Rise of the Resistance: Tips&Tricks for Getting a Boarding Pass

Wars Galaxy’s Edge offered Fastpasses. However, as of February 19, 2020 you can obtain Fastpasses for the Millennium Falcon:  Smugglers Run attraction).  There is no standby line currently for Rise of the Resistance. And with the recent change of boarding passes going live at park opening it is rather hectic at Hollywood Studios.  People are still arriving early to the park despite the boarding passes not becoming available until park opening. This makes it more difficult to rope drop your headliner attractions like Slinky Dog dash, Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror.   

Here are our tips and tricks for obtaining a boarding pass for Rise of the Resistance:

•  Arrive 30-60 minutes before park opening time to allow you to get through bag check, security and the park turnstiles. Some days they are allowing you to skip the fingerprint on entry which allows the line to move more quickly. However some days they are not.  Arriving any earlier than this does not give you a better chance of getting a boarding pass.  It will however let you get in line ahead of the crowd for other headliner attractions. Below we discuss whether this is really worth it.

• Ditch your bags for this park completely or leave them in your car. Once you get your boarding pass have someone run and get your things.  This will save you time going through security especially if you are arriving close to park opening.

• Don’t use Disney’s Wi-Fi, use your cellular service.  Disney’s Wi-Fi is just not reliable enough and with the massive amount of people trying to get on the app.  We tried both ways on the first day. The person who used Wi-Fi was never able to get a strong enough connection to really navigate the app. They were not able to get a boarding pass.

• All people in your party that want to ride must be in the park and scanned into the turnstiles before you can get them a boarding pass.

• Make sure you are logged into your MyDisneyExperience app about 10 minutes before park opening and then close your app.  Open the app right at park opening. Proceed to follow the directions on the app to obtain your boarding pass.

• Remain calm and have fun!  As soon as park opening came around everyone was on their phones trying to get on the app. You could feel the excitement and the tension in the air!  Not only this but on the two days we were there, guests could start walking to their destinations at park opening time.  Walking and operating phones at the same time can be a little distracting and stressful!

Rise of the Resistance is an amazing ride (see our review of the ride here). It is well worth the trouble of getting up early to obtain a boarding pass.  However, the large crowds clamoring here for a chance to ride is making the park much more crowded overall. In our opinion, this makes it much less suitable for rope dropping.

Over the two days we visited, we noticed that the increased crowds caused the other headliner attractions to have much higher wait times than normal. The waits also stayed higher throughout the day as well. The wait times would slightly lower closer to park closing (for example, Slinky Dog had a wait time of 80 minutes at 8:00 am, 75 minutes at 1:30 pm, 75 minutes at 4:30 pm and 60 minutes at 6:30 pm; similar was seen with Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster).  On prior trips, we were able to ride several of these rides (Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster) with minimal wait (no more than 15-30 minutes) at park opening. 

We predict that wait times will only worsen when Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway opens on March 4, 2020. We do recommend having a Park Hopper ticket for enjoying this park. This would allow you to spend two half days at this park versus one full day. This will allow you to have 3 Fastpasses for each day so you can avoid the long waits. Then you park hop to another park and enjoy some time there.  

We hope the above tips and tricks help as you plan your next visit to Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios!  Please leave a comment below if the above has been helpful. Please feel free to leave any other tips and tricks you may have for the Rise of the Resistance.