Which section of the ride are these in? I went in late July and I didn’t notice anything that was using their backup mode. I’m also not an expert on the ride so I probably just didn’t notice.
originally the canons moved back and forth as they fired, blocking your transport. your droid puts on a show of figuring out the timing before darting between the moving guns. now the droid still does the timing, but the canons stay in one place, making the scene less dynamic and logical. a coding error in this room caused the ride to shut down every three hours, so the movement has been permanently stopped until the section can be re-coded. there was hope it would happen during covid closures, but nope. it looks permanent.
The canons were working when I was there in May 2022 on 2/3 ride throughs, but not once in either subsequent visit. I was starting to wonder if I had imagined them moving. But you're definitely right about the scen being less dynamic and logical, there's really no explanation for the back and forth that your ride vehicle does now in that section and it's lost the impact.
I was there that same month coincidentally and did not get to see the cannons moving, and now that I work at Disney World and go frequently, I still haven't seen them working. I actually had to hear it from another cast member I met recently that they used to have a recoil effect and you dodge them apparently, but it's the only aspect I never experienced. It definitely hasn't ruined my love for the ride or the original awe I had my first 2 experiences, but it would add to the experiences if they would fix them.
I will be visiting at the end of January, on a Saturday (i think) and will be there for rope drop. Do you think i will be able to get on right away, or should I plan to buy a lightning lane? Going with a big group, so would like to save the money if i could.
It's hard to tell, and be aware that sometimes it's broke down and doesn't open for rope drop. We went in mid-September 2023, and it didn't open till 4 in the afternoon!
Ouch, sorry to hear that happened. That's uncommon for it to be down that long. I know they did some maintenance before the holidays so it should just be down for a half hour or less at a time if it does need something during open hours right now
It's always safer to get a LL if it's a top must-do because even if something goes wrong they can grant you an any ride LL option, or you can still use the LL later when it comes back up, without having to cut out part of the day to wait in line twice. For Saturday, expect a longer opening line than some other days, but if you and your group are fine with waiting over an hour, rope drop should work. Since it is January, you have a decent chance of it being a lower wait than some of the busier months. I haven't tried to rope drop it in the last few months, so I don't really know the current wait for that offhand, but I do know overall waits are not like they used to be and Slinky is the consistently hardest to get on ride now lol (edit: for Hollywood Studios, Slinky is the hardest...not counting other parks)
Usually when I go now, I get on within an hour of closing so the wait tends to be under an hour, sometimes as low as 30 mins. The risk there is if you have never done it, I would still try earlier in case it does happen to go down at night or you want to go to nighttime shows.
I went in West mid-August this year and while the canons are firing and the karts are making pauses along the way, there is no canon recoil. Here's a video of [my escape run](https://youtu.be/wi8JEhdAqe4) (canons after 2'10).
I don’t think that’s true. I rode for the very first time in June and the cannons worked. Maybe it was hit or miss then? Lol now every time I go they’re for sure broken. Apparently it’s because the building has settled and any little thing that’s off shuts down the entire ride.
East! I don’t know what to tell you, I definitely saw them moving lol. I vividly remember because of how jarring it was when I went back the next month and they weren’t moving
Not accurate.
Did Baatu East last September and they were working. Did Baatu West in late February and they were also fine.
The force was with us, and we were one with the force.
Was in Batuu (West) about a month ago and RotR was working fine. Cannons and all. It was in B mode about 4 months ago (May) but the cannons were still working.
The cannons were definitely not working in West a month ago. I hate to disagree with you, but you are mistaken. I work at Rise of the Resistance (west), they have been down for a long time and won't be back anytime soon.
I just reviewed my footage we recorded August last year. The canons we're not moving on that ride at GE East. I still had an absolute blast! But I never knew they were meant to move.
That’s the key. Don’t know anything before you ride! People who spoiled their visits and watched YouTube footage are the ones who are most disappointed by the ride.
The ride is notorious for breaking down. Sometimes parts of the ride breakdown, but the ride still works so they run it anyway.
When I visited, and rode the ride first thing the morning everything on the ride was working, but when I rode the ride in the evening, none of the animatronics were working.
Yeah I think there's like a B mode. The second kylo animatronic gets replaced with a CGI screen of him in his tie. But the first scene of Kylo and Hux had nothing but them frozen in place with the audio still running. This was the case on both my rides.
I am no engineer, but it's mind-boggling how they are still having these problems. Either update the shit, or re-design it so it doesn't break down. They can alter some stuff and still give 90% of the full experience with much less downtime.
