RotR Planning & Daily Boarding Group Discussion - *CLOSED*

[yulilin3]

I agree with challenge but think they should just be transparent with everyone.

Would a disclaimer like "hours are subject to change" be enough for you?
Disney doesn't want to open earlier, they have to staff the park, starting with security, way earlier than what they want, but the demand is there and primarily for safety, they have to open earlier.
Do you think they sticking with opening time do something for people lining up early? It won't. Most people want to experience the ride as early as possible
It's happened at Animal kingdom since park open, and we're 3 years with this happening

 

[DGsAtBLT]

I agree with challenge but think they should just be transparent with everyone.

I think they are being transparent the best they can be. So far when they’ve moved opening times earlier crowds have just come earlier. If they call it 630 officially at this point I would just assume the crowd comes earlier and actual opening time is just bumped ahead.

If people are taking Disney’s word that 7 AM is gate opening and not showing up until then, those people are still going to be behind the masses that came at 430-5,whether or not they are let in early.

 

[evilqueenmindy]

Well, we (myself and 11year old nephew) are going to do the insane thing and go to DHS tomorrow. We are driving from about an hour away, the plan is to be there between 5 and 5:30. I’ll report back on our experience.

 

[mixmastertoy]

What group number did they get up to today?

 

[hiroMYhero]

What group number did they get up to today?

No one knows because Disney doesn’t announce total BG distribution.

It’s pure guessing up until the last group boards for the day as noted on the app.

 

[mixmastertoy]

No one knows because Disney doesn’t announce total BG distribution.

It’s pure guessing up until the last group boards for the day as noted on the app.

Yea I know just wanted to see if they would open up anymore if they get through everyone. It hasn’t happened yet but one day it will lll

 

[charmed59]

If they really wanted to discourage folks from lining up early they could. They could randomize the BGs handed out for the first hour, so showing up at 5am would give you no advantage over showing up at 7am. They could not open Boarding groups until after official opening time, so you could get into the park, you just couldn’t ride before opening time. I’m sure with a little thought there’s lots of ways to encourage crowds to show up later.

I think Disney doesn’t mind the early start. It works for them.

 

[Roocatty]

Now that we've come back and had some rest after our busy day. I wanted to thank everyone for the time and effort they have put in sharing experiences. Without the people on this board, and the info you all shared, we would have had zero chance to have this experience. It was an amazing ride! I hope our feet allow us to try again this week, but two days of rain soaked shoes will do you in. Thank you guys so much!

 

[yulilin3]

If they really wanted to discourage folks from lining up early they could. They could randomize the BGs handed out for the first hour, so showing up at 5am would give you no advantage over showing up at 7am. They could not open Boarding groups until after official opening time, so you could get into the park, you just couldn’t ride before opening time. I’m sure with a little thought there’s lots of ways to encourage crowds to show up later.

I think Disney doesn’t mind the early start. It works for them.

Random release would create a lot of angry guests that showed up with the intention of joining a bg and don't know exactly when they will open
The second scenario of waiting until official opening time won't stop people coming early to be inside the park as soon as bg open
Disney does mind the early start, again they have to have a full staff in place hours before opening times

 

[DGsAtBLT]

If they really wanted to discourage folks from lining up early they could. They could randomize the BGs handed out for the first hour, so showing up at 5am would give you no advantage over showing up at 7am. They could not open Boarding groups until after official opening time, so you could get into the park, you just couldn’t ride before opening time. I’m sure with a little thought there’s lots of ways to encourage crowds to show up later.

I think Disney doesn’t mind the early start. It works for them.

I think a randomized system is a good way to have a lot of pissed off people at guest relations. Waiting until a certain time to open BG (not an action, like entering the park) just means a bigger load on the system as well as rewarding faster fingers and those in the know, or just a mess like the EMH Sunday where they opened it about 40 minutes before stated time and 25 before announced time.

Rewarding the people who get there first and enter first is how people generally assume busy/popular things operate. I think it's the closest to fair they can do.

