READ POST 1 & 2 FIRST-Rise of the Resistance Boarding Group Planning and Information-*No Spoilers*

[Miffy]

Sorry to chime in on this, because I haven't read every thread on here, but How does one practice prior to going...I'm assuming once you open the APP, it'll recognize that I am not down in WDW, and also not checked into a park, Correct? Am I missing something

No, that's correct. But you can get up to the point to selecting your group. So the practice is just a matter of timing--seeing how long it takes your app to open and what the screen looks like after you hit Find Out More.

 

[mirandag819]

Sorry to chime in on this, because I haven't read every thread on here, but How does one practice prior to going...I'm assuming once you open the APP, it'll recognize that I am not down in WDW, and also not checked into a park, Correct? Am I missing something

you can go through the steps, on the final screen instead of getting a boarding group then you get an error that you haven’t entered the park.

 

[yulilin3]

Sorry to chime in on this, because I haven't read every thread on here, but How does one practice prior to going...I'm assuming once you open the APP, it'll recognize that I am not down in WDW, and also not checked into a park, Correct? Am I missing something

read post 1 for instructions

 

[DizDaD7]

No, that's correct. But you can get up to the point to selecting your group. So the practice is just a matter of timing--seeing how long it takes your app to open and what the screen looks like after you hit Find Out More.

you can go through the steps, on the final screen instead of getting a boarding group then you get an error that you haven’t entered the park.

read post 1 for instructions

OK, I see. Main thing would be timing the 8:00.00 clicking on my actual phone I'm assuming right, and not before...I'm sure everyones watches/etc. are all tad different..

 

[yulilin3]

OK, I see. Main thing would be timing the 8:00.00 clicking on my actual phone I'm assuming right, and not before...I'm sure everyones watches/etc. are all tad different..

if you read just a couple of pages back you can see the different methods people use, they look at their clocks, some wait 5 seconds after it turns to 8 so me use gov time...

 

[iheartglaciers]

Report from this morning... we left Bay Lake Tower in a schedule Uber around 7am, arrived at HS around 7:20am without much congestion.

We had 4 phones ranging from iPhone 6 to 11 all on AT&T data (wifi and Bluetooth turned off). We varied opening the app from 8-10 seconds before 8am.

I waited about 2 seconds after 8am to press Find Out More. Three of us, including me, got greyed out buttons on both the next screen and after My Status. I kept going back and forth between screens to refresh with no luck.

My sister had the app ask her to log in when she pressed My Status. After logging in (and checking the password on notepad since she was using our friend’s MDE log-in) she was able to complete the process and get BG 40.

I practiced at home a few times and have never gotten greyed out buttons on both pages until today! Fortunately 1 of 4 phones got through even after my sister had to log in again.

Our BG was called at around 10am. We entered the queue around 10:20ish, but the ride is down now so we’re waiting. Hopefully it’ll be back up soon!

 

[joelkfla]

I just want to share my experience for today. We arrived to HS at about 7:20am. Got through security and the gates pretty quickly and gathered with the hoard of people outside SWGE on the Indiana Jones side. My husband and I both had the app going. We both started refreshing around 7:59. At 8, on my phone, nothing happened. I couldn’t select a BG at all. DH got to almost the final step and got an error, had to back out and start again. He finally got us backup BG 98. We were called around 6:30pm and went straight there as we were finishing up at H&V. The line moved very fast, and the ride was great! I really did not have high hopes, so we feel very lucky that we just got to ride it.

We were at HS today, as mentioned got BG 14 today. Were called slightly after 8 and rode just before 10. Someone earlier mentioned a 1 hour return time, which is strange since we did not have this.

We were also there on Monday and crowds today definitely seemed smaller. We could actually walk around GE and see what it looked like without wall to wall people everywhere. Still super busy obviously, but more manageable today.

Today my phone, iPhone 10 on data got the boarding group. My husbands phone, iPhone 11Pro on data got an error message about not being able to connect. Good thing we were both trying! On Monday my husbands phone got it first, BG 5.

We don’t have a US data plan, but after seeing how spotty wifi is throughout the park, we did not want to rely on this and used data both days. Monday we were near SDD today near TOT.

Our process - re start our phones around 7.40am, my husband opened the app at 7.58 and myself at 7.59 and waited until 8 to click. Always had to go through My Status to get a group, but were successful with a low BG both days. Today probably could have been a bit lower, but my fingers were frozen so had to click select all a couple times before I hit the right spot!

