Securing a virtual boarding pass for Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios continues to be one of the biggest challenges at Walt Disney World. Despite reduced attendance, boarding groups are still vanishing seconds after they go live. Is it harder than ever to experience Rise of the Resistance?
Prior to the parks temporarily closing, guests frantically tried to join a boarding group as soon as they went live in the morning. All of the boarding groups for the day would be claimed within minutes. Since reopening, the virtual boarding group process has been handled a bit differently.
Guests had three times during the day – which has since been reduced to two times per day – to join a boarding group. As of the date of this article, guests can try to get a virtual boarding pass at 10:00am or 2:00pm. It’s believed Disney doesn’t want people waiting around in the park all day trying to get a group, so they cut down the options to two times with expanded groups.
Have the changes made things easier? Not really.
Boarding passes continue to vanish almost immediately. Guests who have a slow trigger finger on their smart phone are left on the outside looking in. Even experienced Disney guests who have secured boarding groups in the past are having a tough time.
The underlying factor here is that Rise of the Resistance has had capacity issues ever since it opened. That problem has been multiplied through reduced capacity due to new social distancing requirements. Only one group is allowed per ride vehicle, which may mean a party of one has an eight-person vehicle all to themselves.
In addition to reduced capacity, Rise of the Resistance continues to face downtime. Keeping the ride up for the entire day has proven to be quite the challenge. Disney has been forced to plan for those outages, making the pool of available boarding passes shrink even smaller.
Will Rise of the Resistance ever find its footing and be able to meet guest demand?