 

[wareagle57]

No one knows because Disney doesn’t announce total BG distribution.

It’s pure guessing up until the last group boards for the day as noted on the app.

Right, but most days we’ve had a pretty good idea. I know reports have dropped off a little but figured someone would have a report of a BG distributed near the time they ran out.

 

[WawaCoffee]

Silly idea... but what would the harm be in dropping the boarding groups and just letting people stand in line? Is it a crowd capacity issue? I'd much rather stand in line for a few hours at 2pm than wake up at 5am.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

Silly idea... but what would the harm be in dropping the boarding groups and just letting people stand in line? Is it a crowd capacity issue? I'd much rather stand in line for a few hours at 2pm than wake up at 5am.

First, the ride is not reliable yet. It goes down pretty frequently still. That means eventually they would have to clear the line and (hopefully) give out FP, multiple times a day. Trying multiple times a day to ride in a line that is a few hours at best would be maddening. Second, a few hours in the middle of the afternoon is very optimistic of you lol. I think realistically it's more like half a park day in line, unless you are near the front of the pack.

I actually think rope drop would be even more unpleasant and pushed even earlier if people are facing the prospect of getting there at the front of the pack or having to actually be in a line for hours (maybe to not even ride - breakdowns).

 

[yulilin3]

Silly idea... but what would the harm be in dropping the boarding groups and just letting people stand in line? Is it a crowd capacity issue? I'd much rather stand in line for a few hours at 2pm than wake up at 5am.

a couple of things:
The attractions is unreliable at the moment. They don't know when it will go down, partially own or completely down
Imagine being in a standby line for 3 hours only to be told the ride is down and they don't know how long it will take to come back up
Disney wants you having fun and spending money. "trapping" people in standby lines for hours is not their idea of the guest having a good time o Disney making money off of you
Because the ride is so unreliable the standby line would spill out of RotR queue and onto other parts of DHS, disrupting operations and inconveniencing the guests
Having thousands of people in a line that doesn't move or moves very slowly for numerous hours creates a mob mentality. More people will get cranky and into fights, with other guests or CM
From all the reports from people experiencing the ride so far we've seen mostly a positive look at the VQ system, with most people able to do the entire park in a couple of hours, freeing time to do other things in other parks or go back to their rooms feeling fulfilled
Those that been issued fp and tickets or other form of guest recovery are happy that they only lost an hour of park time before being evacuated. Disney is not allowing people to wait for hours inside the queue while waiting to have the issues fixed.

 

[CarolynFH]

Silly idea... but what would the harm be in dropping the boarding groups and just letting people stand in line? Is it a crowd capacity issue? I'd much rather stand in line for a few hours at 2pm than wake up at 5am.

We remember well when Toy Story Midway Mania opened. Every day, rope drop was like the running of the bulls, people running, pushing, shoving to be the first to get a FP from the machine and then to run into the standby line. It was a very dangerous situation for everyone, and often FPs ran out for the entire day by 10 or 11 AM. If they dropped the boarding groups and just let people stand in line, it would be TSMM all over again, minus the stop at the FP kiosk before entering the standby line.

 

[SirBill]

We remember well when Toy Story Midway Mania opened. Every day, rope drop was like the running of the bulls, people running, pushing, shoving to be the first to get a FP from the machine and then to run into the standby line. It was a very dangerous situation for everyone...

So what you are saying here is, they should let people do this for Rise of the Resistance also, but change the name to "Rise of the Resistance Mania" to give you a better idea of what you would be experiencing trying to reach the ride.

It certainly would add to the immersion of the ride! Maybe you could have First Order troopers chasing the crowd, encouraging everyone to run faster.

 

[Cayaco]

Is this where we do the whole trip report thing?

Arrived at the parking lot at 4:15 this morning, drove right up to the front and parked.

Security had a bunch of people in two bag lines and one no bag line. Security kept splitting the lines up as the manned all of the lines. The lines kept halving each time. By the end of this we were about 10th in our line.

