RotR Planning & Daily Boarding Group Discussion - *CLOSED*

[yulilin3]

Am I reading this right? No rise during early morning hours? So this the new thing block out the huge rides during early morning hours? This better not become the norm. That was the 1 and only left advantage of staying on site.
So do we know if u can join a boarding group during the early morning hour or so u have to wait till the normal hours? Cause if u do they better announce it and keep the time at a sharp park opening time. Not some random time that guests don’t know like they do opening the parks anymore cause of crowds cause that’s just not fAir.

If they want to level the field for park guests then level it with an announcement and an exact time cause I really don’t want to log on at park opening to get a group and find out they r gone cause they opened it 13 mins or 11.5 mins early.

the not knowing what time parks open to get there for hard attractions last trip was pretty frustrating.

Read a couple of pages back for the answers. RotR not being a part of emh was reported last week

 

[PolyRob]

I am cracking up right now (Probably a combination of the rides and the lack of sleep), but I could have strolled over at 6:30am and still had a boarding spot

My original plan was to do it on Monday weeks ago, but no extended EEMH had me change it. I am glad it all worked out, but resort guest or not, it may honestly be best to skip DHS on a Sunday morning if all you want is RotR. Who knew I’d be contending with this when I booked my trip over a year ago

 

[jimim]

I’m scrolling back. I can’t find it. So during early morning hours what time do they opening the boarding group? I’m assuming not earlier based on above post?

 

[SirBill]

That is interesting and QUITE definitive. It will be interesting to see if they actually do something different...

Looking like that's what I will have to do less flower and garden time or we will have to be really flexible staying at BWI wanted to maximize being close to Epcot and Space potentially opening.

The great thing about the virtual queue thing is that you can have a lot of free time for Epcot stuff, since it is so close... just plan to get to DHS at least an hour before open, get in the virtual queue and maybe ride some other rides there early with wait times low, then go see Epcot until your boarding pass comes up and head back over to ride ROTR. Just don't have any specifically timed plans for that day at Epcot. Stay onsite in care that matters...

 

[yulilin3]

I’m scrolling back. I can’t find it. So during early morning hours what time do they opening the boarding group? I’m assuming not earlier based on above post?

Today has been the only emh so far, they opened at 7:20. There's also a thread with historical times for the 4 days the attraction has been open.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

FYI, we (the moderators) are keeping the table in this post updated with various bits of timing info: https://www.disboards.com/threads/hs-actual-park-opening-times-only.3781557/post-61320029

 

[SirBill]

I don't think anything they are doing now will be the norm after things settle down. Definitely frustrating for those there now.

I was there the first three days, I think it was only frustrating if you believed external communication around times. When I booked at the end of October I made sure it would be easy to get there (stayed at Swan), my plan was to arrive 2-3 hours before any announced open... any day so far that plan would get you on ROTR. If anything the virtual queue made it all much simpler than I was thinking it might be as I was able to do other stuff instead of spending four hours in a line.

I feel like they will keep the virtual queue for this ride quite a while, because the real queue does not have the capacity to hold a four hour line so it would be a mess otherwise. The quality of the ride is such that lines would be huge for this thing if they allowed real lines.

 

[PolyRob]

Waiting just over 20 minutes for the ride. CMs handing out refreshments. SWGE Dasani and Lays chips. Had to manipulate it for photo size to upload.

 

[hiroMYhero]

Waiting just over 20 minutes for the ride. CMs handing out refreshments. SWGE Dasani and Lays chips. Had to manipulate it for photo size to upload.

View attachment 457500

RotR has been running for approximately an hour and now down for a bit. Seems like the same as the first 3 days of operation.

Hope you don’t need to wait much longer!

 

[Rich M]

Just curious why did you go to yc instead of heading straight to dhs? Awesome morning btw

we are checking into YC today so wanted to have my car there. There is a sign up at YC when you enter that said due expected crowds only resort guest and people with Dining reservations could park. Not sure if that’s just the standard sign. First time staying at YC

 

[osufeth24]

Looks like I'll be leaving my apartment around 430 tomorrow. Should put me at the parking lot around 5. Hopefully I get an early board and able to ride before the downtimes start

 

[Jax1023]

Waiting just over 20 minutes for the ride. CMs handing out refreshments. SWGE Dasani and Lays chips. Had to manipulate it for photo size to upload.

