How to MAKE SURE you get to ride the Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland

In today’s post: Learn the best tips to ensure you don’t miss the Rise of the Resistance ride at Disneyland!

The second attraction at Galaxy’s Edge, Disneyland’s Star Wars land, is now open, and it’s AMAZING. It’s called The Rise of the Resistance, and more than any other ride at Disney it puts you right inside the movie universe. You’re a new recruit to the resistance who gets captured by Kylo Ren and the First Order, and everything about this ride is immersive and over the top.

So it’s no surprise that the ride is incredibly popular! Keep reading to learn how to vastly increase your chances to ride The Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland.

In years past, when Disneyland opened a new ride, lines would be hours long as everyone tried to ride it (almost 4 hours for Radiator Springs Racers!). For The Rise of the Resistance, Disney is doing something new: issuing boarding passes. Instead of just standing in line, you must get a boarding pass in order to ride this attraction. This caps the number of people that can ride the attraction each day and spread groups out so everyone doesn’t get there at once. That’s great news because it means lines are much shorter, but it’s also bad news because all the boarding passes for the day are usually gone within a minute or two of the park opening! If you don’t get a boarding pass in that first few minutes, you don’t get to ride.

So today I’m going to share 5 ways to VASTLY increase your chances of getting a Rise of the Resistance boarding pass on your trip to Disneyland.

Rise of the Resistance Overview

Before we get to the tips, I’ll give you a quick overview of the attraction so you know if you really want to ride it.

The height requirement for this ride is 40 inches.

You may only get ONE boarding pass for the ride each day.

One of the cool things about Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland is that it’s super immersive. The set design is amazing and it truly feels like you are on another world. In fact, cast members in this part of the park don’t act like they are Disney employees – they stay completely in character at all times. If you ask an employee where she is from, she’ll probably say “Batu”, which is the planet where Galaxy’s Edge is set.

Once you check in at the Rise of the Resistance attraction, cast members will treat you as a new recruit to the Resistance and will direct you to a line. Even though you have a boarding pass, you will still have some wait time in line; however it shouldn’t be hours long (we rode it twice; the first time our wait was 15 minutes and the second time it was 40 minutes).  Most of the line is inside and air conditioned and there are lots of cool things to look at since everything is designed to look like part of the rebel base.

Once you’ve moved through the line, a hologram of Rae tells you that the rebel base is no longer safe and you’ll be transported somewhere else. You’ll enter a ship with a group of people and the visuals from the windows are really pretty amazing. Combined with mild motion, it really does feel like you could be on a transport ship.

Unfortunately, you run into The First Order pretty quickly, and your transport ship is captured by a Star Destroyer. This is where the real fun begins. You are paraded past a giant room full of Storm Troopers and into a smaller area, where First Order cast members line you up for “interrogation.” Remember, all these cast members stay in character the whole time, which ends up being pretty great. (I got told off for leaning against a wall instead of standing in a straight line!)

Things get more exciting from there, with stunning visuals and fun ride elements. The scope of this attraction is absolutely HUGE and like nothing we’d ever seen from Disney before.

Bottom line: If you are even remotely interested in Star Wars you will love this ride. Even if you’re not a fan, it’s pretty cool. However, the immersive part of the experience is more exciting than the “ride” part of it, so if you really couldn’t care less about Star Wars and just want a fun roller coaster, skip it and head to Space Mountain instead.

Note: there is one short drop on this ride. It’s very unexpected so it’s a bit of a shock, but it’s short enough that it’s basically over before you realize what’s happening.

How to Get a Boarding Pass to Rise of the Resistance

In order to get a boarding pass to Rise of the Resistance, you and your entire party must be inside Disneyland Park (not California Adventures) at the posted opening time. You will also need the Disneyland app.

NOTE: there are kiosks next to Buzz Lightyear in Tomorrowland where you can get boarding passes if you don’t have the app. However, because the boarding passes get claimed so quickly, I can’t imagine standing in line for those kiosks is super effective and I’d highly recommend using the app.

Boarding passes become available at the exact moment of the posted park opening time. Check the Disneyland calendar in advance so you know for sure when the posted opening time is for each day you are there (different days of the week may have different opening times).

Note that “Magic Morning” and “Extra Magic Hour” times DO NOT affect what time you can get a boarding pass. If the park opens at 8, but Magic Morning early entry is at 7, boarding passes are still available at 8.

