How to Rope Drop Rise of the Resistance
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There are several ways to do Rope Drop at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but if you are a Star Wars fan, Galaxy’s Edge is a great place to start! AND with this park’s new Rope Drop Procedure, there are a few things you need to know. In this post we are going to go over a few strategies to get the most out of Rope Dropping this area of the park.
What is Rope Drop?
Simply put, this just means that you are arriving before park open to be one of the first ones in ahead of the crowds. This allows you to hopefully hop on a ride or two (or three) before the crowds start to gather and the lines get long.
The term comes from back in the day when cast members would have a physical rope and when the park would open, they would ‘drop the rope’ to let guests head to the rides. They still do this in some parks at specific areas!
There are technically two rope drop times for each park. Guests who are staying at a Disney owned resort (or select other resorts) can enter the theme parks up to 30 minutes before official park open each day. If you are a guest who qualifies for this, you’ll be rope dropping that early park entry time.
For those that do NOT qualify for early entry, you will be rope dropping regular park open time. Don’t worry! We’ll be going over both for this strategy!
Hollywood Studios New Rope Drop Procedure
Things are a little different than they used to be! Up until pretty recently, they would let early entry guests into the park around 15-20 minutes before early entry begins to start getting in line (the attractions would not run until early park entry officially begins.) Guests not there for early entry would then be lined up on the right side until it was time for the park to open.
Now they are allowing ALL guests whether arriving for early entry or not to enter the park around one hour before park open. Guests can then start lining up for the attractions or land they wish to rope drop from inside the park.
For Galaxy’s Edge in particular, they will hold non-resort guests at the tunnel near Muppet Courtyard and then resort guests will have their tickets checked at the tunnel to make sure that they qualify for early entry. Then they can continue on to queue up for the attraction they wish to rope drop.
We really enjoyed this new procedure because it broke up the long walk back there and it also gives you time to go grab a drink from Starbucks, shop a little, or grab a bite to eat before having to rush to the rides.
Then at official park open, they escorted the rest of the guests through the tunnel and let them disperse to the attractions they wished to ride.
When should you get there?
Because they now let everyone in the park at the same time, I suggest arriving to the park around one hour before official park open (regardless of if you are there for early entry or not). The closer to park open you get, the more the line bogs down at the ticket tapstyles and it could easily take you 10-15 minutes to just get into the park. (and that’s not even including getting through security)
I always joke that at Disney, if you are early, you’re on time, if you are on time, you’re late and it does pay to get there early! Yes, you may be waiting around for up to an hour to get in line for the ride, but you could easily spend that hour in line later in the day wasting precious park time that you could be using for other things. I don’t know about you, but I would rather spend that hour outside of park time to get the most out of my day.
The Strategy
In this situation, I would honestly use the same strategy for both early entry and regular park open. This park has several ‘big’ rides that people like to rope drop, so it spreads the crowds out pretty well.
As mentioned earlier, you are going to arrive to the park at least one hour before park open (so if the park opens at 9:00am, you need to arrive by 8:00am - that means you need to get on the bus or Skyliner around 30 minutes before that).
Then you will head over to Galaxy’s Edge! It’s important to note that you’ll want to go left when you get in the park and enter from the Muppets Courtyard area and NOT Toy Story Land as you’ll have a much closer shot and you won’t be fighting the crowds that are rope dropping Slinky Dog Dash.
If you are a Disney Resort (or other select resort) guest, you will scan your ticket at the tunnel entrance to verify your hotel reservation. You only need to have one person per room and the Cast Member will ask how many are in your party. They can see how many there are, so don’t try and sneak someone in who doesn’t qualify! It won’t work.
You will then continue to either Rise of the Resistance or Smuggler’s Run. I recommend starting out with Rise of the Resistance as that line gets longer quicker. They will start letting guests actually ride when early entry officially starts 30 minutes before park open.
If you are a non-resort guest, you will line up on the sidewalk across from Muppet Courtyard (if you are looking at the tunnel, that’s the right side of the street). At official park open, the Cast Members will walk you in - this is to keep people from running - and then release you to go to your attraction.
Again, I still recommend starting at Rise of the Resistance! The line may say it’s long, but typically your wait will be under an hour (most of the time when we do this, it’s only around 20-30 minutes). Just a heads up that your experience will vary depending on crowds and time of year, but it will still be shortest at this time of day.
For both of these strategies, I would then head to Smugglers Run and finish up my morning by grabbing some breakfast at Ronto Roasters!
What If Rise of the Resistance Is Down?
This ride is definitely known to have some rough starts in the morning. Don’t let that freak you out if you see the ride is down while you are waiting to rope drop. If you try to abandon ship and walk across the park to another ride, you’ll end up at the back of the line and you really won’t be any better off.
If Rise of the Resistance is still not operating by the time you arrive, DON’T waste time talking to the cast members about when it will come up. They won’t tell you and you’ll be wasting time. Instead, head to Smuggler’s Run first and ride that, hopefully by the time you finish that it will be back up. If not, you can always head over to Toy Story Land and hit up a few of those rides.
Alternatively, you can opt to just head straight to Toy Story Land from Galaxy’s Edge - you’ll still get there faster than if you would have walked all the way around and hopefully still beat some of those crowds! To get there the fastest, when you enter Galaxy’s Edge, keep to the right all the way through and you should make it to Toy Story Land (Rise of the Resistance and Smugglers Run will be to the left)
BONUS - Single Rider
Rise of the Resistance has been testing out a new single rider line! This can be a great way to save some time or have a shorter wait if you aren’t able to rope drop or simply want to ride it again.
You will need to make sure that everyone in your party is ok to be split up - that means no children under 7 years old and if you do have kids older than that, you are ok with them riding by themselves. Single Rider means just that, you will be riding by yourself.
You luckily can all wait in line together, but they will split you up when you get sorted for your vehicles. They have also added to allow you to watch the pre-shows, so you really aren’t missing out on any of the attraction! When we tested this out, we waited a total of 6 minutes. That’s right! SIX MINUTES. That’s crazy when you think about how this line averages over an hour wait anytime during the day!
To access the Single Rider line, you’ll first make sure that there is a Cast Member out front holding a single rider line sign. If that’s the case, they will escort you to where it is, or you can head over near the exit of the attraction. (around the corner near the merchandise carts)