As long as you know the process of what to do I’d say most have a pretty good shot at getting a BG. Only variable is if your phone glitches and can’t connect.

Thanks for all the advice here, we wouldn’t have done as well otherwise!

These and later posts seem to support the conclusion that refreshing is not a good strategy. It's best to wait until after 8:00:02 for the first hit on More Info, then if neither the red nor the blue button on the 2nd screen are available, immediately kill the app and start over.

 

[Iowamomof4]

Did anyone notice what time (approximately) all boarding groups were filled?

 

[GoHorns94]

These and later posts seem to support the conclusion that refreshing is not a good strategy. It's best to wait until after 8:00:02 for the first hit on More Info, then if neither the red nor the blue button on the 2nd screen are available, immediately kill the app and start over.

I’ll second this - same thing happened to me this morning when practicing. Tried twice refreshing after hitting more info at 8:00:02 and being grayed out no matter which screen I switched to (which was a new occurrence for me - had been working fine until this morning).

I then quickly killed the app and reopened and all was good. Not sure what BG I would have received but it was before backups started at least.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

you can always practice Disneyland time, just download the app for DL and it's the same process (if it's a time issue)

Great suggestion!

More days than not, I end up being unable to practice at 8am EST (of course, the other day when they actually gave BGs to people practicing was one of the times I wasn't practicing!).

Practicing 3 hours later when Disneyland opens, I'm more likely to be able to practice every day. That said, I feel like I've practiced enough at this point that I'm thoroughly familiar with what to click and when. I might just do some refresher practice right before our trip.

One wrinkle with this strategy (maybe there's a work-around that I didn't consider):

I attempted practicing using the Disneyland app this morning, but I don't have Disneyland tickets linked, so I don't think it's possible to do this unless you specifically have Disneyland tickets.

I didn't want to try linking my WDW tickets in case that created issues with MDE on the Orlando side, but I doubt that would work anyway.

At this point, I don't think I really need any more practice, so it wasn't worth the hassle to try and make the Disneyland app work. But maybe for others this is still a valuable option.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Did anyone notice what time (approximately) all boarding groups were filled?

It was 8:30am.

 

[LegoMom3]

Question regarding using the app to get in a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance....

On our trip it will just be DH and I. I am in charge of everything for this trip, so all resorts, passes, dining, etc., are done via my account and show up in my app. He is also there as the other member of our party.

Can I be the only one trying to get us in a boarding group, or does he have to be doing the same thing on his phone with the app??

I ask because as we all know, one of the things that shows up in the app are resort reservations, but I am surprising him with a Deluxe stay at the end of the trip. If he had access to our account on the app, he'll see that.....

 

[CanadianEmily]

Given that I managed to get into the first boarding group (5) on two separate days this week, I feel like I should post what we did, although I don't think it was anything particularly special.

First, I'll say that we're Canadian, but we got temporary American SIM cards for our trip. They were on AT&T. My phone is a Pixel 3. I turned off WiFi and used data. Those are all the tech specs. We had a clock app open and I opened my app around 30 seconds before 8am. We watched the clock until 5 seconds before and then I just counted down to one from there, while my husband closed the clock and switched over to the app on his phone, but it was me who ended up getting the pass. Right when I counted to zero, I clicked "Find out more", the "Join Boarding Group" button was red on both days and I got right in with Group 5. Both days, Group 5 was called around 8:15am. On Monday, we were given a two hour return window. On Friday we were only given a one hour return window (good thing my husband noticed that). On Monday, all seats were being filled and the line was short, probably also due to the longer return window. On Friday, they took us through with only one other group, and the line was longer but still not bad, less than 30 minutes. I know they had issues that day and empty cars were going through, but our ride was fine. It was actually really nice to go through it in a smaller group, though not nice that it was due to malfunctions.

In terms of our park arrival strategy, on Monday we drove from Pop Century and didn't leave our room until about 7:10. On Friday we decided to take the bus, left our room at 6:50 and were in the park much earlier. Wandered around a couple stores, went over to the Launch Bay area to meet some characters at rope drop, and got our boarding group there. Monday we were along the sidewalk near the entrance.

Edited to say that my manual countdown from 5 seconds to zero was nice and slow, lol. My husband started counting down from 10 while we still had the clock open and he was counting so fast, way ahead of the clock. I told him to stop and I took over, lol. Then I waited probably an extra half second when I hit zero to make sure I was really after 8am.

