supposed to be running an hour before opening. People have been arriving before 6am and have been admitted starting at approx. 630am. WHAT GIVES???? If there is no EMH today why are they admitting so early with most or all of the other rides up and running as well? How are you supposed to get in the VQ if you assume the park is not opening until 8 and you arrive say at 7am thinking you have plenty of time before opening and BAM! the VQ is out for the day?

My understating is when the crowd outsides the gates reaches a critical mass they open the gates. Today boarding groups were still available at 7 am, even still open at 8 am.

 

[Disneylover99]

If the EMH for next Sunday don't change, we can get up Sunday at 7, go to the park (maybe Lyft if we can't get a bus quickly) for 7:30-8:00, tap in, grab a BG for sometime in the afternoon, and go back to the hotel for breakfast. Will be an expensive trip, but worth it. I don't need to be getting off the ride at 9am, I just need to get on the ride at all.

Getting up at 7am and hoping to arrive between 7:30am and 8:00am will be too late If it follows yesterday’s pattern. The VQ opened at 7:20am and closed before 8am.

 

[yulilin3]

I have been keeping up on the way things have been going at the studios with what time the park is "supposed" to be open and when they are actually letting people in. So far today, Monday, the official opening time is 8am. Which means that the buses are supposed to be running an hour before opening. People have been arriving before 6am and have been admitted starting at approx. 630am. WHAT GIVES???? If there is no EMH today why are they admitting so early with most or all of the other rides up and running as well? How are you supposed to get in the VQ if you assume the park is not opening until 8 and you arrive say at 7am thinking you have plenty of time before opening and BAM! the VQ is out for the day?

this has been discussed ad naseum on this and other threads.
Disney has done this ever since Pandora opened at AK 3 years ago, opening up early, way before official opening time to spread the crowds from the bag check/tapstile area. They did it with Pandora, with TSLand and now with SWGE
You are at an advantage by being on this site and sites like these to plan for your Disney trip

 

[Wreckem]

I have been keeping up on the way things have been going at the studios with what time the park is "supposed" to be open and when they are actually letting people in. So far today, Monday, the official opening time is 8am. Which means that the buses are supposed to be running an hour before opening. People have been arriving before 6am and have been admitted starting at approx. 630am. WHAT GIVES???? If there is no EMH today why are they admitting so early with most or all of the other rides up and running as well? How are you supposed to get in the VQ if you assume the park is not opening until 8 and you arrive say at 7am thinking you have plenty of time before opening and BAM! the VQ is out for the day?

All parks regularly open before official times based on crowd sizes outside the park. If you research the rule of thumb is still arrive 1.5 hrs before official park opening if you plan to rope drop.

Busses can usually get you there 1.5hrs early but not all the time. It’s a risk to take the busses to rope drop for a variety of reasons. If you are rope dropping and want be towards the very front your best bet is to use ride share or drive and get there 1.5hrs early For MK and AK. I’d suggest 2hrs for DHS.

 

[Nissan1147]

Getting up at 7am and hoping to arrive between 7:30am and 8:00am will be too late If it follows yesterday’s pattern. The VQ opened at 7:20am and closed before 8am.

EMH for next Sunday starts an hour later at 8am, vs 7am start yesterday.

 

[ThistleMae]

They did have a bag free line, it is a pretty big advantage as the baggage checks are very thorough and just one or two people with larger backpacks and a lot of zippers can have you waiting minutes. If you get there very early and some bag check security lines are open with no-one waiting in front of them, they also just let you walk through without bags - I did that Saturday since the bag-free line was around 30-40 people at 4:15am.

Thank you. I thought this would be really helpful, especially when folks with strollers and backpacks often take way more time to go through, and since you can't use MDE until you ticket in...it would make a difference.

 

[kbelle8995]

We were planning to take a quick trip at the end of January and try to ride Rise of the Resistance specifically well for me. Other person on trip doesn't care. We might be down there in March again for other reasons and it will be far too near to spring break. But hopefully by then they should have some of the problems are ironed out.