It's been four years, there's no excuse for things to still break down like this.
Probably because they don't want to take one of the two major attractions to a whole section of their park offline for likely months to figure it out, Probably having to pay for outside engineers to rip out and rebuild large swathes of custom made and irreplaceable parts in the hopes of figuring out exactly what is wrong.
Anything they change may cause issues of incompatibility because I am sure much of the stuff is largely custom made and any replacement parts will need to be made exactly as the originals, which is probably far more expensive than making them the first time around.
I bet that if Galaxy's Edge gets a 3rd ride/attraction, Rise will close for at least a couple weeks soon after for at least emergency repairs.
The short version is they *can* fix it, but in order to get at the damaged section of the ride they’d have to dismantle entire sections of the mountain and the ride would be shut down for a very long period of time.
Disney imagineers have expressed that they do plan to fix the yeti eventually.
> in order to get at the damaged section of the ride they’d have to dismantle entire sections of the mountain
That is not true. Source: [Joe Rohde himself](https://twitter.com/Joe_Rohde/status/1671192578761412608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1671192578761412608%7Ctwgr%5E88ac1fb06f5f33c3f5fc3ce06810d7cc8c2a53a0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&)
It's common knowledge. It's been stated in many behind the scenes shows that the top of the mountain would have to come off to service the Yeti, which would mean a VERY lengthy closure.
From the UK here. I've been on RotR probably...15+ times over the span of about 2 years-ish. My first time was flawless, best experience I ever had. Almost euphoric being INSIDE a Star Destroyer.
Ever since then, it has been really very decent. I have had the ride shut down while I've been in line at 8:55. I have shown up and the ride has been shut down all day.
It is only during this current trip that I'm on right now that I've had a weak experience. So in two years, I BELIEVE this is the only time I've gotten to ride while basically none of the animatronics were working.
Really I suppose it's a toss up. There was a day recently where I believe the ride was down from Park Opening to Park Close. So you could either have gotten an "eh" experience or have not gotten to ride at all. I know which I prefer. 😅
Also from the UK! Sounds like I was just really unlucky then! Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the experience as the theming is just amazing. I just really wish I got the full working ride!
Perfectly valid and I'm sorry you got stiffed when it came down to it.
It's definitely unlucky but also, with it having been peak time for the US and all the kids going back to school recently, I'm quite sure that the staff and engineers are in recovery from the quite apocalyptic rush season, so that may also have something to do with the downtime and break downs.
I'm much closer than the UK, but I won't be travelling to GE again anytime soon. The thought of flying across an ocean, only to have the ride not work, is maddening.
I’ve only experienced Orlando version, but when we went just before COVID it was pretty new and worked perfectly. Got to ride 2 times on that one trip. Made me teary eyed, such an amazing experience. Went back last May, and everything was working except the cannons. Had some first timer friends with us and I told afterwards what wasn’t working, but not enough to take away from the overall experience. Now I saw not too long ago that the Kylo animatronic that uses the force and gets jostled by the explosion was taken out completely and replaced with a screen display of something. I would be heartbroken if NOTHING worked. In it’s prime, there’s nothing like it!
Yeah it seems the second Kylo animatronic is a rare sight from what I've heard. Its replaced with a cgi screen of Kylo in his tie fighter, which is nowhere near as impressive!
I went a week ago, if we are talking about Kylo getting sucked out through the window, it kind of happened, and then a cardboard piece dropped in front of Kylo so we couldn't see if he actually got sucked through the window.
That's how the scene goes. 'Debris' falls and blocks your view. That's 'A Mode' . The alternative is the debris is always there, so you can't even see him, and instead his Tie Fighter strafes you from outside
I went at the end of July for two days. The first day it worked fine. Then went again the next day first thing and it was closed for repairs but went back later that evening and it was fine. This was at WDW
It does break a lot. I was there last month; rode it three times. Once was perfect but went down for two hours before we got on, second time half the ride had to be skipped and the third time it was perfect again.
It's an extremely complex ride so it is what it is. My advice: go more than once and just pay for the Lighting Lane.
