Rise of the Resistance

This weekend Alison and I drove to California. It was somewhat of a last-minute trip to Disneyland. When Alison was convincing me to go on our Disney trip last December one of my reservations was that I would rather wait to visit Disneyland until after the new Star Wars ride opened. However, since we have annual passes we can go almost anytime. We both had time off work for Martin Luther King Day, and it happened to be the opening weekend of Rise of the Resistance, so we planned trip. By the time we planned this trip flights were relatively expensive. We opted to drive. Not only was this a less expensive option, but we enjoy road tripping over MLK weekend. It is a good opportunity to spend a lot of time together talking and enjoying media and music.

We hit the road on Friday after work. We drove to St. George and stayed overnight. It was simply a place to stay overnight. We got up the next morning and completed the drive to California. We have learned that when we are planning a long drive (8+ hours) we prefer, if possible, to break up the drive on our way there. We don’t mind doing the drive in one shot on the way back, because we are usually ready to get home, but on the way to our destination we enjoy the trip more if we can break up the drive.

Originally, we were not planning to visit either park on Saturday. We have the flex annual passes. These passes were less expensive, but they have some limitations. The flex calendar has three types of days – gray (blocked out, really only applies to ~Dec 15 – Jan 7), blue (reservation required, must make a reservation before visiting on these days), green (good to go, can visit either park without a reservation). Most weekends, holidays, and much of summer is blue indicating it requires a reservation. We can make reservations 30 days in advance. We can have 2 reservations at any given moment in a rolling 30-day window. We can make a reservation for either park or both (either way it counts as one reservation). As soon as we scan our passes at the park the reservation is fulfilled and we can make a new reservation. This weekend we made our reservations for Sunday and Monday. We chose to reserve Sunday and Monday because we were sure we would spend those days in the park and we were worried one of those days might fill up with reservations – it was a holiday weekend and the opening weekend for the much-anticipated Rise of the Resistance ride. We monitored the availability of reservations as our trip approached. Sunday kept flipping back between being fully reserved and available for Disneyland (California Adventure was available). We made alternate plans for Saturday, but as we drove we noted both parks had availability on Monday and California Adventure had availability on Saturday. We made a game time decision and headed straight to the Disneyland parking structure. We parked at Mickey and Friends Parking and while we were in line for the tram we cancelled our Monday reservation and made a reservation on Saturday for California Adventure. As soon as we scanned our passes Alison made a reservation for both parks on Monday while I jumped on and grabbed our first fast pass of the trip.

Arriving after the park is open has its challenges. Fast passes are harder to come by and the lines are established. Despite these challenges we had a very good day in California Adventure. I was happy to spend more time in this park because we didn’t spend much time here on our past two trips. I love California Adventure. It has so many fun rides, and we were able to get on most of them. The park was moderately busy. In addition to rides we checked out the Lunar New Year celebration. There were many food/beverage booths and Mulan’s Lunar New Year Procession. We tried some of the food including: chicken meatballs and lo mien noodles (very good), shrimp fried rice with garlic-bacon edamame (okay), and shrimp & ginger dumplings with soy reduction and sriracha mayo (very good). Our favorite, by far, was the Bánh Khoai Lang Tím, or a purple sweet yam macaron with crème fraiche. It was delicious.

We called it an early night ~7pm. We knew we would want to be up early the next day so that was our priority. We made our way back to the parking via downtown Disney. Alison needed to get some of her favorite ice cream from Salt & Straw. We tried one scoop of toasted oat milk and cookies and one scoop of salted malted cookie dough. They serve the best ice cream. We also stopped by Sanuk so I could try on their shoes (I was going to buy some online, but I wanted to make sure I bought ones that fit). Then we drove to our hotel. We were staying at the Homewood Suites next to the Toy Story parking lot, so we were close to Disneyland.

We were in line at Disneyland at 6:15am the next morning. Our primary goal this trip was to ride the new Rise of the Resistance ride. Disney is doing a 100% virtual queue for this ride. To ride you need to get into a boarding group. They open boarding groups right when the park opens at 8am. While we really did not need to get to the park at 6:15am (it did not really impact our chances of getting on the ride) we were both nervous with anticipation. When we arrived at the main gate we were ~15-20 spots back in the line. As we waited we watched the line grow. A little after 7am the line stretched back nearly to the entry to California Adventure. They opened the gates at 7:15am. We entered the park and got a picture at the front of the park. We then made our way toward Frontier land where we were near the front of the crowd that was being held at a rope in the hub. Quite a crowd developed behind us, and we were a little nervous we may get trampled while we were trying to get into a boarding group. Disney must have also assessed this risk because they removed the rope at 7:50am and let everyone enter the park.

