Boarding Group Breakdown: Data and Statistics for Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios

We’ve already explained how to get a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the biggest and most innovative ride in Disney history. But what does the data look like around boarding groups? How are they working in reality?

What does this MEAN?!

Fortunately, the geniuses at Thrill-data.com have been dutifully gathering statistics about Rise of the Resistance boarding groups and wait times, and we’re here to break them down into easily digestible chunks. Find out when to expect to board, how long your wait will be based on historical performance, and just what a “backup” boarding group actually means below!

I got Boarding Group [NUMBER], when will I board?

So, here’s a basic rule of thumb. According to Thrill-Data, Disney boards an average of 11 groups per hour. That means if you’re in groups 1-11, you’ll likely to be able to board immediately. Groups 12-22 will likely board at 8AM, 23-33 at 9AM, and so on.

That estimated wait window in the app isn’t always accurate.

This means, on a perfectly average day assuming a 7AM opening, boarding windows would look something like this.

  • 7AM: 1-11
  • 8AM: 12-22
  • 9AM: 23-33
  • 10AM: 34-44
  • 11AM: 45-55
  • 12PM: 56-66
  • 1PM: 67-77
  • 2PM: 78-88
  • 3PM: 89-99
  • 4PM: 100-110
  • 5PM: 111-121
  • 6PM: 122-132
  • 7PM: 133-143
  • 8PM: Park Close

This is a sliding scale, so if the park opens earlier or later, simply adjust accordingly.

This also means that, on a 13-hour day, the park will average about 154 boarding groups or 15,400 riders. In a 12-hour day, the park will average 143 and so on.

1100 people per hour is a testament to the efficiency of this new attraction!

Now, no day is perfectly average. Breakdowns and delays occur, but the frequency and severity of those delays has been trending downward, with a few spikes here and there.

©Thrill-Data

So, to be safe, let’s assume that the average day will also incorporate the average delay of 45 minutes at some point. This means that the higher your boarding group number, the more likely you are to encounter a delay, because there are simply more opportunities for it to breakdown before you have a chance to ride. Maths!

Figures are fun! Waiting in line, not so much. © Disney

So, what does this mean? Well, if we assume that a 45-minute delay is likely to happen before the 7PM window, anyone in groups 133 or above is likely to have their boarding group bumped past park close, preventing them from riding. That is why groups above 120 or so are considered Backup Groups. You’re not guaranteed a ride, but you’re in the virtual queue should things move smoothly all day.

The good news, though, is that on averagethese backup groups have been getting processed!

©Thrill-Data

Generally speaking, the last ten or so boarding groups are consistently cut, but the park still averages 136 boarding groups a day, barring a few catastrophic delays. Oh, and those big spikes you see in the graph above? Those coincide with extended hours on holidays, with the biggest landing on New Years Eve when the park was open until midnight.

So this means that if you’re in group 137 or more, it’s probably safe to assume you won’t be riding unless Disney is very efficient that day. You’ll want to consider returning to the park around closing time, but you won’t need to stick around all day. But if you’re in groups 1-136, make your plans accordingly because, on average, you’re getting to ride!

Remember: Your boarding passes don’t expire if you leave the park, so you have time to check out other attractions at Walt Disney World while you wait.

How long is the wait once I board?

So here’s the bad news. Even if you have a boarding pass, the wait to get on can still be more than two hours.

The line is never this empty…

It’s actually a linear progression of wait times depending on your boarding group. The later the group, the longer the wait according to the data. Once you’re scanned in, they will allow you to ride as per Disney policy, but expect to wait… a while. Sometimes a very long while.

©Thrill-Data

Luckily there’s plenty of seating in the queue, and your Play Disney Parks Datapad offers some fantastic in-queue tasks and excitement. But since the Datapad experience can last fewer than 30 minutes, you may want to bring a book or be ready with some waiting-in-line activities (we love Heads Up!).

We hope that this statistical breakdown helps you with your planning. Be sure to check out Thrill-Data.com if you want to check the sources or find out statistics about your other favorite rides and attractions. They’re far more detailed than My Disney Experience and are a good third-party resource for planning out your day.

Be sure to leave a comment below if you found this article helpful. May the Force (and the math!) be with you!

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Austin Lang is an Orlando local with a love of Disney, puns, and Disney puns. He's been a contributing writer for AllEars since 2019, and has been sharing his quirky view of Disney life ever since.

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13 Replies to “Boarding Group Breakdown: Data and Statistics for Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios”

  1. I would just like to say THANK YOU and I appreciate all the hard work and time you put into creating this page and info. We got back group 102 and o had anxiety and sad for a second, I wouldn’t have let it ruin my day but you really gave me hope. I hope O get to experience this but wanted you all to know you’re appreciated.