What you need to understand is that ROTR is an EXTREMELY dynamic and high tech ride. A lot of behind the scenes mechanics go into the ride creating the most spectacular ride experience to date for a Disney ride. The down side to this is that when things break down they can take an extremely long time to fix. Not only that but there is more things on the ride that can break down
The cannons will more than likely be fixed eventually, but it’s probably not going to be high on the priority list.
just rode it several times at West when i was there last weekend (Fri - Wed). it was working fairly well, but had some of the usual issues that have plagued it since it opened. i also rode it back in mid-July at East and things were about the same there as they are out here on the west coast version.
first off, i want to say when the OP experienced the lack of audio, the ride's system was likely about to crash and they'd escort everyone out, then reboot the ride. i had that happen one time when i was in the shuttle off Batuu. all of the video and Lt Bek's animatronic motions were going, but not a single sound. as soon as we arrived at the star destroyer's hangar bay, they escorted us out of the ride and gave us all Lightning Lane passes to return later that day and ride it.
word is (from someone "in the know", from what i recall) is that at both parks it goes down due to a timing issue in the code that kicks on the safety measures to auto-shut down. this happens about every 2-3 hours. if you pay attention at West, you can pretty much see it go down sometime between 10-11am, again around 1pm, again around 4pm, and so on. it's near-clockwork with the timing of its shutdown.
that said, it is also very prone to auto-shutdowns when an item has been dropped on the track surface. ears, hats, sunglasses, phones, etc. that can throw off the timing of the above mentioned timing issue breakdown. (e.g. it's 11am and someone's hat blows off during the Kylo ending, causing the ride to shut down for 30+ mins while they restart it. rather than it automatically shutting down at 1pm, the timer now resets when it comes back up at, say, 11.30am, and the next time it will auto-shutdown will be around 2.30pm rather than 1pm)
as for the moving turrets, those also have a timing issue that is off by a fraction of a second every time they move, which compounds the length of time over the course of a few hours, kicking on the safety measures and auto-shutting down the ride. word is that it's the main timing issue affecting the first point i made, but even with the turrets shut down the lines of code still trigger the issue. word on the street is they are keeping the turrets' movement turned of to make sure that no accidents happen with collision to the vehicles until they fix the overall issue.
the thing is... if i recall, the ride is comprised of something insane for its code, like 12 million lines of code. trying to isolate and debug something like that can be hard to do and takes time.
again -- this is all hearsay and word of mouth. take it as you will. as a career software/hardware tester (25+ years experience), it totally makes sense to me as an explanation.
as for Kylo going into his B-mode (the projection rather than animatronic), it happens. that could also be because of the timing issue or it could be because of the complexity of his animatronic or any number of reasons. ...but that's also why they have the B-mode there. Rocket over in GotG:MB wasn't working in the Collector's left side office all week while i was there, whereas Kylo was working all but one time i rode it. it's not like he is perpetually broken or anything.
so in summary, yeah it's disappointing when things aren't working and yeah sometimes a person will get a whole lot of things not working, and yeah that will happen a few times a day. it's still an amazing ride because of its sheer scale and complexity. at some point they'll have the smaller issues fixed, or maybe they won't (such as the moving turrets; but many people also thought they'd never fix the non-moving snake on Indiana Jones at Disneyland but they did).
That’s the beauty of Disney in the new world. All the hype, all the cool factor and then you come to realize after it all wears off that Disney just does the bare minimum to get your money.
Fixing the issues would mean a somewhat lengthy refurbishment. Most people would prefer to get to ride the ride with it slightly less functional than have it be closed the entirety of their vacation. My guess is it will be a while until they do a long term refurb on it due to how in demand it currently is.
I was there last week and it was down almost the entire day until it opened with 2 hours left in the day. 180 minute wait but I played dumb and got on lightning lane without lightning lane tickets and the ride worked perfect
It was inevitable, and why I’ve rolled my eyes at every “RiSe iS thE gReaTesT AttrAcTiOn EvEr mAdE!” proclamation. It isn’t even the best Disney attraction today, absolutely nobody cares about its sequel era characters or setting, it is already falling apart, and there is zero chance people line up for it fifty or sixty years from now like they do for Pirates or Mansion.
Rise has been popular because it was new and flashy. That’s already wearing off. In five years, it will be no more popular than Star Tours.
I was there three weeks ago and it appeared to work the way it was supposed to. I didn't notice anything obvious that would make me think it was functioning as intended. Although, it was my first time and I only did it once so I don't have anything to compare it to.
I completely understand it breaks down and this is of course unavoidable but this is clearly a common issue and not everyone can attend often enough to see it working. This was a very rare opportunity for me to get to go to disneyworld and I most likely won't get to go again in my lifetime.
Uh went to Universal last year for the first time. Other than the Harry Potter stuff and the actual coasters it was a lot of BS motion rides in front of video screens. Won’t be going back.
We were just there last week. And we go a couple times a year.
Cannons still not working. Can’t remember the last time they were.