Our plan was to rope drop Big Thunder Mountain. We walked in that direction. They were running the ride, but we did not want to miss our opportunity to get a boarding group so we found a bench nearby to wait until 8am.  We sat down, cleared all our open apps off our phones, and restarted our phones. We did not want anything to be gumming up or interfering with the Disneyland app. As we hit 2 minutes to go we literally watched the seconds tick by on my watch. We were both in the Disneyland app refreshing it. As soon as the clock struck 8am we both refreshed our app and hit join boarding group. Alison beat me by a split second and my screen immediately flashed a message informing me that I was already in a boarding group. Alison’s screen told us we were successful – we were assigned boarding group 56. This was our best-case scenario. Groups 1-81 are primary boarding groups. Groups above 82 are back up groups that will only be called if there is additional capacity after the primary boarding groups have been called. All the boarding groups, primary and back up, were assigned within a couple of minutes. We were elated we fortuitously obtained a boarding group.

We spent the morning enjoying rides. Once we had obtained our boarding group we rode Big Thunder Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean, neither of which had a line. One big downside of the boarding group system is that rope drop is not quite as good because so many people show up early to the park. By the time we did our first couple of rides lines had developed throughout the park. Fortunately, we had fast passes so we could avoid standing in lines, although with the large number of guests in the park fast passes went faster than normal as well. I will say that while the parks were moderately busy, they were not really that busy considering it was a holiday weekend and the opening of the new ride. We had busier days when we visited last December, than we did on this trip. We used our first fast pass for Space Mountain. They changed Space Mountain back from Hyperspace Mountain to the normal Space Mountain overlay. This is my favorite version of Space Mountain. We rode it quite a few times during our trip.

As the morning progressed we kept an eye on the status of boarding groups. Based on the previous days progression we thought we would likely get to ride ~2pm-4pm. However, the ride got off to a very slow start. They didn’t start calling boarding groups until after 10am and got stuck around ~24 for a long time.

When we began to get hungry we headed over to Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. We ate at Docking Bay 7. This is Alison’s favorite place to eat in Disneyland these days. She got the chicken salad (which is an exceptional salad) and I got the Felucian Kefta and Hummas Garden Spread. It is plant-based meatballs, herb hummus, tomato-cucumber relish served with pita. It is very good. We also ordered a black spire hot chocolate, which made Alison very happy because she loves hot chocolate. Boarding groups were still stuck ~24 and I was beginning to get nervous. Disney explicitly says there is no guarantee you will get to ride, even if you get a boarding group. I was worried that even though we got a primary boarding group we would not get to ride. After lunch, we went to ride Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run. Normally, this ride has a longer wait time in the morning as people rush to visit Galaxy’s edge first and then experiences an afternoon lull. This was the case today. The stated standby wait time showed ~45 minutes, but we could see the line looked short and guessed it was less than 45. We were correct. It was only about a ~30-minute wait. While we were in line the boarding groups began inching forward. By the time we got off they were stuck around ~27. We decided to walk by the Rise of the Resistance area. This area of the park used to be quiet, but is now bustling. We overheard a cast member telling one guest the ride had gone down ~5 minutes earlier. We had read that it takes them ~70 minutes to restart the ride when it goes down. This appeared to be accurate based on our observation of how long it would take them to start calling boarding groups again after the ride went down. We were both feeling down with this development. Our chances of riding this ride appeared to be rapidly decreasing.

Lines were long and we were between fast passes. We headed over to the Golden Horseshoe to see the new dueling piano show. It was fun, but we likely would have enjoyed it more if we weren’t feeling stressed about the whole ride situation. While we were watching the show boarding groups began going again. After the show, we rode the train around Disneyland. This is an enjoyable way to pass a busy afternoon. We also rode the Jungle Cruise and visited the Tiki Room. By this point boarding groups were moving well and they were into the 30s. We were beginning to feel better about our chances.

We made reservations to have lunch at my favorite Disney restaurant - Lamplight Lounge. It is located on Pixar Pier in California Adventure. We hopped over and arrived slightly early. They seated us quickly (reservations here are a must because it can get busy). We usually like to order a couple of appetizers to share. We ordered the lobster nachos and a crab and tuna roll. It was, as always, excellent. Boarding groups were zipping right along and by the time we finished eating they were in the late 40s.

We crossed back over to Disneyland. We stumbled upon the Flag Retreat Ceremony. Park security lowered the American flag while the Disneyland Band and Dapper Dan’s performed the Star-Spangled Banner. Then when the flag was lowered they performed America the Beautiful. It was a stirring tribute to America. As we stood in quiet reverence I reflected upon the ways Disneyland celebrates America. At the end of the ceremony they reiterated a sentiment Walt expressed, “Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America.”

