Disney's Rise of the Resistance

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year or so, you've probably heard of Disney's Rise of the Resistance ride. The immersive ride that takes you through what it's like to be taken hostage by the First Order and then rescued by the Resistance opened at Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios park late last year and in January 2020 in Disneyland (which is currently closed.) The ride is fantastic, and everyone wants to ride it. The problem is, you can't just hop in line for this ride like you can virtually every other ride on the planet.

No, the only way you can get in line is virtually. The queue for Rise of the Resistance forms on your smart device, and currently, these spots are only given away at 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. If you really want to get a chance to ride the ride, you better make sure you're ready to go at 10:00 AM, and even then, it's difficult! Not everyone who wants to ride Rise will get to, not by a long shot.

Luckily for you, I'm going to give you the tips you need to have the very best chance to get a spot in that virtual queue so that you'll be running from the First Order in no time. While I cannot guarantee these methods are a sure fire way of making certain you're on the ride, they have worked for many Hollywood Studios guests, including my family who visited just last week.

Don't be fooled by the YouTube videos--there are a lot of people visiting Disney World these days, especially Hollywood Studios. While the park is still not at full capacity, thanks to the pandemic, it's still crowded, and wait times are creeping back up. This is especially true for Hollywood Studios because you must be in the park in order to get into the virtual queue for Rise. Due to this fact, most guests who are planning to visit Hollywood Studios will be inside the park before 10:00 AM. There's also no park hopper available, so you really only get one shot to snag that ticket. Granted, there are occasionally more spots given away at 2:00 PM, but those are often backup groups, and, there's frankly no guarantee that you'll get on in the later groups. So... people arrive by 10:00--by the thousands.

You will want to be inside of Hollywood Studios by 10:00 AM as well. In order to make sure your entire party is through the turnstyle and ready to go at 10:00, you may be tempted to get there hours early. Don't! The parking lot doesn't open until around 9:00, so you'll be wasting your time. If you are taking rideshare to the park, such as Uber, they won't be able to drop you off until the parking lot opens either, so they may have to bring you back to your hotel, which could make you even later. I recommend attempting to arrive at Hollywood Studios around 9:00 or possibly a few minutes after. This should give you enough time to get through the entrance, through temperature check, bag check, metal detector, and scan your Magic Band well before 10:00 AM.

Once you and the rest of your party are inside of the park, this is when your strategies kick in. First of all, get away from all the people! That's right, the more people that are around you, the lesser your chances are of getting a good signal when the virtual queue goes life at 10:00, so spread out! Some people will advise you to go ahead and get in a different line to ride the ride of your choice. I do not recommend this. Frankly, I think that keeps you too close to other people. No, if I were you, I would find a spot far away from others. My family headed toward Tower of Terror but stopped on a bench about halfway down. There were some people around us, but we weren't in a tight group, and many of them were walking, in a rush to get to a ride. By the time we actually got our spot in the virtual queue, we still had time to walk to Toy Story Land and get on Alien Saucer Swirl with little wait, so we didn't miss out on anything by not getting directly in a line.

Next, make sure you've set up the My Disney Experience app on your phone. This is something you can do way in advance. Double check that everyone who wants to ride the ride is connected to your account, that your notifications are on, and that the app is allowed to track your location. If the app doesn't know that you're in the park, you won't be able to attempt to get in the queue for the ride.

The next thing I would do is make sure your phone is on the Disney provided WiFi. This is a bit controversial since some people have advised you should check to see if your Internet provider speed through your phone is actually faster than the WiFi, but my husband was using his provider sitting right next to me, while I was using the WiFi, and I was able to get into the queue faster than he was, so I say--go with the WiFi! However, if you're like me and more than one person in your party is trying for a spot (and if that's possible, you should definitely do it!) then I would have the other person try through their phone's Internet provider.

Some people will tell you to log out of the My Disney Experience app right before 10:00, to close it and reopen it, or maybe some other tactics that will just slow you down. I did make sure all of my other apps were closed so that there wasn't any chance of anything else interfering with the processing on my phone, but I didn't bother to close or reopen the app, and I certainly didn't log out and log back in. I just opened the app a few minutes before 10:00, scrolled down on the home screen until I saw the picture of the AT-ATs from Star Wars and read the headline, which states, "Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance -- Request Access with Virtual Queue."

You will see a button that says, "Join," on that home screen. Go ahead and click it a few minutes before 10:00. It will take you to another screen that says, "Join Virtual Queue" at the top, and you'll see another "Join" button below. This one will be grayed out until exactly 10:00 AM so don't bother to try and click on it until the time changes.

This is the moment--the time you've been waiting for! Get your finger ready, ladies and gentlemen, and keep your eyes glued on the clock on your phone. The second the time changes to 10:00, press that "Join" button. The phone will ask you to select everyone in your party. Do so quickly, and then hit the enter button. And that's it! A few seconds later, it will tell you if you were fast enough on the draw by giving you a Boarding Group number--if you made it. When we found out we were in group number 41, my entire family cheered! Others were not so lucky. My friend had been in line to ride Slinky Dog Dash and did not get a boarding group. Thus, I think my strategy for spreading out was right on the money.

My husband wasn't able to get in the queue either, but I believe that's because I was faster. Since he was part of my group, and I got to the "Join" button first, he was locked out of joining another group. Disney is smart, and they won't let you ride more than once per day, no matter how many people from your party are trying to join.

I do suggest you be as quick on the draw as possible because the groups go fast. Within ten seconds, it was over. All of the 10:00 groups were gone. Since the ride had some issues that morning, we didn't actually ride the ride for about three hours, and by the time 2:00 rolled around, my friend still wasn't able to get a boarding group, not even a backup group. I believe this is because there simply weren't that many groups to give out by 2:00. My understanding is that 60 groups are given out in the morning, and if they have any availability at all in the afternoon, it's only about 20 groups. Since the park is closing earlier, there simply isn't enough time in the day for more groups. They also close down frequently to clean, can't put as many parties through the queue because of Covid precautions, and can't use all of the ride vehicles and rooms the way they would if they didn't have to worry about keeping everyone six feet (0r more) apart.

If you have a chance to visit Hollywood Studios and ride this ride--do it! It was amazing! We truly felt as if we were in a Star Wars movie. I won't spoil it for you, but you'll absolutely love it! Best of all, the ride itself is long, about eighteen minutes, so it's not like one of those attractions where you stand in line for an hour and a half for a two minute ride.

I hope you'll try this strategy and that it will work for you! From one Disney fanatic to another--I know you'll love it!