When Disney World and Disneyland opened Rise of the Resistance at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, it was possibly the biggest attraction opening ever. It was huge in scope and scale and the demand for the ride was equally massive. In order to best manage demand, the Disney Parks implemented their first ever Virtual Queue. Rather than stand in line, guests were issued a Boarding Group via an app, which determine when they would be able to get in line for the ride. Up until now, the virtual queue has been the only way to get on the ride, but yesterday at Disney's Hollywood Studio, the virtual queue was officially replaced with a traditional standby line. And thus far, it seems to be working pretty well.
Since the day Rise of the Resistance opened Boarding Groups have almost always vanished within seconds of being available, so demand was clearly greater than capacity. This led to the possibility that the line for Rise of the Resistance could end up being quite extensive once people were simply able to get in line when they wanted. And early on, that certainly seemed to be the case as the line was reported between four and five hours long at some points.
That's a pretty serious wait to say the least, longer than anything you're likely to find at Walt Disney World these days. However, once all the people who rushed for Rise of the Resistance when the park opened got through the experience, things quickly calmed down into something a bit more reasonable. In fact, if you were lucky enough to get in line at just the right minute, you could apparently fly through the line.
For comparison, when I visited Disneyland's Rise of the Resistance a little over two weeks ago, my wait to get into the first pre-show room was longer than 15 minutes even with the virtual queue. Of course, 15 minutes was not a typical wait time, but for the most part, the line seemed to find an equilibrium point at just over an hour wait time, which is perfectly reasonable and on par with most other E-ticket attractions at Disney World.
And today we're seeing more of the same. While Rise of the Resistance saw a wait time over two hours when Disney's Hollywood Studios opened, its wait time is now on par with most of the other popular rides in the same park.
Virtual queues certainly aren't gone at Disney World. We know that when Remy's Ratatouille Adventure opens at Epcot next week, it will use the system. But what seems clear is that the virtual queue is only there to help manage ride capacity and crowds, and once those are under control the virtual option will go away. One assumes that Disneyland's version of Rise of the Resistance will follow suit at some point, but thus far nothing has been announced.