While we were watching the ceremony, they called boarding group 54. We began making our way toward Galaxy’s Edge. We arrived right when they called our boarding group. We showed the cast members our boarding information and they scanned us into the queue. We waited for ~20 minutes before boarding the ride. I am going to talk about our experience on the ride, while I am not planning to give a play by play of our experience there may be some minor spoilers included below (I include this warning because Alison was really concerned about avoiding spoilers before we rode the ride, and is VERY opposed to sharing spoilers with anyone who hasn’t experienced the ride).

Our first impression from the ride was – wow. The ride is so immersive it is as if they dropped you right in the middle of a Star Wars movie. It is an experience that sucks you into the illusion, especially the first time you experience the ride. There is one point when the First Order boards your transport, and Alison’s jaw dropped. One other lady in our group commented on Alison’s look of shock. The ride is a marvel. The first time we went on the ride we were about a minute from the end (keep in mind the experience is ~20 minutes) when the ride broke down. We have no idea why it broke (although there are about a million moving pieces so it is not hard to imagine any number of ways something could go wrong) everything we could see was functioning fine. Anyway, they stopped the ride and cast members had to escort us through the back hallways and off the ride. It was honestly the best thing that could have happened, because as soon as we exited the ride they scanned our tickets and told us we could come back as soon as the ride got going again. Our best-case scenario for the weekend was that we would get to experience Rise of the Resistance twice, and now that was going to happen.

Our evening lined up nicely. After Ride of the Resistance we had a fast pass to Space Mountain. We were then able to use a bonus fast pass (we got it because Indiana Jones went down earlier in the day) to ride the Matterhorn. Then we had a fast pass for Indiana Jones. By the time we finished Indiana Jones, Rise of the Resistance was back up. We head over to ride it again. We nearly had a bit of a snafu. When they scanned our passes after the ride broke down, it gave us a multi-experience fast pass that we could use to get back onto Rise of the Resistance. In the same section of the app we also had a replacement fast pass from Indiana Jones going down earlier in the day. We were very cautious and we know with 100% certainty that we selected and used the replacement fast pass to ride the Matterhorn. However, when we looked later, the replacement fast pass was still there and the multi-experience fast pass was gone. The app must default to the most recent pass when you scan a replacement pass. We were worried that this could cause a problem and it did end up being slightly inconvenient. When we scanned our tickets to get back on the ride the cast member received an error message. We explained what happened. She asked us to wait a moment while she talked to her manager before she eventually let us continue onto the ride.

It was incredible the second time as well. Not as good as the first time because you can never fully regain that surprise, but still marvelous. Plus, this time around everything went off without a hitch and we got to experience the conclusion of the ride. This ride blew our minds.

We had a fast pass to Big Thunder Mountain (we always try to get in a ride after dark – this ride is fun at night) and we still had an extra fast pass from our earlier snafu, which we used to ride Space Mountain. We decided to call it a night. It had a been a long and satisfying day in Disneyland.

After some thought we decided not to try to get a boarding pass to Rise of the Resistance the next day. We were very happy with our two experiences on the ride. We also wanted to leave no later than noon to drive home and we knew if we got a boarding group we might be tempted to stay later. The odds of getting an early enough boarding group felt slim. Plus, we knew we would have a better rope drop experience at California Adventure if we were not busy trying to get a boarding group. It was the right call.

We got to the park ~7:15am on Monday morning and they opened the gates ~7:30. DCA has extra-magic hour so Disney hotel guests could enter and start experiencing the attractions early. They let the rest of us in ~7:30am, but they had areas roped off so only hotel guests could ride most of the rides. Pro-tip they will usually let all guests ride Soarin’ Over the World prior to park opening. There was no line so we walked right on and were off by 7:45am. We were waiting by the rope near the pier when the park opened. Our plan was to ride our favorite DCA rides and leave no later than noon. We rode Midway Mania and the Incredicoaster with no line. We then used our fast pass for Radiator Springs Racers. We also used a fast pass for Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout. After that we took a break to buy a gift for Skylee and to try the Churro milk shake from Schmoozies! – it was very good. We had another fast pass for Mission Breakout and then we had one last fast pass for the Incredicoaster. As we left the park we also stopped and bought a gift for Holly. We did all of this and we were back at our car ~10:30am. We hit the road. We drove the entire way home in one go this time stopping for lunch (In-N-Out Burger) and dinner (Hash House A Go Go). We pulled into South Jordan ~10pm. We picked up Tex, who spent the weekend with Jake and Meg before heading home and straight to bed.