View attachment 457500

Is it broken? I’ve only seen reports of them doing that when it’s broken...

 

[Party.Of.4-NY>>>FL]

Has anyone been able to join a boarding group after exiting the ride this morning? I noticed the MDE pop-up message that a poster shared a few pages back. Just wondering if it’s proving to be accurate.

 

[ForceIsStrongInMyFamily]

I’m two days post visit (Day 2 visitor, boarding group 74) and I am still pro-VQ, the more I think about it. Rose colored glasses maybe because I actually got to ride it, but it was very effective. I’m not a hopper, so I am all in on one park and a two hour window while you are in park is totally reasonable. Even if you are on a ride or at a meal, it should work out. I am a Type A planner and though it got me worried about a few FPs, we knocked out most of what we wanted to do (TSL/RnR/ToT) early so we went in with a mindset of flexibility for the rest of the day. It will make me rethink how I order my parks just in case we get FPs for next day use (we usually do HS our last day). I am interested to check in around month 3 to see how it is shaping up though. The ride is AWESOME.

 

[pangyal]

So our morning was the antithesis of the other successful ones I’ve been reading about. I will report our experience just so people can see how things might not work out the way you want these to go!

We are staying at AKL and got up around 5:30 with the intention of leaving at around 6. We left the room around 6:05 and hightailed it to the bus stop (it’s just me and DS this trip). The DHS bus pulled away just as we rounded the corner at 6:10.

Frustratingly, the next bus did not arrive until 6:55. We waited for 45 minutes and lost valuable park time that way, thinking the bus would run about every twenty minutes or so as usual. I guess we learned that during EMH there is only one bus going back and forth and if you miss it, expect to wait the full route’s time to see it again.

We arrived at HS around 7:15 and sat and had a snack before heading in. I was refreshing the boarding group page constantly and suddenly saw it open a short time later, but of course we were not inside the park yet. We therefore had to wait to get through security as well as a crazy long line to enter, so I was surprised to get a boarding group at all. We were inside at 7:28 or so and got group 66, which sucks, as we have dinner plans tonight.

Headed to TSL and walked onto AS2, though the lines for TSMM and SDD were looking dire (40 and 85 minutes respectively at 7:35am). Heading to GE to try for single rider line at Falcon and it was backed up to the entrance, so we went to Star Tours (walk on) and are now on a bus back to AKL as we have nothing else to do at the park.

I guess the best-laid plans, right? Hopefully, we will be able to at least experience Rise later so it does not end up being a completely wasted morning. We will try SR at Falcon again when we come back, fingers crossed that line has become more manageable by the afternoon.

I have really appreciated the updates I read this morning as they showed me that we should actually have left around 5:15-5:30 latest to make this plan viable. Unfortunately, my kiddo is not that much of an early riser, so we did the best we could! I think that leaving at 6:00-ish was just too late to account for transportation hiccups, etc.

 

[Jax1023]

Just got on the bus to attempt to ride with our fast passes from yesterday. This is our last change this trip, hopefully we get on.

Only have until 11ish and then we need to leave

 

[SirBill]

Waiting just over 20 minutes for the ride. CMs handing out refreshments. SWGE Dasani and Lays chips. Had to manipulate it for photo size to upload.

View attachment 457500

That is a really cool Dasani bottle, strangest looking Aurebesh D and A lettering I've seen... letting designers have a bit too much free range with the lettering there I think!

 

[jimim]

Today has been the only emh so far, they opened at 7:20. There's also a thread with historical times for the 4 days the attraction has been open.

Oh I looked at that time opening page. The boarding groups opened when early morning hours opened. So what’s the point of not opening the ride early then?

 

[Boardwalk III]

I’m just guessing, but probably most of the offsite people that were being held on Hollywood Blvd. got a boarding pass today. They were just waiting, so probably refreshing. It’s the people who arrived early that went on a ride, who might have missed out.

Exactly. Not a good look considering all of the prior communications.

 

[PolyRob]

RotR has been running for approximately an hour and now down for a bit. Seems like the same as the first 3 days of operation.

Hope you don’t need to wait much longer!

Is it broken? I’ve only seen reports of them doing that when it’s broken...

Thank you! More CMs coming though with Apples and Bananas and a PhotoPass person is making his way around. I’ll let you know how it goes!