I'm debating cancelling the January trip off Because it seems near impossible to get on the dang thing right now. But it is the holidays and a new attraction. It took me two years to be able to ride the Dwarfs mine train.

 

[CPanther95]

I have been keeping up on the way things have been going at the studios with what time the park is "supposed" to be open and when they are actually letting people in. So far today, Monday, the official opening time is 8am. Which means that the buses are supposed to be running an hour before opening. People have been arriving before 6am and have been admitted starting at approx. 630am. WHAT GIVES???? If there is no EMH today why are they admitting so early with most or all of the other rides up and running as well? How are you supposed to get in the VQ if you assume the park is not opening until 8 and you arrive say at 7am thinking you have plenty of time before opening and BAM! the VQ is out for the day?

It's been pretty consistent every non-EMH day that they are opening prior to the announced time. If you make the assumption that they suddenly won't open early, your chances of getting a spot will drop dramatically.

 

[SirBill]

<..> I plan to get my whole party out of bed, Uber to the park just around 7:45am for EMH, ride a ride or two while constantly checking the app, get a boarding pass for late afternoon and then head back to the hotel for the morning and lunch. #fingerscrossed
<...>

Even if next Sunday was just like this Sunday, that plan sounds perilous to get anything... yesterday (last Sunday) they started releasing boarding groups at 7:20, everything was gone by 7:56 so arriving at the park at 7:45 is cutting it super close even for an evening time, much less afternoon. Not to mention they may well change how the whole system works for the next EMH. I'd at least shoot to be entering the park by 7:30.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

For me the argument against for staggered release of boarding groups is this.

By 9am or so in the morning, when they release them all, you know if you have a prayer of getting on the attraction.

If they released some every 2 hours, and you kept missing it, you might be upset. If you know by 9am that you are in or not, you can at least plan your day a bit better.

Yeah - I wasn’t suggesting staggered in my comment. Merely just a release of a portion of BGs for EMHs only. I’m interested to see how they manage EMHs going forward. We are scheduled to be at a DHS EMH 7 weeks from yesterday. A staggered release all day would be pretty terrible

why should they have to do anything special for non resort guest? If it was me I wouldn’t care if the non resort guest don’t get on the ride and I wouldn’t feel bad for it. Stay at a resort next time. It would be nice to see Resort guest get more perks going forward.

The part of me that is selfish loves this because we stay on site. The part of me being reasonable says this totally isn’t fair lol. I agree with @TheMaxRebo on this one

 

[Disneylover99]

EMH for next Sunday starts an hour later at 8am, vs 7am start yesterday.

Yesterday’s started at 6am. But even if the park isn’t supposed to open til 8am, it could still very well open at 6am. If I wanted to ride, I definitely wouldn’t be rolling out of bed at 7am and expecting a boarding position.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

If the EMH for next Sunday don't change, we can get up Sunday at 7, go to the park (maybe Lyft if we can't get a bus quickly) for 7:30-8:00, tap in, grab a BG for sometime in the afternoon, and go back to the hotel for breakfast. Will be an expensive trip, but worth it. I don't need to be getting off the ride at 9am, I just need to get on the ride at all.

Personally I would go much earlier until proven it isn’t necessary. I would not risk a 730-8 arrival with a completely unproven 8 AM EMH. Last Sunday may be a total outlier and they may let the entire crowd in before EMH even begins around the same time they have been every morning, possibly with offsite guests held near the front of the park. Nothing is proven enough to not stick with the arrive very early advice IMO. The risk of a late BG is not getting called at all.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

EMH for next Sunday starts an hour later at 8am, vs 7am start yesterday.

Just to keep facts straight, yesterday's scheduled hours were 6am-8am EMH, 8am regular park opening. They made this change on Saturday.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

I have been keeping up on the way things have been going at the studios with what time the park is "supposed" to be open and when they are actually letting people in. So far today, Monday, the official opening time is 8am. Which means that the buses are supposed to be running an hour before opening. People have been arriving before 6am and have been admitted starting at approx. 630am. WHAT GIVES???? If there is no EMH today why are they admitting so early with most or all of the other rides up and running as well? How are you supposed to get in the VQ if you assume the park is not opening until 8 and you arrive say at 7am thinking you have plenty of time before opening and BAM! the VQ is out for the day?