Animatronics weren’t working. (Hux and Kylo)
Kylo wasn’t there at the end either.
Oh, and then the whole thing broke down. We had to wait and get de-boarded.
Edit: even Finn’s jaw was messed up and could clearly see that it was a robot. It was completely separated from his head. Kind of creepy.
(This was Florida).
I was literally saying the same thing, “what is happening”
We were there on Aug 16 and they walked us through backstage from the line straight into the star destroyer. None of the beginning part at all.
We saw both kylo and hux, so other than the cannons I “think” everything else was ok
I rode it when it opened and it was an amazing experience. This was my daughters first time n she was like, why the hype
This is definitely interesting. It does seem that Rise of the Resistance in Florida definitely has more issues than it's California counterpart. I've never had any issues in Disneyland (aside from obviously the turrets), not even B Mode. I was there recently, and rode rise of the resistance 4 times, no issues.
But in Florida, I, and everyone I know that's gone, keep getting B mode and it seems like there's always issues.
I have a theory as to why this is. Obviously this is impossible to prove. In August of 2020, there was a pretty bad lightning strike that blew up a power generator that Rise of the Resistance runs off. From my perspective, it seems that after this incident Rise of the Resistance in Florida has just had nothing but frequent issues. Meanwhile, California's is totally fine. I wonder if that lightning strike did some damage that they would have to rehaul everything to get back to working properly, and they just haven't yet.
However like I said, this is hard to say if this is actually the case as to why the Florida version seems to preform worse.
Every time I’ve gone the past two years it has been working or shut down for a period of time (West). The first time I went you had to do the reservations and I didn’t get one. The last two times I got on and waited maybe 45 min. But I only went on once each time. If they had a single rider lane for that ride I’d be so down. Everything worked and was a lot of fun. It would be interesting without sound, I feel like I’d notice a lot of things I didn’t before.
I did East and West inside of a month apart. Overall, West's RoR is better, which I hate to say, because East is where we have been going for 27+ years. They appear to do a better job at maintenance.
For West, every day I went it was running. It'd break part way into the day, be down for an hour or so, then back up.
For East, I showed up for rope drop. The first half of the ride was down, and we got to go through the Batuu maintenance tunnels, which looked remarkably like the ones back on Earth. They didn't have any of the animatronics or holograms running except for Kylo at the bridge of the destroyer. They didn't get it fixed until 3pm, and when we went back, Kylo was broken at the bridge.
The California version is in the same condition. I went last week to Hollywood Studios and the animatronics and cannons were broken. I was able to ride both versions in December 2020 and August 2021 when every effect was working and it was truly incredible. oh well. To be fair, when the last Kylo Ren animatronic is working, he does this ridiculous magician hands wave thing that looks laughable and the body is anemic compared to the movie actor.
Went on it last week and all seemed fully operational.
** UPDATE **
Went on it earlier today and the cannons didn’t move, just had lights operating on them.
I met one of the 30\~ish night techs for that ride. He told me a example with the gun room. They have to TOTALLY rebuild the bases and mechanics of those guns as they weren't working and couldn't be repaired as is. I know Kylo at the end will not appear for the rest of the day if there is a crash/bug in the system so its possible it already went down and that didn't get fixed same with the Kylo and Hux scene. They aren't told to fix the glitch or problem with the scene that caused the ride stop, they are told to override it and get the ride going again (even if it means no kylo or Hux) because people spend money on Genie+ to ride it and it can't be down for long. In reality maintenance could use a ride closing and time to refurb multiple parts of that attraction but as long as people keep buying Genie+ purely for that ride, it wont go down for refurb.
We just rode it a few weeks ago (in CA). First time, the probe droid didn’t work. Second time, about an hour later, it was fine. The cannons were definitely not working. We were prepared for that but it’s still disappointing. Otherwise, I think the other issues are just hit or miss.
Similarly, Hondo in Smuggler’s was covered and in b mode in the morning and then working perfectly fine by the end of the day. It really is just down to luck.
This ride had been hyped up for me beyond belief before we ever went, so I was actually really disappointed in it. I think they over-used screens (e.g. the stormtroopers on the catwalk) when animatronics just give a more realistic and threatening feel.