When you open the Disneyland app you’ll see a section about Rise of Resistance on the main page. Hit the button that says “Find Out More”.

That will take you to a page about the ride, where you’ll see a button that says “Join Boarding Group.” Before the posted park opening time the button will not allow you to request a boarding group, but as soon as the park opens the button will become active.

At park opening time, hit the “Join Boarding Group” button. All the tickets linked to your group will come up and you’ll need to hit one more button to choose which of the people linked to your party want to join a boarding group (find out more about linking tickets in the tips below).

At this point you’ll be told whether you got a boarding group number or not. Currently groups 1-80 are considered “guaranteed” boarding groups that will be called back to ride the attraction sometime during park hours that day. Anything over 80 is considered a “stand-by” group, meaning your group may or may not be called to ride the attraction depending on how quickly other groups move through the attraction.

The app will alert you when your boarding pass is called back to ride the attraction. Once your boarding pass number is called you have a two hour window to get to the Rise of the Resistance attraction.

5 Tips to Ensure you get a Boarding Pass

Ok, I can’t actually ensure you get a boarding pass, but following these tips will make it much more likely that you do:

1. Plan to visit on a less crowded day. I know, this seems like a no brainer tip, but honestly it makes such a difference if you can manage it. Fewer people in the park means more chance for you to get a boarding pass! You’ll have much better luck getting a boarding pass on a Monday – Thursday (as long as Monday isn’t a holiday) than you will on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Monday and Wednesdays are even better than Tuesdays and Thursdays because they are “Magic Morning” days at California Adventures, which means some visitors are taking advantage of an extra early hour over at California. More people at CA means fewer people in Disneyland, which means a better chance for you to get a boarding pass.

Now this absolutely does not mean you can’t get a boarding pass on the weekend or during a busy time – you’ll just be competing with more people on those days.

2. Download the Disneyland app in advance + link tickets. A few days before you arrive, download the Disneyland app and create an account. Because boarding passes go so quickly, you really need to have an account and be logged in and ready to go as you enter the park. Downloading the app a few days in advance will give you the chance to get familiar with how it works.

Once you have an account in the app, you want to link up everyone in your party. Linking your party in the app means that one person can get a boarding pass for the entire party, ensuring you can all ride the attraction at the same time.

Depending on how you purchased your park tickets, you may be able to link all the tickets in your app before you even get to Disneyland. If you can do this, definitely do it! However, if you purchased electronic vouchers for tickets, you won’t be able to link everyone until you all enter the park for the first time. Depending on how tech savvy you are it can take a few minutes to figure out how to get everyone linked up. So if you are trying to get Rise of the Resistance boarding passes on your first day in the park, be sure to get the tickets linked as soon as you get inside the park, and plan to get there extra early.

3. BE SURE you are in the park before the posted opening time. You cannot get a boarding pass unless you and everyone in your party who wants to ride it are physically inside Disneyland. That means you need to arrive at Disneyland WELL before posted entry time. Disney does start letting people into the park about half an hour before the posted opening time, but it can take a long time to get through the lines. First there’s a security line to enter the park area, then there’s the line to actually go through the gate into the park. If you’re visiting on a weekday that’s not during a busy season, you might be able to get through both lines and into the park in about 20 minutes. But on a weekend during a busy season it could take much longer, so you may want to be to the park 60 minutes or more before opening time. If you are only visiting for one day, err on the side of being extra early.

4. Consider turning off wifi. Disney has wifi that many people use while they are in the park, and it’s a good idea to use it most of the time to conserve your battery. However, right at opening time when everyone is trying to get a boarding pass, the Disney wifi can get bogged down. So your cell phone’s data plan may be faster and more reliable than the Disney wifi. If you are inside the park a few minutes early you can experiment with web searches using your own data plan to see if it seems faster than the Disney wifi.

5. Start from outside the app. It seems like it would be a good idea to have the Disneyland app open and ready to go while you are waiting for the park to open so you can request a boarding pass. However, we found that if you have the Disneyland app already open when boarding passes become available, the app has to refresh before you can request boarding passes. That refreshing process takes a few seconds. We found it’s actually faster to start from outside the app and watch the clock on your phone. As soon as it hits 8 am (or whenever the park is officially open that day) tap on your Disney app to request a boarding pass.

You’ll hear cheers going up from around the park as people are able to get boarding passes, and it does feel pretty exciting when you get them. Good luck, and may the force be with you!