 

[yulilin3]

Question regarding using the app to get in a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance....

On our trip it will just be DH and I. I am in charge of everything for this trip, so all resorts, passes, dining, etc., are done via my account and show up in my app. He is also there as the other member of our party.

Can I be the only one trying to get us in a boarding group, or does he have to be doing the same thing on his phone with the app??

I ask because as we all know, one of the things that shows up in the app are resort reservations, but I am surprising him with a Deluxe stay at the end of the trip. If he had access to our account on the app, he'll see that.....

merged you to the right thread. Read post 1 for all info.
If you want to keep it a surprise you can log in by yourself and join a bg

 

[wisblue]

OK, I see. Main thing would be timing the 8:00.00 clicking on my actual phone I'm assuming right, and not before...I'm sure everyones watches/etc. are all tad different..

Even more important than timing the first click is getting familiar with the screens that follow so you know what to click next without having to search or read any instructions. Selecting the actual boarding group can be a little tricky if your Family and Friends list is long and has people who will not be with you in the park.

It also helps to be prepared to know what to do if the red boarding group button doesn’t appear when you first click in or if you run into any error messages.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

These and later posts seem to support the conclusion that refreshing is not a good strategy. It's best to wait until after 8:00:02 for the first hit on More Info, then if neither the red nor the blue button on the 2nd screen are available, immediately kill the app and start over.

This has always been my experience as well (on iphone 7, 8, X, and 11max). While refreshing seems to work for some, the buttons never come active for me using that method and I end up having to close and restart the app. Waiting until a few seconds before 8am and starting the app has always resulted in having the "join" button active right away.

As PP stated above, getting familiar with the screens so you already know what/where to click and selecting your actual boarding group are the aspects of practicing that will most likely result in the highest success rate (I'll be able to see if my practicing will pay off in a few weeks).

We're meeting family there, but I won't know for sure who's going to be there on which mornings until right before, so I'm practicing for any contingency using different methods to select my party... starting with "select all" and then removing some, followed by another attempt where I select each person individually, and then repeating those processes but selecting a different set of people.

Despite not being able to just click on "select all" and go, I've gotten pretty fast at selecting different permutations of my party. I usually get in 2-4 succesful attempts (i.e., get to the "not so fast" screen) before it goes to backup groups. So, I'm feeling confident that on "D-Day" I'll be able to get a BG. Plus, I'll have some others in my party also trying as a safety net in case my phone has problems when it counts.

 

[CarolynFH]

Question regarding using the app to get in a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance....

On our trip it will just be DH and I. I am in charge of everything for this trip, so all resorts, passes, dining, etc., are done via my account and show up in my app. He is also there as the other member of our party.

Can I be the only one trying to get us in a boarding group, or does he have to be doing the same thing on his phone with the app??

I ask because as we all know, one of the things that shows up in the app are resort reservations, but I am surprising him with a Deluxe stay at the end of the trip. If he had access to our account on the app, he'll see that.....

merged you to the right thread. Read post 1 for all info.
If you want to keep it a surprise you can log in by yourself and join a bg

Or just don’t tell him about getting the BG together until after you check in to the resort and the surprise has been accomplished.

 

[disneymagic246]

Are they still pre-loading the SDD queue itself, and if so were you in the queue or the mass of people looking at the queue?
Sorry this is a bit

We were not in the actual SDD queue, but were standing towards the front of the mob in front of the ride. There may have been people in the actual queue but we were too far back to see. Here was our timing: we arrived at turnstile line nearest the right at 6:40, turnstiles opened at 7:00, we were through turnstile speed walking toward SDD by 7:10, we arrived in front of SDD around 7:15. They let everyone in the mob start filling the queue around 8:03 after boarding groups were selected. We had a 20 minute wait from that point. We were off ride by 8:25.

 

[scrappinginontario]

By the way, this is also a great resource for boarding group data. It shows time each boarding group is called each day, and any delays. I saw this on one of the reddit groups: http://boardingpassqueue.com/?park=WDW

I am wondering how they get their data though because this is real-time.

Great chart! Trying to figure out the colour coding. Does anyone else know as it’s not on the link.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Great chart! Trying to figure out the colour coding. Does anyone else know as it’s not on the link.

This info was clear at the bottom of the page: "Worst time per group is red and best is green."