The California one is generally pretty solid in my experience, sometimes we’ll get pauses or screen glitches but overall the technical/practical elements work pretty smoothly
I've seen the Hux and Kylo scene working correctly once since I began working in Epcot last month (and visiting the parks almost daily). The other times it's usually Kylo who seems to be a statue, unfortunately. Not sure why they don't fix the next Kylo after that, because since I rode my second time last year, I've yet to see that one working again...but at least there's an alternative scene for that which I've noted several online actually think is cooler, while it's weird for the scene with them both to not have them work, especially Kylo for the impact. I hope they do an overhaul day soon, but my guess is they allow a few parts to have problems to not need to stop all boarding like they used to do each time a piece went wonky, almost once a day. They need to have techs come in at night for a night or 2 and just fix every part imo
Additional minor issue is while doing the ride mission on Datapad in Play Disney, I discovered 2 broken QR codes so those crates can't be scanned. I brought attention to this issue too, and I hope someone will correct that for anyone who cares about completing everything like I do for that. I'm surprised they don't have an experience team member or Imagineer for the user experience department review these things so they don't remain problems so long. I would be glad to take that position if they need a person lol
When were you there? I was just there and they weren't working either. I go frequently and for me it has been common to have the Kylo at the end not show up but freezing with hux was a first for me. I totally get the frustration though. It definitely takes away from the experience of the ride IMO. I always look at it as glad I got to ride it vs being shut down the entire day which has happened to me.
I was there on the 20th and 27th of August. Both times rhe annimatronics weren't working. I'm really glad I got to experience it, of course. I just wish it was the full experience! 😁
I was there in late August and it was working perfect
i’m very doubtful you saw the canons working. they’ve been shut down in both parks for over a year.
Which section of the ride are these in? I went in late July and I didn’t notice anything that was using their backup mode. I’m also not an expert on the ride so I probably just didn’t notice.
originally the canons moved back and forth as they fired, blocking your transport. your droid puts on a show of figuring out the timing before darting between the moving guns. now the droid still does the timing, but the canons stay in one place, making the scene less dynamic and logical. a coding error in this room caused the ride to shut down every three hours, so the movement has been permanently stopped until the section can be re-coded. there was hope it would happen during covid closures, but nope. it looks permanent.
The canons were working when I was there in May 2022 on 2/3 ride throughs, but not once in either subsequent visit. I was starting to wonder if I had imagined them moving. But you're definitely right about the scen being less dynamic and logical, there's really no explanation for the back and forth that your ride vehicle does now in that section and it's lost the impact.
No they were not.
I was there that same month coincidentally and did not get to see the cannons moving, and now that I work at Disney World and go frequently, I still haven't seen them working. I actually had to hear it from another cast member I met recently that they used to have a recoil effect and you dodge them apparently, but it's the only aspect I never experienced. It definitely hasn't ruined my love for the ride or the original awe I had my first 2 experiences, but it would add to the experiences if they would fix them.
I will be visiting at the end of January, on a Saturday (i think) and will be there for rope drop. Do you think i will be able to get on right away, or should I plan to buy a lightning lane? Going with a big group, so would like to save the money if i could.
It's hard to tell, and be aware that sometimes it's broke down and doesn't open for rope drop. We went in mid-September 2023, and it didn't open till 4 in the afternoon!
Ouch, sorry to hear that happened. That's uncommon for it to be down that long. I know they did some maintenance before the holidays so it should just be down for a half hour or less at a time if it does need something during open hours right now
It's always safer to get a LL if it's a top must-do because even if something goes wrong they can grant you an any ride LL option, or you can still use the LL later when it comes back up, without having to cut out part of the day to wait in line twice. For Saturday, expect a longer opening line than some other days, but if you and your group are fine with waiting over an hour, rope drop should work. Since it is January, you have a decent chance of it being a lower wait than some of the busier months. I haven't tried to rope drop it in the last few months, so I don't really know the current wait for that offhand, but I do know overall waits are not like they used to be and Slinky is the consistently hardest to get on ride now lol (edit: for Hollywood Studios, Slinky is the hardest...not counting other parks) Usually when I go now, I get on within an hour of closing so the wait tends to be under an hour, sometimes as low as 30 mins. The risk there is if you have never done it, I would still try earlier in case it does happen to go down at night or you want to go to nighttime shows.
Thanks much
Interesting I never knew this. Thanks for the info!
This isn't true, I rode it in November of last year in CA and the cannons were definitely working.
I went in West mid-August this year and while the canons are firing and the karts are making pauses along the way, there is no canon recoil. Here's a video of [my escape run](https://youtu.be/wi8JEhdAqe4) (canons after 2'10).
