Today there were network issues. This may explain the unusual errors.
Its good to take a screen shot if an error occurs. It is good evidence to show Guest Services
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Given the heavy reliance on …not super reliable (to be generous)… technology, I wish they ran it like true lottery.
Have the window open for 15 minutes or whatever for people to put in for the lottery. Then award randomly. That way it’s not a millisecond difference, or how your request gets routed, or a million other (apparently arbritary) issues that come up. Way more fair.
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They are on BG 70 now. Hopefully, you will be able to ride.
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That’s a good idea.
I’ve been thinking about ways they could modify this process to make fair, but also help alleviate the strain on the infrastructure at RD, etc.
One thought I had was to stagger when they allow trying to obtain BGs to set times throughout the day.
So, maybe once every hour or every two hours, they can open up additional BGs and allow guests in the park to try to get one, if they haven’t already that day.
So, for example, let’s say they only open 20 BGs at park opening (say, 8:00 am), which will cover the first two hours or so of operation. Once those BGs are nearly gone, however, then at 10:00 am, they open up the next chance for obtaining the next 20 BGs, etc. Of course, they can then adjust, on the fly, the number of BGs they open up during each window based on current ride performance.
This also means people can arrive later in the day, reducing the RD crowd, and still get a chance to get a BG. Of course, this still gives a slight benefit to those who show up early, because they will have more chances throughout the day to obtain a BG than those who just show up in the afternoon or evening.
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I’m beginning to see how lucky I was to be there on two days where the BG/hour was > 10.
What if RotR opened the fast pass line, but kept the BGs for those who were not able to obtain FPP?
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This makes sense to me as an alternative and a way to spread out the crowds. This nonsense at park opening is absurd.
Plus, they can adjust on the fly for downtime.
As tempted as I am to skip RotR and this BG absurdity, my family is big Star Wars fans and this may be our last WDW trip for a long time…so I really want to be able to make this happen! But getting them up at 5:30 for a 7am opening only to not get a boarding group because of an IT glitch seems like the worst of everything.
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I’m sure that will happen eventually. But until the ride is running reliably, I don’t think they can do that. If there are multiple hours downtime, the FPP folks will be left in the lurch.
I would also prefer a real lottery.
I think it is a good thing that everything is defined close to park opening, just from an user experience perspective. Regardless of it being all distributed at park opening or spread around the day, the same number of people would get to ride and (approximately) the same number of people wouldn’t, but you would be stressing about it the whole day.
Being only at park opening means that you have to Rope Drop to get a chance to ride, which on one hand increases the cost to ride (which is a good thing, for a ride that almost everyone in the park wants to ride but that can only accommodate half the people), but on the other hand completely kills RDing at DHS. First hour after the park opens is now the time in which crowds are the largest but nobody is in their lunch break and they are also not on shows, because the shows only start later.
When BGs were distributed by order of arrival it was not a lottery and you got to chose not to go to DHS if BGs were already gone (important if you don’t have hoppers). I know that it had its issues, but I actually prefer it.
Another thing: why is there a distinction between BGs and BBGs now? People who get BGs do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time as people who get BBGs, why is there a random subgroup that gets a PH and a FP if they don’t ride?
Yeah…that’s main reason I think a change is needed. They have even changed how thy pre-load the SDD queue in order to be able to get more people into the park at RD because it is such a madhouse now.
I think RD would return to something more normal if they spread out the BG attempts throughout the day.
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I am wondering if people arriving earlier is a good thing for Disney? Maybe it will help to distribute park load more evenly during the day, which might be good for business.
It is tough to find the perfect solution for the RotR BG fiasco.
I cannot see them moving to a FPP system for this ride at all. There is no way they want to deal with the backlash from people who cannot do standby like all other FPP attractions. “You mean I need a reservation to ride?” Everyone is trained to the FPP or standby line format. There would be pitchforks and torches if they are not able to satisfy a FPP for RotR.
How about changing it up to the following:
- Have an option in MDE that allows you to opt in for a BG lottery on any future day (30 - 60 day rules could apply). This is not the actual BG, but a chance to get a BG on the day you plan to be at the park. You could opt-in to the lottery up until 24 hours before.
- 24 hours before the park opens Disney selects the people from the BG lottery at random and provides them with a BG or BBG number and estimated time.
This would reduce the mad rush of people to the park in the early morning.
This would help combat the extreme crows exodus after the BG distribution.
This would help balance out all the other rides in the park.
This would help Disney with their staffing. I am sure they are not liking the larger number of CMs they need to have at the park early in the morning and then having them all stand around in the afternoon once the mad rush is gone from the park.
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If getting on the lottery is too easy, way more people will participate in it, which would mean that the likelihood of being selected at any given day is smaller. Right now, based on the latest table and making some assumptions, if you are inside the park at RD and know the steps, you have a higher than 50% chance of riding that day, I would bet that a lottery would reduce that number a lot - right now there are still a lot of people who don’t understand the process or are just not willing to be there early, or don’t think it is worth it, that reduces demand a bit.
What would be your rules for it?
- How many times can you try? Can you try for every day on your trip, just one or with a limit? What about if you have an AP?
- Can you be on a BG lottery if your FP for that day are for another park? Pre schedule FP is just one park per day. What about APs and park hoppers?
Hypothetical question: if you could get a BG with the standard 60/30 rules FP rules, but if you opted to get a BG you were blocked from making FP selections for the whole day, what would you do?
No offense but I don’t like the lottery idea. There are still a ton of people at park opening who haven’t done their research and didn’t practice. I would like to think that if you put the time in to research and practice its fair to have a better chance. I am sure that is not a popular view but that is why we are all on this forum in the first place.
Last week there was a group of guys standing next to me who knew enough to be there and be on their phones. But they had no idea about refreshing and restarting the app etc. They just stood there wondering why there link wasn’t changing color.
After I got my boarding group I stopped to help them. And found out they weren’t linked either. I think they all got BBG.
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I would definitely not do a BG if it blocked me from the rest of the park’s FPP. That would be like saying I will spend $100 to try and get on a ride that is not reliable.
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No offence taken. 
I am just throwing out ideas to try and see if we can solve Disney’s problem for them.
The non-constructive answer for Disney is: Make your rides reliable, design them at a proper capacity, and run them for the entire park day.
…but that does not help us!
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My BG #100 was just called
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Right after I got in at about 4:07, the line stopped moving and no more BGs were called past the 102 that was listed as the highest called. MDE has now removed the BGs called notification. We haven’t moved in nearly 45 minutes. No announcements
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We’re moving again
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