So Tuesday was our biggest and longest day at the theme parks — for one major reason. Hollywood Studios is where the Star Wars land is … complete with two new rides, Millennium Falcon and Rise of the Resistance. Falcon has been open for about a year and a half now, but Rise of the Resistance is only a few months old.
Because Rise of the Resistance is new and super complex, it is also experiencing a lot of technical difficulties and breakdowns. As a result, Disney is doing a virtual queue system where you use the Disney app to reserve a “boarding group” to ride the ride. When your boarding group is called, you can queue in line. This allows the park to deal with breakdowns and delays better, since you are assigned to a group and not a specific time slot.
In order to get a boarding group, you have to be IN the park when it opens. In our case, Hollywood Studios opened at 7am! That means you have to be there early enough to park, go through security, go through the turnstiles and into the park before the official opening time. That led to our 5:45am arrival in the parking lot. 😉 Good morning!
Come 6:55am, everyone is standing around with their phones in hand, waiting for 7am. As soon as the clock ticks over, thousands of people are simultaneously requesting boarding groups. Keller and I were both trying at the same time and I managed to snag boarding group 42! Hooray! We had no way of knowing what time our boarding group would be called, but they only guarantee a certain number of boarding groups will even be called on a given day — usually about 100. So we were set! By 7:15am all the guaranteed boarding groups were already gone.
Meanwhile, we have been standing in a big mass of people queued up to head to Toy Story Land. Two popular rides are in this zone — Toy Story Mania and Slinky Dog Dash. Keller had managed to snag a Slinky Dog fast pass, so we headed straight for Toy Story Mania. We actually rode this attraction in Tokyo and it was just as fun this time around! It acts like a laser shooter but the 3D graphics and interactive screens make it look like you’re participating in carnival games. It’s super cute and a lot of fun! The queue line alone was so cute and filled with classic, nostalgic toys.
We had time to slide over to the queue line for the Flying Saucers ride and eat our breakfast burritos before Slinky Dog was ready.
Slinky Dog Dash was a surprise hit too! It was very cute and made us all laugh. Keller found the Spanish safety warnings particularly hilarious, as it was done in Slinky Dog’s southern drawl and borderline irreverent.
From here we had some time to work through the rest of the park while waiting for our Rise of the Resistance boarding group. We crossed the park and rode both the Tower of Terror and Rockin’ Rollercoaster.
We also managed to catch the “stage show” for Star Wars in the main square. Keller called it “Star Wars Fashion Show” since the characters basically came out, spun around, posed, and walked off. LOL! It was neat to see the costumes though.
Our boarding group was finally called about 11:30am. The ride had been running smoothly all morning, so that was a good sign! We walked through a massive, meandering queue line which was blissfully empty due to the virtual queue. The theming was pretty convincing too and it felt like we were walking through Resistance tunnels to their base.
I won’t spoil the surprises from the ride, but adding in the interactive queue line, the two phases of the ride, and the amazing actors onboard the Star Destroyer — the 15 minute experience was a blast! If we could have done it again, we definitely would have! Alas, as they already cannot get everyone who wants to ride it through on a daily basis, a re-ride will have to wait until next trip.
I picked up our fajita lunch supplies from the van in the parking lot and we had lunch in Toy Story Land. Keller had managed a second Slinky Dog Dash fast pass for everyone, so we did get to ride a second time!
Kamy had a scheduled time slot at the Droid Depot to build her own droid at 4pm! Min stayed with her while she built her own R2D2 unit. It has since been named K2G2. 😉
Meanwhile, Keller, Caden, and I returned to ride Rockin’ Rollercoaster again, which is one of Caden’s favorites.
We split up once again for Min and Kamy to see the Frozen show while Caden, Keller, and I caught the Indiana Jones Stunt Show. Then Keller and Caden hurried off to ride Rockin’ Rollercoaster one last time and we all met up for another round of Toy Story Mania.
Both kids got to participate in the Trials of the Temple Jedi Training. They each got a robe and light saber and participated in a “training session” and got to battle either Darth Vader or Kylo Ren. Kamy and Caden both had fun! Keller managed to single rider the Millennium Falcon ride while the kids were waiting for the Trials, so he came back in time to watch their “performance.”
Millennium Falcon was high on everyone’s list, so we opted to finish off the night riding that instead of watching either Fantasmic or the fireworks. We have all seen Fantasmic before and these fireworks were not going to be as impressive as the ones from Magic Kingdom on Sunday. There were very few people in Black Spire Outpost, so we were able to walk around and enjoy the theming and atmosphere in the dark.
We all had different roles for Millennium Falcon, but we were ultimately successful in our mission thanks to Kamy and Caden’s piloting skills.
The park officially closed at 8pm, but it was almost 9pm before we made it back to the van. Another long LONG day, but we all had a great time!
For dinner we ended up at Sakura Asian Fusion. We had high hopes since it has very good reviews, but we were not impressed. And we were all worn out, so Caden almost fell asleep waiting on dinner. Poor tired boy!