Asking for opinions on ROTR

[bruinred]

We live fifteen minutes from Disneyland and are taking our college and High school age kids to WDW next weekend. We only have four days on the ground, We have park hoppers. We have been to WDW about a dozen times. I’m probably answering my own question, but looking for advice from people who’ve arrived at Hollywood Studios early to join boarding groups for Rise of the Resistance. Is it worth it? What time did you actually arrive at the park? if you only had four days, and lived close enough to Disneyland that you could ride Rise of the Resistance this summer, would you spend the time and wake up super early to do so? We have not been to toy story land yet. Thanks in advance for your input. We are really good at getting to the parks early to beat the crowds, but we are reading that we might need to arrive at 4 or 5 am and that seems like maybe something we don’t want to do.

 

[KayaWildfire]

The issue with not going early(whether or not you are going to RoTR) is that the lines will be huge in TSL with the hoards of people being let in early. I don't think you need to be there at 4 or 5 am if you are fine with an evening boarding group or none at all and just want to rope drop other things. Be advised the park does open at 7am next weekend so I would be thinking a 6 or 6:30am arrival. As far as the ride, they're clones so you tell me if you're fine with waiting a few months to ride. Some would be, some wouldn't be.

 

[hiroMYhero]

if you only had four days, and lived close enough to Disneyland that you could ride Rise of the Resistance this summer, would you spend the time and wake up super early to do so?

I live an hour away from Disneyland, will be in FL on Thursday for a 16-day visit, and won’t be burning comp tickets nor buying tickets to enter DHS.

If CMs and their families weren’t blocked out, I’d get an onsite room at an Epcot resort and head to Studios early 1 day. But, I’ll have DL APs soon as a Christmas gift so we’ll wait to ride RotR in DLand.

What do the kids want to do? You can always send them to Studios early and meet them later if you don’t care about riding.

Also check wait times for TSL on the app. AS2, Alien Swirling Saucers, is exactly like Mater’s so you’d only really need to ride SDD in TSL and wait times shouldn’t be bad at park open.

 

[brad813]

We live fifteen minutes from Disneyland and are taking our college and High school age kids to WDW next weekend. We only have four days on the ground, We have park hoppers. We have been to WDW about a dozen times. I’m probably answering my own question, but looking for advice from people who’ve arrived at Hollywood Studios early to join boarding groups for Rise of the Resistance. Is it worth it? What time did you actually arrive at the park? if you only had four days, and lived close enough to Disneyland that you could ride Rise of the Resistance this summer, would you spend the time and wake up super early to do so? We have not been to toy story land yet. Thanks in advance for your input. We are really good at getting to the parks early to beat the crowds, but we are reading that we might need to arrive at 4 or 5 am and that seems like maybe something we don’t want to do.

From what I have been hearing, most of the boarding groups are gone by a half hour after opening, so I would time it so you arrive around 6AM-7AM at the very latest. Most of the people there will only have one, maybe two chances to ride it since, as you know, it is not a locals park like Disneyland. I would try to get a boarding group if you can, but you do have Disneyland to fall back on if you can't get one for Hollywood Studios. I am in a similar situation since I go to WDW in January and Disneyland sometime next year, and this is what I have been able to figure out from my own planning.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

Only you know how badly you want to do it (and how badly FOMO might be when you're actually there), but assuming you're frequent DLR guests and only have a limited time in WDW, I vote wait. You also have teens, I don't know how yours are but lots aren't big on waking up early, and you're also from California so it's really a 2-4 AM arrival for you guys depending when you get there.

 

[SirBill]

We live fifteen minutes from Disneyland and are taking our college and High school age kids to WDW next weekend. We only have four days on the ground, We have park hoppers. We have been to WDW about a dozen times. I’m probably answering my own question, but looking for advice from people who’ve arrived at Hollywood Studios early to join boarding groups for Rise of the Resistance. Is it worth it? What time did you actually arrive at the park? if you only had four days, and lived close enough to Disneyland that you could ride Rise of the Resistance this summer, would you spend the time and wake up super early to do so? We have not been to toy story land yet. Thanks in advance for your input. We are really good at getting to the parks early to beat the crowds, but we are reading that we might need to arrive at 4 or 5 am and that seems like maybe something we don’t want to do.

