It has only been a week since Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance opened at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but in that time we’ve seen massive crowds, an unfortunate amount of downtime, and not one but two policy changes in regards to park opening. And though it seems strange that Disney didn’t anticipate the massive crowds that have shown up for this attraction (or the technical difficulties this attraction would encounter in its opening day), it looks like they may, at long last, have settled on a new policy that will ensure as many people as possible can experience this attraction over the next few weeks while interest in this new ride is still very high.
Morning Extra Magic Hours canceled, evening Extra Magic Hours scheduled for Disney’s Hollywood Studios
One of the big complaints about this past weekend’s operations at Disney’s Hollywood Studios was the park’s early opening during Sunday’s Extra Magic Hours. Not only did the park open early to regular day guests less than an hour after Extra Magic Hours began, but Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which Disney previously confirmed was not going to run during Extra Magic Hours, opened early as well, which contradicted the earlier report and led to a lot of confusion and disappointed guests, who didn’t think to try and get boarding passes early.
However, effective immediately all Morning Extra Magic Hours scheduled at Disney’s Hollywood Studios have been removed for the foreseeable future (they were previously scheduled on December 15 and 22 before the end of the year) and have been replaced with evening Extra Magic Hours on these same dates from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM. Though unconfirmed, we’d guess that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will remain open during this time to accommodate late boarding groups from resort guests. Disney could possibly implement some kind of stand-by wait for resort guests during this time as well, but again, nothing is confirmed right now.
And though the Extra Magic Hours change is certainly interesting, there’s another policy change happening this week at Disney’s Hollywood Studios as well that will affect how early guests will need to wake up in the morning if they want to experience Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
Moving up opening time (again)
Over the weekend, Disney shifted the daily opening time for Disney’s Hollywood Studios from 9:00 AM to 8:00 AM. However, as guests continued to flood this park early in the morning in an effort to secure a Boarding Pass for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, the early openings continued. So in an effort to deter guests from arriving super early and queuing long before the park opens, from now through December 21, Disney’s Hollywood Studios will open officially another hour earlier at 7:00 AM.
This will likely mean that the park will now actually open at its posted opening time (instead of just letting guests in when the crowds get too large) and will then allow those guests to join the virtual queue for Rise of the Resistance beginning at 7:00 AM exactly. Since the December 5 opening of Rise of the Resistance, the park has routinely been opening hours before its officially posted time, leaving some guests unable to join the virtual queue before it reached capacity, even though they arrived at the posted park opening. However, this new opening time will hopefully make things a bit more fair for everyone.
As always, our best advice for guests trying to experience Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is to get to the park early. Though it looks like the 7:00 AM opening time will hold firm from now on, we’d still recommend getting to the park an additional hour before opening so you can be the first in line for a boarding pass.
