Hi All. Just over thirty days out from an upcoming trip, and am trying to put the finishing touches on some plans of attack for the parks. Regarding Hollywood Studios, and Rise of the Resistance specifically, I’m trying to decide whether to purchase an ILL or rope drop it. My biggest hesitation to rope dropping is that with my anxiety, trying to deal with that massive crowd rush might really trigger me. Has anyone rope dropped Rise recently? Was it as nuts as I’ve heard?
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The trouble with rope dropping it is it is often down at rope drop
I personally am going to ILL$ that one - that way if it’s down we get refunded, plus I like the control of choosing our time
That being said we don’t intend to use Genie very much - at least at this point we don’t think we will. So I think our expenditure will go toward ILL$ instead
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I haven’t found it to be nuts—nothing like 7DMT at MK. But it’s still competitive and thus inherently stressful, and it’s often down at opening. If you want to minimize anxiety, I’d go with the ILL.
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ILL is much more leisurely. But we have successfully rope dropped it 2x these past two months. HS scans guests in early and they are allowed to go to their ride of choice. Both times we were off RISE before the start of EE. We were never at the front of the pack once we were scanned in. If the ride is down, then you can buy ILL.
We have RDed TSM. While we lined up outside of it, we weren’t allowed into the queue until a few minutes before EE. Yet we managed to ride it 2x and be in line for ASS before the park opened. That led to our 9ish LL for SDD. Then we were done with Toystory Land about half an hour after park opening.
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Definitely something to think about; maybe we’ll try to RD Rise, and if that doesn’t work out, get the ILL and head over to Tower for EE. We’re hoping to get a LL for SDD and be done with TSL before too late in the morning; I’m assuming that its lack of shade is a special kind of hell in the central FL sun.
I will never, ever again rope drop Rise. It’s not reliable enough and it’s SUCH a waste of time even if it’s only “down” for a couple minutes. I will always get an ILL or ride late at night from now on.
It actually isn’t too bad in terms of crowds/crush but the anxiety of if you will get on and whether or not to abandon ship gets to me. And they won’t give you anything if you bail after waiting 30+ minutes (ask me how I know).
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I rope dropped Rise about three weeks ago, and it was an absolute breeze. We weren’t even near the front of the pack (maybe arrived around 10 min into EE), but we basically walked on. SDD was actually down at the time, so I worried headed there that the whole park would be in line, but it was easy.
Now I definitely see the risk here because it is so often down. I don’t take that lightly. That’s your main adversary. I would NOT get in line there hoping it would come back up soon. I would walk over to MFSR or something and plan to buy an ILL at that point if the ride were down.
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Yeah, our luck with Rise has been awful lately. Four attempts this year…
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Hour or so before park close, saw a short posted wait (35 minutes?) while in the area and jumped in line. It ended up being much longer and ultimately they abandoned the first part of the ride and walked us onto the Star Destroyer.
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ILL later that week. Made it to the Star Destroyer and then was walked off. So now my mom has seen the whole ride but not in order. They scanned our MBs for a return.
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Later that day, longer LL wait because of the downtimes. But we made it through the whole experience.
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Next trip. ILL. Again made it to the Star Destroyer before being walked out.
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Repeat of #3.
2 out of 5 is not a hit rate I would risk a rope drop on. That said, if I’m buying G+ and ILL I may never RD HS again. I’d rather take the morning off.
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Also how I feel!
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The one time I bought ILL for Rise was an awful experience. We were walked onto the Star Destroyer and then the rest of the ride went down while we were in the hallway outside the interrogation rooms. We waited for probably close 45 minutes before finally finishing the ride. I couldn’t believe I had paid for that! So now I don’t do either. I don’t RD it and I don’t buy ILL. I will happily wait in the SB line if it’s under an hour. We’ve usually managed to do that around the dinner hour. We just get snacks and/or drinks and get in line prepared for a wait. I build time in our schedule for it and it’s worked out for us, although granted we’ve been at times that weren’t too busy.
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We had previously done Rise back in 2021 so hoped to do it but didn’t want to rope drop or pay for it.
Based on that, we were willing to wait until later in the day and keep an eye on posted/TP estimated wait.
After the 4:30 Indy show, it said 42 expected wait with 50 posted. Didn’t even rush over there and it was 40 minute wait so felt like a big win.
Like others said, such a gamble bc of the unreliability.
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That’s good info. I’d rather not ILL$ if I don’t have to, but I sure as heck am not rope dropping it. Scoping out a lower wait time is my ideal
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I’m thinking that this will end up being my plan
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If I rope drop Rise, it’s down. If I rope drop SDD, it’s down. We were even going to rope drop MMRR one day …and IT was down 
I can’t win in that park.
So, we usually just try to hit up Rise, if it’s down we go to SM. Then try Rise after. If still down, off to Toy Story we go.
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I’ve waited for it standby at both HS and DL. I’m going to count myself fortunate it had not gone down!
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On our recent trip we rope dropped it one day and hopped in line after dinner another time. It was only a 35 min wait after dinner. Definitely worth saving $100 plus for our family of 5.
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After reading everyone’s advice and watching a few youtube videos, I think what we’ll do is plan to RD it, and if it’s down make a game time decision between either doing Smugglers or heading down Sunset to do Tower of Terror. We’ll keep an eye on wait times throughout the day and either hop in a standby, or try to ride either right before or after Fantasmic (especially since we have a late night Oga’s reservation). If none of that pans out, then we’ll ILL it on our park hopping day.
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Sounds like a very good plan!
Joining late, but here’s my experience.
Get on the first bus out of the resort (assuming you are staying onsite) so you are at the front of the RD crowd, and will be at the tapstyles at least 45 minutes prior to EE. HS often opens to EE guests 30 minutes before the announced EE opening.
If this does happen, that means Rise is operational. Make a direct line for Rise and, if you are near the front of the RD pack, you can ride with a very short wait.
If EE does not start before the posted time, go to Slinky instead.
If both Rise and Slinky are down, then good luck. Going to have a lot of long lines ahead of you.
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