Security opened around 5am, we (did not of course) run to the turnstiles. Everyone stayed to the left, we went to the right.



I guess I was kinda close to the turnstile when all was said and done. Sat there with that view until about 6:15.



There were a few folks behind us as the park opened.

Park opened 6:15/6:20 or so. Tapped in, started refreshing app, app refused to do anything, CMs said wait 5 minutes, kept pushing buttons, wasn't working, found a customer experience person who heard our plea and used his iPad to get us in a group (2 people), was placed in group 10.

At this time, 6:2something, park was fully open except for Rise, all other rides open for business.

Groups 8-12 were called at 7:20. A lightning storm prevented cast members from opening the ride until then. Hung out in the tunnel between GE and Muppets area until groups started loading.

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Other things to note.. by the time we were ready to be let into security we could see the line of cars out at the entrance to the lot building up along the main road, the line was long and constant compared to 4am when it was just a handful of nuts rolling in one at a time.

ALL SECURITY LINES WERE OPENED. As in every single one including the ones over around the right corner by the gondolas. You can pick any line you want even if it's not ready when you arrive, all open at the exact same time and every single one is staffed. You can get first in any line you want because most people will stand behind someone else and be afraid to risk it. Disclaimer: This was how it was today and from what we were told on other weekends as well. Fully staffed security.

We had time to ride Rockin' and ToT before heading over to GE. Lines over there were 0 and "13".

Smuggler's, when we were done with Rise posted a wait time of 55. It was actually 32 minutes.

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Finally, Rise is mind blowing. Thanks.

 

[PetePanMan]

How are they not being transparent?
They publish the opening time. Disney has always led the gate a bit to get the crowd moving

...By posting a false opening time knowing they will open hours earlier. They are fully staffed to open hours earlier. To be clear, I like the VQ overall but imo they are not being transparent and those more in the know (including me) benefit over others. This isn’t a big deal for me and I do appreciate the dilemma they face but I just somehow don’t feel right about the communication.

 

[wareagle57]

Silly idea... but what would the harm be in dropping the boarding groups and just letting people stand in line? Is it a crowd capacity issue? I'd much rather stand in line for a few hours at 2pm than wake up at 5am.

I strongly disagree. We don’t know how long the lines actually would be, but I’m guessing in the 5 hour range. 5am is also completely unnecessary IMO. And with the breakdowns you certainly have a better chance to ride with a BG than hoping the ride doesn’t break down in your multiple hour wait.

I don’t like getting up early either, but there is no way I could have ridden as many times as I have without the BG system. Yeah, you need to get there by 7 at the latest, but it frees up so much of your day. I’d wait 3 hours for this ride once, maybe twice. I don’t think I’d wait 5 hours even once, and it’s the best ride I’ve ever seen. But because of BGs I was able to ride 5 times in the first 4 days and only spent more than an hour in line one of those times, which was when it broke down. I waited about an hour on opening day for the park to open and 30 minutes another day. The other days I just showed up right after park opening. So around 5 hours of waiting plus a few minutes of transportation time to ride 5 times. I barely could have ridden it once with the same time commitment with standby.

 

[CT Disney]

I've been following this thread since the morning the ride opened. Fascinating stuff on crowd management. Overall, Disney has done a good job and it seems like the VQ is working well. As a night person, I wish that getting there at 5:00 or 6:00 wasn't the norm. I'd be happier with 7:00 or 8:00 and think that's more reasonable for most people. I do wish they had a way to stop people from lining up until a more reasonable hour. But, I can't think of how they'd ever do that.

As the holidays get closer and the crowds seem to be increasing and arriving earlier and earlier, I do think that Disney needs to find a way to stop people from pushing ahead in the line, whether it's to meet up with family members who arrived earlier or just to gain a more advantageous spot closer to the turnstiles. It's infuriating to the guests who arrived earlier and waited patiently. I understand the motive behind "move forward and fill all available space" but I think it just encourages people who arrived later to push ahead of people who arrived before they did. Disney needs to form fair lines and monitor them.