This week Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance opened at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort. This new attraction, a family-friendly E-ticket attraction, immerses guests into the middle of the Star Wars adventure like nothing has ever done before. Billed as one of the most ambitious projects Disney has ever tackled in an attraction, Rise of the Resistance was expected to be incredibly popular and generate some very long lines. For many, this evoked images of lines snaking around Disney’s Hollywood Studios as guests waited hours to experience the attraction. This isn’t what happened, however.
On Thursday when Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance opened the Walt Disney World Resort introduced a virtual queue to handle the guests descending on Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This is done utilizing the My Disney Experience app. Once at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, guests can enter the virtual queue via the app. If available, this will allow guests to get a boarding group and a general time that their boarding group will be called. Once in the virtual queue, guests are free to wait by experiencing the rest of the park rather than standing in a multi-hour line.
There are a few things to note about this virtual queue system. The first is that it has been filling up quite early in the day. On the opening day of the attraction, the virtual queue was filled up within a couple of hours of the park’s early opening. So, if this is an attraction that is a “must-do” for you, expect to get to the park EARLY. The second thing to note is that all of a group’s party must be at the park to enter the virtual queue. This is not a Fastpass+ so it can’t be entered from a hotel or at home. Guests must be at the park. Those who don’t have smartphones or the My Disney Experience app can enter the virtual queue by visiting Guest Services.
While there have been a few hiccups, overall the new virtual queue for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance seems to be working quite well. At this time, it isn’t known if the virtual queue will be utilized when the attraction opens at Disneyland on January 17, 2020. On the opening day of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, a virtual queue system was utilized and remained on standby for if there were too many guests attempting to enter the land. It has not been utilized since the land’s opening, however.
What do you think of the virtual queue? Is it a good system to allow guests to experience more of the park rather than spend their day waiting in a line for one single attraction? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