Given your unique situation, I'd get to the park about 45-30 minutes ahead of park opening, which would give you a later boarding group. Then first thing, head over and enjoy Toy Story land staring with Slinky Dog, since you can't get that in California... you'll have the advantage of trying out all the stuff in Florida you can't get in DisneyLand, along with one ride on Rise of the Resistance - which is totally worth effort to ride it as much as you can. Then you can enjoy subsequent runs back in California starting later in January, having already had the first experience so you can start to look around more at details, but if for soem reason the ride doesn't work out on the day you were there at least you had a good Toy Story start without crowds (or at least as many crowds, being the holiday maybe even that will fill up fast!).

 

[Weedy]

Plan on going your first day when your body is still on California time

 

[Alynw]

My personal opinion. Why wait on what is being conceived as the best ride in the entire planet rite now. If you live rite beside Disneyland than it would only seem the only real reason to even go to wdw would be to ride ROR before it opens at Disneyland. I say u make plans to go early on the very first day ur there, just go early about 6am and get it done and over with and then spend the next 3 days sleeping in and relaxing and going at ur own pace. Then u will know how to or if it's even worth doing at Disneyland. Plus, with hopper tickets, u can go early and get ur boarding group and if its packed at HS u can just go to another park until ur notified. I say go for it.

 

[Pamela M]

I go to Disneyland regularly and just got back from WDW. My plan for ROTR was if I get a boarding group we are going on it if not no big deal I'll ride it when it opens at Disneyland. Park open posted a 7am open but they opened early at 6:30 we scanned into the park at 7:47am and got boarding group 104 - got inline for the ride at 6:30pm
No matter your plans you want to try and get to the parks early - within an hour the lines grow for all rides from 10-15 to 30-45minutes.

 

[bruinred]

Thank you guys. I appreciate the input. Pretty sure we are going to go early to see Toy Story Land and see if we can get a boarding group. Can’t wait, 4 days.

 

[spot28]

Thank you guys. I appreciate the input. Pretty sure we are going to go early to see Toy Story Land and see if we can get a boarding group. Can’t wait, 4 days.

Just went with two college age sons who I can never get up before noon at home and they were on board getting up at 4am. They both said it was worth it and the sheer excitement when we got BG 14 was enough to make me not regret it either. One shouting "YES! YES! YES!" through the whole ride was soooo worth it!

 

[evilqueenmindy]

I went Sunday with my nephew (he is 11). We are about an hour from HS, we got up at 4, arrived at the park and were thru security at 5:30am. Waited with a few thousand of our best friends until park open at 6:20 (scheduled 7am opening).
Upon being let in, the crowd disperses pretty quickly. We got boarding group 31, and headed off to smugglers run (slinky dog was our original destination but it was down).
After smugglers run, we did both the TSL attractions with short waits (slinky dog was testing while we got in line at TSM, and by the time we got off, it was over an hour. We’ve done slinky dog several times so we skipped it)

Our boarding group was called at 10am, and we had done just about everything we wanted to before boarding.
Sunday was pretty crowded, but the early morning was very manageable, don’t let the outside crowd scare you.

One tip- Bring snacks if you don’t want to waste time in line for food in the morning. There are only a couple service places and the Starbucks open for breakfast, with all other locations opening around 11. The line for woody’s lunchbox was longer than the swirling saucers, and even mobile order looked pretty backed up. We had snacks to make it until our 11am ADR at Sci-fi.

Bottom line- totally worth getting out of bed at 4am for us. The ride is fantastic, I cannot wait to get back and do it again.

 

[bruinred]

Well, we went to HS on 12/23. I can’t remember when we arrived, maybe 830? We got a very lat boarding group, I want to say 150 something or 160 something, or maybe 125, I can’t remember. But it was our last day there and we left to see the castle and the fireworks at Magic Kingdom. Our boarding group was called at 6pm ish. We didn’t go back. We had a car picking us up at 10 to take us to the airport. So we will wait til summer when everyone is home from school and head over to Disneyland super early one morning to get a boarding group. We don’t regret missing it. It was a unanimous decision. We had a great time. And I appreciate you all taking the time to respond. It helped.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Thanks for checking in OP. Good luck in DL this summer.

Going to close this as some of the original advice/info from mid December above is now outdated.