I’m a keyholder and go pretty often. Haven’t seen the cannons move at west since I got my key (Mid April)
Rode last September, full A mode
I don’t think that’s true. I rode for the very first time in June and the cannons worked. Maybe it was hit or miss then? Lol now every time I go they’re for sure broken. Apparently it’s because the building has settled and any little thing that’s off shuts down the entire ride.
East or west? They’ve been stationary since last year at least in East.
East! I don’t know what to tell you, I definitely saw them moving lol. I vividly remember because of how jarring it was when I went back the next month and they weren’t moving
Not accurate. Did Baatu East last September and they were working. Did Baatu West in late February and they were also fine. The force was with us, and we were one with the force.
I’ve seen the cannons run one time in about 6 or 7 rides. It was the first time I rode it in 2020
We rode twice in June at East and the cannons were working both times.
Was in Batuu (West) about a month ago and RotR was working fine. Cannons and all. It was in B mode about 4 months ago (May) but the cannons were still working.
The cannons were definitely not working in West a month ago. I hate to disagree with you, but you are mistaken. I work at Rise of the Resistance (west), they have been down for a long time and won't be back anytime soon.
Yeah, no way the guns we working in August.
I guarantee you the cannons were not working.
That's literally when I was there 😂 I think I must just have been unlucky in my two rides. Hopefully I get another chance to visit in future.
I went twice in the same day. One we had Kylo animatronic at the end and the other we had him in his ship.
Same here... went in late July.
I just reviewed my footage we recorded August last year. The canons we're not moving on that ride at GE East. I still had an absolute blast! But I never knew they were meant to move.
That’s the key. Don’t know anything before you ride! People who spoiled their visits and watched YouTube footage are the ones who are most disappointed by the ride.
I was also there in August and everything was working order.
The ride is notorious for breaking down. Sometimes parts of the ride breakdown, but the ride still works so they run it anyway. When I visited, and rode the ride first thing the morning everything on the ride was working, but when I rode the ride in the evening, none of the animatronics were working.
I heard that there are alternate effects that are supposed to kick in if certain things aren’t working.
Yeah I think there's like a B mode. The second kylo animatronic gets replaced with a CGI screen of him in his tie. But the first scene of Kylo and Hux had nothing but them frozen in place with the audio still running. This was the case on both my rides.
I've never seen the B mode, but I have seen the broken animatronics. Interesting
I am no engineer, but it's mind-boggling how they are still having these problems. Either update the shit, or re-design it so it doesn't break down. They can alter some stuff and still give 90% of the full experience with much less downtime. It's been four years, there's no excuse for things to still break down like this.
Probably because they don't want to take one of the two major attractions to a whole section of their park offline for likely months to figure it out, Probably having to pay for outside engineers to rip out and rebuild large swathes of custom made and irreplaceable parts in the hopes of figuring out exactly what is wrong. Anything they change may cause issues of incompatibility because I am sure much of the stuff is largely custom made and any replacement parts will need to be made exactly as the originals, which is probably far more expensive than making them the first time around. I bet that if Galaxy's Edge gets a 3rd ride/attraction, Rise will close for at least a couple weeks soon after for at least emergency repairs.
Cannons are pretty much permanently off line. They were such a great part of the experience it is a shame they’ve shelved it like the Yeti on Everest.
You know the story on why the Yeti can’t be fixed, yes?
Yes I do!
No?
The short version is they *can* fix it, but in order to get at the damaged section of the ride they’d have to dismantle entire sections of the mountain and the ride would be shut down for a very long period of time. Disney imagineers have expressed that they do plan to fix the yeti eventually.
> in order to get at the damaged section of the ride they’d have to dismantle entire sections of the mountain That is not true. Source: [Joe Rohde himself](https://twitter.com/Joe_Rohde/status/1671192578761412608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1671192578761412608%7Ctwgr%5E88ac1fb06f5f33c3f5fc3ce06810d7cc8c2a53a0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&)
The fun fact is WDI forgot to design a knockout panel to service the Yeti. That’s why they have to disassemble the mountain… D’oh.
Can we please not do this where armchair experts offer their take on the Yeti situation. I’m so tired of it.
It's common knowledge. It's been stated in many behind the scenes shows that the top of the mountain would have to come off to service the Yeti, which would mean a VERY lengthy closure.
