Your guide to Rise of the Resistance

When Rise of the Resistance (ROTR) opened in Disney World in early December, they immediately implemented Boarding Groups, a type of virtual queue, to manage the crowds. There is not a standby line available for ROTR. In order to experience this one-of-a-kind attraction, you do need to join a Boarding Group. This virtual queue allows you to do other things while waiting for your turn to ride, which I personally really appreciate. Here are the details for how it works (including Rider Switch at the bottom of the page):

1. Watch the park opening time for your Hollywood Studios day. They can change this up until your park day.

2. Arrive at the park 1-2 hours before opening. If you are willing to drive or take a Lyft (I prefer them over Uber), I recommend it. For reference, Disney does not post official bus arrival times for this early morning, but I am seeing reports of first HS buses around 5:20/5:25am for 7am openings. If you can catch the first bus that early, I would be thrilled, but Lyft could beat all the buses unloading.*Note: (I see this discussed in many Disney forums), you can’t join a Boarding Group until park opening anyway, but being in the front of the crowd gives you an advantage to rope drop a different ride. This will be the difference between walking onto Slinky Dog Dash or walking up to a one hour+ wait for the same ride.

3. Enter through security, scan your bands, and enter the park when they open the turnstiles. They will let you inside HS before official park opening and either hold you on Hollywood Blvd or let you split up a bit towards different lands (just recently started doing this).

4. Be ready with your MyDisneyExperience (MDE) app to join a Boarding Group right at park opening.
Tips:
*You can practice joining a Boarding Group in the app beforehand. You will need to do this from home at park opening time so the button is available for use. HS opens at 7am, 6am central, through February 2nd (as of 1/21/20). Right in the center of the home screen is Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance- Access by Boarding Group section. Click FIND OUT MORE. There you will see the JOIN BOARDING GROUP button. Click it and check your party’s names. The next screen is as far as you can go for now. It tells you that you must be inside the park to join a boarding group.
*Anyone with a smartphone should be trying to join a group from the app. Have one of you on the park wifi and another one using cell data. 
*Observe how your wifi and/or cell signal is behaving in the spot you’re waiting for the official opening. Perhaps choose one over the other.
*I recommend force closing the app one minute before park opening and making sure you logged in.
*On your actual HS day, if you get the error message that you must be inside the park, refresh your app by pulling down OR hit back OR force close until it allows you join a group.
*Position yourself close to the Guest Experience team- cast members wearing blue shirts around the park. In the event your app malfunctions, this will hopefully get in the line before groups are full.

5. Tour the park while you wait for your boarding group to be called. Once your group is called, you have two hours to enter the ROTR queue. 

Other considerations:
Once all the boarding groups are full, Disney opens up “Backup Boarding Groups.” There is no guarantee you’ll get to ride with a backup group, but definitely join if that is what is available to you. When the ride is running well, they do get to those backup groups. It worked for us on a day during our trip.
If you are able to go back for a nap/rest on your HS day, I would highly recommend it, even if this is your only park day to do this. It is not worth being at the park if anyone or everyone is tired and cranky, so might as well. Plus, if you are able to accomplish most of the rides at HS before lunch- there aren’t many- you can rest and come back to experience the shows.
Take a look at your touring plans the night before and cut it short so you can get to bed early as well. If sleeping in is a priority to you, you will still have the same chance of getting a boarding group if you arrive at the park just minutes before the official opening. You sacrifice the front of the crowds to rope drop an attraction, but sleep can be worth it.

Bring your patience and a positive attitude! Disney and the cast members are doing everything they can to get as many people as possible on to this attraction.

Rise of the Resistance Rider Switch:
1. The ticketed members of your party will join a boarding group like usual. Yes, they will all need to be scanned into the park to join a boarding group. There are not any exceptions to this, so this will require an early morning for your family,. Expect everyone to be extra, extra, extra tired and build in rest to your touring plans.
2. When your boarding group is called, you have two hours to enter the ROTR queue. Your party will enter the boarding queue check-in together, including the infant or children who are too short to ride. They will scan the magic bands of the ticketed members of your party to confirm boarding group entry. We indicated to these cast members that we would like a rider switch, and we even pushed our stroller through the boarding group check-in.
3. You will be pointed inside the boarding area towards the cast member(s) with tablets who will add the rider switch to your magic bands. Because you are inside the boarding group check-in, everyone with a ticket in your party has shown their credentials required to ride.
4. You will tell them who is riding first and who is riding second.
5. Just like rider switch is intended to work, three people from your party will be able to be a part of the second group. Since one adult is sitting out with a small child while the first group gets to ride, that adult plus two others can ride with the second group. Yes, one or two children who are tall (and brave!) enough to ride ROTR, can ride twice with both the first and second adult.
6. The second rider switch group has one hour from checking in to board, if I recall correctly (your exact boarding window will be indicated in MyDisneyExperience). Even if you join your original boarding group towards the end of the two-hour window, your clock will be restarted. The second group will enter the boarding group check-in area and scan their magic bands just like they did the first time. We were let into the FastPass line which may have shaved a few minutes from the regular line. We walked right on and entered the first “preshow” without any wait.

Good luck and enjoy the ride! If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly: mary@ffavacations.com or facebook.com/fromthemonorail