I'll start out by saying that Rise of the Resistance is, hands down, the best non-coaster amusement park attraction I have ever done.
I detailed my January 3 experience over at DISBoards forums.There is a dedicated thread for Rise of the Resistance. In short...
- Got through security at 6:20am, already over 8,000 people waiting!
It was the first day after the holidays where silver and gold annual passholders were allowed.
- By 6:40am, I was surrounded by a sea of humanity near the Hyperion Theatre.
- Opened up the My Disney Experience app at around 6:58am.
- As soon as the clock on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S10 on T-Mobile LTE) changed to 7:00, I tapped on "Find Out More" under the Rise of the Resistance banner, tapped on "Join Boarding Group", added my family, and I got boarding group 14!
- All 125 non-backup boarding groups were allocated in under a minute.
- Our friends 10 feet away had their app crash at 7:00; by the time they were able to get back in, they got boarding group 159.
- Ride was down from opening until about 8:25am
- Was standing near the entrance when the first boarding groups were called (9-16).
- Literally walked straight into the pre-show and done in about 20 minutes.
- Ride broke down shortly afterwards for 3-4 hours; it broke down multiple times throughout the day.
- I thank my lucky stars for being able to get on the ride. Only 94 out of 125 boarding groups were able to experience Rise of the Resistance, and I believe those that rode later in the day didn't get to do everything in the experience. It was our only planned day at Hollywood Studios.
- We were flying home the next day, so being issued an anytime Rise of the Resistance Fast Pass and one-day ticket to Hollywood Studios would've been wasted on us. (I still rank Disney World/Disneyland about #1000 on my list of places I want to travel to. For point of reference, Cedar Point is top 20 for me.)
Here are my tips for the ride...
- If you don't have a Fast Pass for a popular ride at Hollywood Studios, then you will have to get there super early. 90 minutes to two hours before park opening; maybe even more when they decide to move back to 8/9am openings.
- The other strategy for popular rides would be to do the get-in-line-right-before-closing strategy; we did Millennium Falcon Smuggler's Run around 7:50pm (10pm park closing) using the Single Rider Line, and we were in and out in under 15 minutes.
- If you don't care about the other rides, or you have Fast Passes to the rides you want, you seriously do not need to show up until right before park opening. You literally can tap into the park at like 6:57am and get the same chance of a lower boarding group than someone who had been waiting there since 4:30am. You just need to plan on how long it will take for you to walk/drive to get there as well as get through security. As it approaches park opening, the lines to tap into the park should be pretty short.
- Obviously, it's quicker to get past security if you aren't carrying a bag.
- There is very little empirical evidence, but I would recommend being on your cell phone's data as opposed to Disney's wifi.
- If at all possible, clear out all family & friends from your My Disney Experience app that won't be in the park to go on the ride. Being able to click "Select All" instead of selectively pecking at people will save you time.
- If you cannot remove family & friends from the app due to errors, and they're not even in Orlando, you have to call Disney IT to have them removed.
- If you have family & friends you trust elsewhere in the world, they can also log into the My Disney Experience app with your credentials from their own phones and try to get a boarding group from you. They just need to know who is tapped into the park if you cannot do a Select All option.
- Do not use the refresh functionality within the app. Just stay on the app's main home page, then click on "Find Our More" in the Rise of the Resistance banner at exactly park opening.
- Once the ride opens, and if things go relatively well throughout the day (which is currently not a sure thing at all), you can figure out when you should be called by calculating that the ride processes about 11 boarding groups per hour. The record so far is 12.6 boarding groups per hour. Last Friday (1/17) was the worst day so far, with a rate of just 4.7; January 3 was second-worst with 5.7.
- The first boarding group number is typically 9, but it has been as low as 1 and as high as 13. (No, no one knows why it doesn't always start at 1.)
- If your boarding group is called, and it conflicts with another Fast Pass, find a Cast Member to re-issue your Fast Pass as an anytime one; dining, droid, and lightsaber reservations are much trickier, but do consult a CM.
- If your boarding group isn't called until closer to park closing, expect to wait in very long lines.
- With the exception of two days, since December 18, as long as you are in the park before opening, you can pretty much be guaranteed a non-backup boarding group and you will to get to do Rise of the Resistance.