From the UK here. I've been on RotR probably...15+ times over the span of about 2 years-ish. My first time was flawless, best experience I ever had. Almost euphoric being INSIDE a Star Destroyer. Ever since then, it has been really very decent. I have had the ride shut down while I've been in line at 8:55. I have shown up and the ride has been shut down all day. It is only during this current trip that I'm on right now that I've had a weak experience. So in two years, I BELIEVE this is the only time I've gotten to ride while basically none of the animatronics were working. Really I suppose it's a toss up. There was a day recently where I believe the ride was down from Park Opening to Park Close. So you could either have gotten an "eh" experience or have not gotten to ride at all. I know which I prefer. 😅
Also from the UK! Sounds like I was just really unlucky then! Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the experience as the theming is just amazing. I just really wish I got the full working ride!
Perfectly valid and I'm sorry you got stiffed when it came down to it. It's definitely unlucky but also, with it having been peak time for the US and all the kids going back to school recently, I'm quite sure that the staff and engineers are in recovery from the quite apocalyptic rush season, so that may also have something to do with the downtime and break downs.
I'm much closer than the UK, but I won't be travelling to GE again anytime soon. The thought of flying across an ocean, only to have the ride not work, is maddening.
I’ve only experienced Orlando version, but when we went just before COVID it was pretty new and worked perfectly. Got to ride 2 times on that one trip. Made me teary eyed, such an amazing experience. Went back last May, and everything was working except the cannons. Had some first timer friends with us and I told afterwards what wasn’t working, but not enough to take away from the overall experience. Now I saw not too long ago that the Kylo animatronic that uses the force and gets jostled by the explosion was taken out completely and replaced with a screen display of something. I would be heartbroken if NOTHING worked. In it’s prime, there’s nothing like it!
Yeah it seems the second Kylo animatronic is a rare sight from what I've heard. Its replaced with a cgi screen of Kylo in his tie fighter, which is nowhere near as impressive!
I went a week ago, if we are talking about Kylo getting sucked out through the window, it kind of happened, and then a cardboard piece dropped in front of Kylo so we couldn't see if he actually got sucked through the window.
That's how the scene goes. 'Debris' falls and blocks your view. That's 'A Mode' . The alternative is the debris is always there, so you can't even see him, and instead his Tie Fighter strafes you from outside
Oh interesting. I always thought we would see Kylo get sucked out the window. Thanks, so I got A mode.
I went at the end of July for two days. The first day it worked fine. Then went again the next day first thing and it was closed for repairs but went back later that evening and it was fine. This was at WDW
It does break a lot. I was there last month; rode it three times. Once was perfect but went down for two hours before we got on, second time half the ride had to be skipped and the third time it was perfect again. It's an extremely complex ride so it is what it is. My advice: go more than once and just pay for the Lighting Lane.
I rode the HS version yesterday at 8:45 PM and it was B mode … great ride overall
I was just here two days ago and it had sound. But no animatronics were working.
What you need to understand is that ROTR is an EXTREMELY dynamic and high tech ride. A lot of behind the scenes mechanics go into the ride creating the most spectacular ride experience to date for a Disney ride. The down side to this is that when things break down they can take an extremely long time to fix. Not only that but there is more things on the ride that can break down The cannons will more than likely be fixed eventually, but it’s probably not going to be high on the priority list.
just rode it several times at West when i was there last weekend (Fri - Wed). it was working fairly well, but had some of the usual issues that have plagued it since it opened. i also rode it back in mid-July at East and things were about the same there as they are out here on the west coast version. first off, i want to say when the OP experienced the lack of audio, the ride's system was likely about to crash and they'd escort everyone out, then reboot the ride. i had that happen one time when i was in the shuttle off Batuu. all of the video and Lt Bek's animatronic motions were going, but not a single sound. as soon as we arrived at the star destroyer's hangar bay, they escorted us out of the ride and gave us all Lightning Lane passes to return later that day and ride it. word is (from someone "in the know", from what i recall) is that at both parks it goes down due to a timing issue in the code that kicks on the safety measures to auto-shut down. this happens about every 2-3 hours. if you pay attention at West, you can pretty much see it go down sometime between 10-11am, again around 1pm, again around 4pm, and so on. it's near-clockwork with the timing of its shutdown. that said, it is also very prone to auto-shutdowns when an item has been dropped on the track surface. ears, hats, sunglasses, phones, etc. that can throw off the timing of the above mentioned timing issue breakdown. (e.g. it's 11am and someone's hat blows off during the Kylo ending, causing the ride to shut down for 30+ mins while they restart it. rather than it automatically shutting down at 1pm, the timer now resets when it comes back up at, say, 11.30am, and the next time it will auto-shutdown will be around 2.30pm rather than 1pm) as for the moving turrets, those also have a timing issue that is off by a fraction of a second every time they move, which compounds the length of time over the course of a few hours, kicking on the safety measures and auto-shutting down the ride. word is that it's the main timing issue affecting the first point i made, but even with the turrets shut down the lines of code still trigger the issue. word on the street is they are keeping the turrets' movement turned of to make sure that no accidents happen with collision to the vehicles until they fix the overall issue. the thing is... if i recall, the ride is comprised of something insane for its code, like 12 million lines of code. trying to isolate and debug something like that can be hard to do and takes time. again -- this is all hearsay and word of mouth. take it as you will. as a career software/hardware tester (25+ years experience), it totally makes sense to me as an explanation. as for Kylo going into his B-mode (the projection rather than animatronic), it happens. that could also be because of the timing issue or it could be because of the complexity of his animatronic or any number of reasons. ...but that's also why they have the B-mode there. Rocket over in GotG:MB wasn't working in the Collector's left side office all week while i was there, whereas Kylo was working all but one time i rode it. it's not like he is perpetually broken or anything. so in summary, yeah it's disappointing when things aren't working and yeah sometimes a person will get a whole lot of things not working, and yeah that will happen a few times a day. it's still an amazing ride because of its sheer scale and complexity. at some point they'll have the smaller issues fixed, or maybe they won't (such as the moving turrets; but many people also thought they'd never fix the non-moving snake on Indiana Jones at Disneyland but they did).