  2. We rode Rise of the Resistance at Orlando yesterday (3/3/20), and wanted to share my experience.

    We arrived at the park at 7:45am with no bags/back-packs so as to skip that check, and were in the park just a few minutes later, ahead of the 8am klaxon for Boarding Group access (would highly recommend taking no bags if that’s an option for you). We were a group of 2 and only I was trying to get a boarding group. 8am hit, and there was no way for me to click the ‘Join Boarding Group’ button on the app for about 40 seconds. We ended up being able to join at 1 minute and 10 seconds past the hour, and we were slotted in Boarding Group 103 – with only 66 guaranteed on that day. So 103 groups were allotted in just 70 seconds. We had gone to the park with the mindset that we weren’t going to get on the ride, so we weren’t too disheartened by this and just decided to go about our day. We had a reservation at Oga’s at 8:45, and by the time we’d finished there, the line for Smugglers Run had dropped to about 90 minutes. We joined the line for that, before jumping out shortly after and entering the single-rider line. This took about 25 minutes instead of the 90, and we lucked out and were actually able to ride together anyway. We explored the rest of Galaxy’s Edge and a little bit more of Hollywood Studios, before deciding at 11am to head back to the hotel pool. At this point, ROTR was onto group ~50, and so we figured that if it continued to progress quickly, we’d just head back to the park later on.

    Thankfully, it did progress quickly! We had a couple hours by the pool, and then checked again at 2:30/3pm – group 85 was now boarding, and we weren’t too far away from our group of 103. By the time we’d changed and got ready to head back (3:30pm), Group 97 was being called.

    However, when we got to the park, we noticed that it was stuck on group 99. We checked in with staff at the ride, and they informed us that it was in down time – which would end up lasting about an hour and 15 in total. We grabbed a beer and explored a little more, before being called at 4:45pm.

    We’d been told here to expect wait times of up to 2 hours, and that wasn’t our experience at all. We entered the ride at 4:50 and by 5:15, we were walking out and heading to grab a beer after riding ROTR. The ride itself is 5-8 minutes, but the pre-amble started maybe 10 minutes after we walked through the gate. We waited longer for Smugglers Run.

    All in all, this was one of the most unique rides I’ve ever taken. Don’t be disheartened by late groups – just plan your day around it! We left and came back and thoroughly enjoyed the experience because of it! I also think that having a mindset that you might not be able to ride it was also helpful, as our day wasn’t spoiled with the initial shock of Group 103. There’s plenty more to do in Galaxy’s Edge and so while you should absolutely try to get in, don’t worry if you can’t!

  3. The times were very close to what we experienced. We were in group 75 and got called at 12:30pm. We waited in line for about 45 minutes. The guy next to us got group 11. I actually had to refresh once to get into a group. I wonder too if it has to do with individual phones and something to do with the processing speed of individual phones. Just a thought.

  4. The first boarding group of the day isn’t necessarily boarding group #1. Many days the earliest group is assigned a group number between 1 & 10. Why, only Disney knows. Regardless, your average expected time to ride could easily vary by an hour or more on an average day, and much more than that on a day experiencing many breakdowns.

  5. FYI – the “Average Wait by Hour 2019” chart is not actually # of minutes but what Boarding Group# they’re on by that time of day (on average). That’s why it’s always going up. You can check this against the “Boarding Groups” graph on Thrill-Data – on the chart it shows the Group #s (Boarding Group / Past Groups) and underneath that it says “Wait time” in “minutes”, but the # is obviously BG#. This is just due to the fact that for the majority of other attractions, all data is in minutes (i.e. Space Mountain, Smuggler’s Run, etc.). They just didn’t reinvent the wheel on their site for the names/units of their data points for the two RotR attractions.

    All that to say, we really don’t have a measure/history of wait times for this attraction (at least on Thrill-Data), only a measure of rate of groups being called per hour/day.

  6. We got group 77 on 1/13 at 1:42 PM. We walked on about 3 min after our group was called. We only waited in line for between 20-25 min.

    1. Did you keep checking to see if a Boarding Groups were available while in the park? I mistakenly thought that once they are gone they aren’t available anymore. I’d love to have more hope about getting to ride in our future visit in case we miss out at early AM. 🙂

    1. you get in the same boarding group and then just tell them you’re doing rider switch when your group is called. They took us around to the “fastpass” line and we entered that way one at a time (it was just me, my husband and the baby). We walked right on the ride.. that was how they were doing it in January

    2. At Disneyland, no. It worked just the switch rider on any other ride. We went when our boarding group was called. Then let the know we wanted to fo a switch rider. They scanned my ticket snd the ticket of the two people returning with me. Then I had a return window that I could ride. My kids lucked out and rode 8 times in 4 days because they rode with my husband and I while we switched with the baby.

  7. Yesterday daughter was in back up group 89. They were notified early evening that they would not be able to ride