RotR Important Details and Opening Day Timeline

So interested in the ride. Keep the impressions and reactions coming afterwards as well

Yes, reduced groups make sense in light of running out yesterday, and accommodating the overflow who will be claiming their anytime access today.

Iā€™m not surprised or bothered by Disney letting people snap up all the spots during opening day, or even through this weekend. That seems predictable and unless you have your head well and truly buried, it doesnā€™t take a Liner to know this opening is happening during your trip and that itā€™s going to be nuts. Either you care and you get out of bed, or you donā€™t and you let it go.

But, come Monday at the latest, it seems right and fair to tighten things up so guests can plan based on posted hours. I guess Sundayā€™s EMH are going to be irrelevant. :thinking: :laughing:

I also think they should have limits on joining multiple boarding groups in the same day. No joining a second group before 10am?

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haha , same- yet we are watching as high entertainment. looking forward to going.

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That would be a good thing at least temporarily. Nobody gets seconds

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Somewhat to my own surprise, I feel like Iā€™m in the second group. Thereā€™s a lot to do at WDW and this trip is only six nights. Thereā€™s only so much Iā€™m willing to sacrifice for ROTR. The intention of the trip is really to enjoy the Christmas theming of the parks. And I am returning in June.

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Right? Every guest is making time-value decisions at Disney every day. We were at DLR the first week Ana & Elsa were greeting. The posted wait was 5 hours. I have zero regrets about skipping that lineup! Clearly, there were a few families wanted to meet those two more than they wanted to do 5 hours of other things.

Iā€™m also looking forward to the Christmas cheer more than anything! SW:GE is a close second for me, and with the boarding group system Iā€™m looking forward to ROTR. I hope they keep that in place through the holidays. I think itā€™s a smart system, and fair, as long as they make some adjustments to account for posted park hours. Itā€™s better than the situation for FOP.

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Itā€™s partly that I donā€™t really have much emotional attachment to Star Wars. When TSLā€™s opening was announced and I knew I was going to be there I was foaming at the mouth to get an FPP for SDD. Just to be able to get in the land and wander around would have been enough.

Iā€™m sure ROTR is awesome but, as you say, itā€™s a time-value calculation.

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The BG system is a reasonable one, but it seems so wrong to start it before the posted opening time. Iā€™m not complaining for myself ā€“ thanks to this great community I now know to get there before official opening time if I want to maximize opportunity to get a BG ā€“ but it just seems wrong to state that the park opens at 9am and then open it at 6:30am without making that information available when the BG availability is going to go so quickly.

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I agree and I have no horse in this race.

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So the wait for FP return was just 7 mins. Finally made it thru. OMG. What an experience. Not giving any spoilers but the ride has so many aspects to it.

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Ugh, I canā€™t wait! There are people who got 3 groups! That needs to be limited, I think. Iā€™d love to ride it a 2nd time, but for fairness, they should limit it so groups wonā€™t be out prior to posted opening times.

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I also agree and also have no horse in this race.

Iā€™m glad you made it through, @galuchies_463555!

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Iā€™m wondering if weā€™ll end up doing the same thing in Januaryā€”weā€™ll be back later in 2020 so if we donā€™t get to ride it this time, itā€™s not the end of the world to wait, especially if itā€™s still a sh*tshow a month from now. (But maybe the competitive side of me will still have to tryā€¦ weā€™ll see.)

I am pretty surprised that this opening seems to be going quite this poorly; Iā€™d think that Disney wouldā€™ve wanted to have a big, clear win on their hands, and thisā€¦ doesnā€™t sound like it is, despite how amazing the ride sounds.

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The thing is that enough people showed up before 9am to completely fill the ride for the day, even with a 9am opening. They could make everyone wait before the tapstils, or only start distributing BG at 9am, but anyway those that showed up after 9am wouldnā€™t get to ride. People who arrived earlier would be closer to the front of the tapstils and be able to get a BG, and those who arrived later wouldnā€™t, same as now. So they let the people in and let them ride other things while they waited. I just donā€™t see how that is worse? Maybe if they had a regular queue only people who love the ride enough to wait 5 hours would get in line after 9am, and maybe that is a better criteria to decide who gets to ride it, but it is not obviously better from my POV.

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Those are good points. To solve for that, I think they need to turn people away from the tapstiles until a more reasonable hour, otherwise they risk having people show up earlier and earlier each day.

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Perfectly stated!

Like i said, i feel bad for people who, correctly based on Disneyā€™s own officially available information, that the park hours were as advertised, and thus were blocked from a chance of getting a BG. Iā€™m not complaining since I now know not to believe the official information, but I am empathizing with the average Disney guest.

Its not exactly the same but it made me think how unfair it would be if the official 60 day 7am FPP window opened early and those in the know snapped up all the headliner FPP before the official 7am window opens.

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Even though people I love disagree with this thought I love that the early bird is getting the worm here.

I have been fully opposed to FPP since I first caught wind in 2013. I have no qualms with waking my family up at o-dark-thirty and getting to the park early for just plain-old-park days. So for something special I sure would be there 3 hours early whether I was hoping for early opening happening or not.

Maybe there were enough people who think like me that HS execs saw the bodies accumulating and felt it wise to just open the park and get going.

Also - it was only five weeks ago these parks WERE opening super early for the EEMH. I think it has been pretty well established it could go this way. I was the lowly month of just plain hours in November.

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Also - I believe this is what theyā€™d been hoping for all along and what MFSR didnā€™t deliver on.

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Sounds like a hard problem, not allowing people to line up could be uncomfortable as well.

If the ride was a little more reliable they could fix this with a ridiculously early official opening time (e.g. 6am), but unfortunately that is not the case.

I am still surprised with the current reliability, I though it was going to be much worse based on rumors.