4. Getting onto Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance can be complicated

Heading to Disney’s Hollywood Studios? We all have the same question: How do I get onto Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance?

The answer is complicated.

Disney had a tough decision to make opening this ultra-popular attraction: they didn’t want to utilize the traditional strategy of making guests lose an entire Disney day standing in a 12 hour line just to enjoy one ride. To mitigate the problem, they implemented a virtual queue which would allow a certain number of guests to visit the ride every day.

The system has gone through a number of adjustments and tweaks since opening, and it is now, essentially, a lottery. Basically, you may or may not get to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance on your day visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Here’s what you need to know:

1) As long as the Disney Park Pass reservation system is in place, Disney’s Hollywood Studios must be your main park for the day if you want to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. The virtual queue is not available to park hoppers.

2) You will need to download the My Disney Experience app on your smartphone and make sure everyone in your party is set up and connected in the app using the Friends and Family Feature.

3) As of the time of this writing, Boarding Groups for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance are distributed twice a day. The first call takes place before the park opens at 7 AM. Guests can attempt to join the virtual queue from anywhere (even outside Walt Disney World) by visiting the Rise of the Resistance Virtual Queue screen in the My Disney Experience app. As long as you have a ticket and a Disney Parks Pass Reservation for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you can attempt to join the queue for that day.

4) If you fail to get a Boarding Group during the first distribution time, you can try again at 1 PM. The method is the same (using the app), but you must be inside Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

5) We have had the best luck getting boarding groups by starting to refresh the Boarding Group screen by swiping down at around 6:59 PM. Repeat this every few seconds and use the fastest internet you have access to (in our case, this is our home Wi-Fi; inside Disney parks, we get better results using cellular data). If one member of your party gets the option to join a group, have them add everyone and secure the group immediately. If something bugs out, have them get a group anyways. You can talk to the Guest Experience Teams inside the park to see if you can get the rest of your party added if there was a technical glitch.

6) Sometimes, you may be added to a “Backup” boarding group. These are groups that may be able to ride later in the day if the ride doesn’t have any major breakdowns. We have gotten onto the ride in backup groups, but there aren’t any guarantees since the ride does suffer from occasional breakdowns.

As park capacity continues to increase at Walt Disney World, it is going to continue to get more and more difficult to get onto Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Go in prepared that you may or may not get a group, and have a good backup plan of other fun things you can do throughout your day in the event things don’t work out.  

5. Take your time at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

I’ve written about Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge extensively, and the top tip I can give for enjoying this incredible land is to take your time.

Immersion is king at Walt Disney World and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is the ultimate example of this. The land itself is an attraction.

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is unique among theme park lands in that it is set in a very specific location in the Star Wars universe: in the Black Spire Outpost of the planet Batuu. Your visit actually takes place on a specific day in the actual Star Wars canon in between The Last Jedi and Rise of the Skywalker.

Every element of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge tells a story, from the inscriptions on the wall to the merchandise in the stores. All of the cast members you meet play roles as locals living on the planet, and they will adjust their interactions with guests accordingly depending on how much you engage (while they don’t “break character” unless they have to, they will treat you as sort of galactic tourist from another world so they can still be helpful).

Along with the two rides, the land full of other incredible experiences. Some of these are free-exploration spaces like Dok Ondar’s Den of Antiquities (a happy place for fans of Star Wars lore) or the booths of the Jewels of Bith marketplace. The land also offers several experiences guests can enjoy at additional cost, such as the lightsaber building experience at Savi’s Workshop, building a droid at the Droid Depot, or visiting Oga’s Cantina (get reservations early if you can). Previously, wandering characters also played an integral role in the immersive experience of the land—these are still around, but they’re staying distanced from guests for now.

One last thing: the land actually includes a “secret” attraction. Star Wars Datapad is a game on the Play Disney Parks app (available for Android and iPhone) that allows guests to interact with elements throughout Galaxy’s Edge including data consoles, land speeders, starships, droids, and more. Not only does the game cause elements in the land to react to what you do in the app, but it’s a great way to explore the details of the Black Spire Outpost.  

6. Line trends are difficult to predict right now

Predicting crowd patterns is easier at some Disney parks than others—for example, Magic Kingdom has slowly reverted back to familiar crowd traffic patterns in recent months.

Lines at Disney’s Hollywood Studios aren’t as straightforward to predict.

We’ve seen a few things play out consistently at Disney’s Hollywood Studios if you’re looking to reduce your time spent in line:

1) Arriving well before opening is a good idea, particularly if you can get there an hour early. If nothing else, you will get a major head start on your day. The one attraction that sees massive lines first thing in the morning is Slinky Dog Dash. If you can’t be one of the first people in line for it, you may want to wait to visit it later in the day and choose another high-demand attraction to start your day. Lines rarely get truly low for Slinky Dog Dash, but waits do taper down sometimes.

2) Many people head straight for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway early in the morning. This attraction has such high capacity that it almost always sees lower waits later in the day. Saving it for later is usually a good idea.

3) Wait times are unusually erratic right now largely because the park’s live shows haven’t returned yet. The return of these shows will help smooth out line trends a little bit. In the meanwhile, you can expect wait times to peak shortly after opening (particularly by around 10:30 AM), then ebb back and forth throughout the day, with some high-popularity rides seeing peaks in the early evening between 5 and 6:30 PM. We are still seeing lower wait times for many attractions during the last two hours the park is open. This is likely to continue until fireworks resume at this park.

4) If you see a short line for a popular attraction, take advantage of it! Long waits are more enjoyable at some attractions than others. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, in particular, has quite an enjoyable queue area as well as a fun game you can try on the Play Disney Parks app.

5) Take advantage of single rider lines if they are open! These are a great way to enjoy top attractions without a significant wait.

With the ongoing shifts in capacity and pandemic policies, pinning down the best time to hit each attraction is not easy right now. Take advantage of sites like TouringPlans.com to get the most up to date idea on what line trends for attractions look like.