I mean, an hour before posted opened would probably not be a great plan with an opening like this no matter what they did or didn’t do with early openings and a VQ.

 

[EmJ]

I’ve been reading along the last 129 pages and at this point planning for riding ROTR seems pretty simple: Arrive at the gate 2-3 hours before the posted opening time, constantly refresh the boarding group app, and pay no attention to anything Disney says about either. The reality is if you want to ensure a ride, you have to figure out how get your entire party there before dawn. That’s the whole plan.

We’re going to DL in March and I’m eager to see how much of this translates to the west coast. I can get my 5-year-old to the gates at 7:00 am, no problem. 6:15ish is a maybe. Earlier than that, and it’s not happening and we will have to ride on a different trip

 

[yulilin3]

Just to keep facts straight, yesterday's scheduled hours were 6am-8am EMH, 8am regular park opening. They made this change on Saturday.

I can see Disney expanding the Sunday EMH for the rest of the month

 

[Liljo22]

I have been keeping up on the way things have been going at the studios with what time the park is "supposed" to be open and when they are actually letting people in. So far today, Monday, the official opening time is 8am. Which means that the buses are supposed to be running an hour before opening. People have been arriving before 6am and have been admitted starting at approx. 630am. WHAT GIVES???? If there is no EMH today why are they admitting so early with most or all of the other rides up and running as well? How are you supposed to get in the VQ if you assume the park is not opening until 8 and you arrive say at 7am thinking you have plenty of time before opening and BAM! the VQ is out for the day?

With the amount of people showing up early, Disney almost has to open the gates early. By 8am, its going to be a nightmare to get people through the gates. It also becomes a safety issue once the holding area gets past security. They could possibly hold people on Hollywood Blvd but even that becomes a safety hazard with the amount of people on the streets.

Even if they did open at 8am, people showing up after that time are going to be behind thousands of people and more than likely will not get a boarding group either way.

 

[Heather07438]

It certainly is interesting how DL Fastpass is essentially the BG methodology and we all like it over here on the west coast. The whole prebooking 30/60 days FP is wild but understandable for those with preplanned vacations wanting to guarantee something and gives the on-site people a clear advantage.

In times of mass interest, I like that they've gone the BG route -- just wish they tweak it a little more to avoid making the little ones get up early AM just to Tap in.

Edit: a REAL advantage for on-site
--Allow Tap in at the hotel. get BG# at hotel --- but who am I to argue with the Mouse's brass?

Sounds good but I think HS is trying to avoid people grabbing a BG 'just in case' they make it over to HS, or 'just trying for a good time'. They won't be able to plan accordingly if many guests are joining a BG with only 50% intention of using it. Onsite guests will just grab a BG every morning for the heck of it, lol.

 

[SirBill]

EMH for next Sunday starts an hour later at 8am, vs 7am start yesterday.

There is no way that will be the case. Given how today was (continued near 6am opening), you should assume for planning purposes a 6am opening every day and increasing crowds until at least after New Years. When they release boarding groups is a real wild card for EMH days (Sundays) since we, and Disney, have only one data point. How will Disney react to what they saw this last Sunday, to adjust next Sunday? It is a mystery.

 

[Heather07438]

With the amount of people showing up early, Disney almost has to open the gates early. By 8am, its going to be a nightmare to get people through the gates. It also becomes a safety issue once the holding area gets past security. They could possibly hold people on Hollywood Blvd but even that becomes a safety hazard with the amount of people on the streets.

Even if they did open at 8am, people showing up after that time are going to be behind thousands of people and more than likely will not get a boarding group either way.

And there is precedent. This is the way WDW has decided works best for crazy demand ride park open in the past as well. This kind of thing has been happening before RoR, some people are just learning about it now I guess.