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I gifted my parents a CHI-REZ family Disney day for Christmas, Disney has a special place in our family history – growing up in southern Orange County we celebrated all major events and birthdays with a trip to Disney! As a child my mom used to surprise me with Disney trips and we still go just the two of us, we love the park atmosphere and all the magic – including the gardens, Disney planters are just so dang beautiful.

So I was extra excited to introduce them to Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge because I knew they would be amazed by the immersive experience Disney created in their own backyard! I was also really hopefully we would be able to ride Rise of the Resistance as a family for the first time. SO began my planning! I had read online how difficult it is to get boarding passes for Rise and after some phone calls to the parentals everyone was ON BOARD to attempt to get boarding passes (there is no “line” for Rise of The Resistance, you have to apply for a digital lottery at opening of the park for the opportunity to ride. Once assigned a boarding group number there is still no guarantee to ride! Disney usually boards groups 1-82 most days but we heard some horror stories about getting stuck on the ride or it malfunctioning. A family next to us said they were removed from the ride after it broke down and were given a rain check ticket to return when it should be behaving!)

Main questions I had while reading everything about raising you ride opportunity!

1. Does your entire party have to be In the park to be eligible for boarding passes? YES. have your whole parties digital tickets attached to your Disney app for best results!
2. How Early does the lottery begin? SO, this is where my research failed us! I was under the impression we could park by 7am and be inside the park by 8 am! I WAS WRONG. at least on the day we went we weren’t allowed in the parking garage until 7:30am, then we waited to enter the park until 8:30. to be honest I WAS PANICKED. because I was worried I’d forced my whole family into this hair-brained scheme and we were already loosing if it was 8 am and we weren’t in the gate! BUT the lottery opened at “park opening” so the park fully opened at 9 am so I hunkered down on Main Street around 8:45 am to get myself ready to try my hand at the digital lottery!
3. How Quickly does the lottery close? APPARENTLY 2 minutes. which is bananas. within two minutes over 150ish boarding passes are distributed.
4. Finally – is this worth it??? YES- the ride is very very cool! the whole chi-rez fam was highly skeptical but we all left with huge smiles talking about the incredible production value of the entire experience!

Ok – here’s what I did. at 8:58 – I opened my Disney experience app. 8:59 – clicked on the “find out more” button under the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. 9:00 rolled around (watched by the second hand count down on Jerry’s watch) and I clicked join boarding group. At this point you can hear people having success around you – which is an amazing shared experience but it’s also very nerve racking! THEN BOOM. I loaded all our tickets for a boarding pass and we were assigned group 66! WE DID IT!!! I was so excited I was shaking! (might of also been a lack of snacks and a 5 am wake up call to get to this happy moment!)

Group 66! woot woot! sooooo then you wait for your group to be called. We ended up being called around 4pm, once called they scan in all your digital tickets (via the app) and then you wait in a more typical “line” before riding! Honestly I’m so pleased we were able to have this experience as a family and sharing these memories is so dang fun!

Disney is the best, we had such a perfect day! My parents loved exploring Batuu – we tried the specialty flavored popcorn, the bantha milk and had reservations at the cantina! Jerry and I piloted the Millennium Falcon – not our strongest showing! We’re already planning another trip for flying redemption!

If you’ve been putting off making plans for something fun – PLEASE DON’T. GO OUT AND MAKE A LITTLE FUN even if it’s make-believe.

let me know if you go, or if you were able to snag boarding passes!!!

XO,

C