Obtaining a Boarding Group for Rise of the Resistance

 I thought I would share my experience for obtaining a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance to, first, help people that might be wondering what the process intails and, second, to help preserve history since, I'm sure, boarding groups won't always be required. 

Our first time attemting to make a reservation for a boarding group was actually at Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World, Florida on June 22, 2021. The fact that we weren't guaranteed a spot on the attraction left my family of 7 all feeling a little on edge and nervous - not something I really wanted to be feeling on a vacation that we had been planning for 2 years. But that was the reality of it so we did our research and when the time came to make the attempt, we were ready.

Both my wife, Liz, and I downloaded the Walt Disney World App on our phones because we knew we needed it to make the reservation among other things, such as mobile orders, checking out wait times thoughout the park, and having our tickets and park reservations all in one place.

I should also briefly mention that at this time (in June of 2021) you also needed to make a seperate reservation to go to the Disney World Park you wanted to go to for the day in addition to having a ticket. For example, on this day, the 22nd, we were going to Hollywood studios so, in addition to our 6 day parks ticket, I also had to make a seperate reservation to go to Hollywood Studios. The day before we had done the same thing at Epcot. According to Disney it was done to help establish attendence limits during the Coronavirus craze but the cynic in me wonders if it was really more of a way for Disney to just plan for things like staffing, ordering, etc. I guess we'll see as things return back to normal if Disney keeps the reservation system anyway...

Anyway, back to our experience... we were able to attempt to make a reservation for a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance at 7:00am the day of our entrance into Hollywood Studios. Since Hollywood Studios didn't open until 9:00am that morning, it meant that we would be waking up early to make the attempt from our hotel. 

At 6:50am, I woke my Liz up. She had the official world time up on her phone and I had the Disney World App up, clicked on "Virtual Queues" and then waited to click "Join Virtual Queue" until just the right time. (I had already linked all of our families tickets by scanning the barcodes on the back of the tickets into my phone). 

First I clicked on "Virtual Queues" second from the top on the left.

And at 6:59 and 59 seconds, I clicked on "Join Virtual Queue"

I had Liz count me down from 6:59:50 (six fifty nine and 50 seconds) to 6:59:59. And at 6:59 and 59 seconds, I clicked "Join Virtual Queue." I was then directed to another page to conform my party (the seven of us were already in there because, as I stated earlier, I had already linked our tickets) and clicked to join the queue. We received boarding group number 47 (If I remember correctly) which is extremely early. Disney typically is able to get through around 240 boarding groups a day, on a day with no major attraction downtime.

When we tried this process again the next month at Disneyland, we were met with much different results. We tried 2 different days and both times, using the same method we used described above, we were not given a boarding group - rather we received a message informing us that all boarding groups were full and to try again at 12:00pm (noon). Again, not a way I want to spend my vacation - worrying about rather or not we're going to be able to get on an attraction and dropping everything we're doing at noon to try to secure another boarding group. 

But when noon came, we made another attempt. The first day we were given a "back-up boarding group" (we were about boarding group 263 or so) and we were able to make it on around 8:30pm at night. The second day we tried at noon we got boarding group 174 and made it on around 2:30pm or so. When our boarding group was called, I received a notification on my phone like this:

You have a 1 hour window to return in. 

My Take:

Making the boarding group reservation was pretty easy as far as the technology aspect of it goes. I say that because I'm definately not a technology genius. But the reason I didn't like the process is the convenience factor. I like to plan out my vacations so when I'm there I can relax. I don't want to feel "up in the air" about whether or not I am going to be able to get on an attraction during my vacation. I would rather see a 2 hour line and then decide if it's worth it to me or not to stand in line to get on the attraction.