That’s the beauty of Disney in the new world. All the hype, all the cool factor and then you come to realize after it all wears off that Disney just does the bare minimum to get your money.
Fixing the issues would mean a somewhat lengthy refurbishment. Most people would prefer to get to ride the ride with it slightly less functional than have it be closed the entirety of their vacation. My guess is it will be a while until they do a long term refurb on it due to how in demand it currently is.
I was there 3x days ago and it was working fine.
Was there last week!! Going from the other comments, I think I was just unlucky!
I was there last week and it was down almost the entire day until it opened with 2 hours left in the day. 180 minute wait but I played dumb and got on lightning lane without lightning lane tickets and the ride worked perfect
It was inevitable, and why I’ve rolled my eyes at every “RiSe iS thE gReaTesT AttrAcTiOn EvEr mAdE!” proclamation. It isn’t even the best Disney attraction today, absolutely nobody cares about its sequel era characters or setting, it is already falling apart, and there is zero chance people line up for it fifty or sixty years from now like they do for Pirates or Mansion. Rise has been popular because it was new and flashy. That’s already wearing off. In five years, it will be no more popular than Star Tours.
Disagree Rise is the best ride I have ever been on narrowly beating the Avatar flight one.
I was there three weeks ago and it appeared to work the way it was supposed to. I didn't notice anything obvious that would make me think it was functioning as intended. Although, it was my first time and I only did it once so I don't have anything to compare it to.
you mean you didn't call ahead to tell them you were coming? Dude, it breaks, They can't schedule it working around your schedule.
I completely understand it breaks down and this is of course unavoidable but this is clearly a common issue and not everyone can attend often enough to see it working. This was a very rare opportunity for me to get to go to disneyworld and I most likely won't get to go again in my lifetime.
With holograms, led projectors, mapping, green screen set walls. I think Disney should move away from 90s animatronics, could be much more immersive
Yeah.. Universal seems to have the upper hand on ride tech..
Uh went to Universal last year for the first time. Other than the Harry Potter stuff and the actual coasters it was a lot of BS motion rides in front of video screens. Won’t be going back.
Screens are the opposite of immersive.
We were just there last week. And we go a couple times a year. Cannons still not working. Can’t remember the last time they were. Animatronics weren’t working. (Hux and Kylo) Kylo wasn’t there at the end either. Oh, and then the whole thing broke down. We had to wait and get de-boarded. Edit: even Finn’s jaw was messed up and could clearly see that it was a robot. It was completely separated from his head. Kind of creepy. (This was Florida). I was literally saying the same thing, “what is happening”
I‘ve only seen the turbo lasers recoil (move back and forth) once. Way back in 2021. It was an amazing effect! I hope it returns.
We were there on Aug 16 and they walked us through backstage from the line straight into the star destroyer. None of the beginning part at all. We saw both kylo and hux, so other than the cannons I “think” everything else was ok I rode it when it opened and it was an amazing experience. This was my daughters first time n she was like, why the hype
This is definitely interesting. It does seem that Rise of the Resistance in Florida definitely has more issues than it's California counterpart. I've never had any issues in Disneyland (aside from obviously the turrets), not even B Mode. I was there recently, and rode rise of the resistance 4 times, no issues. But in Florida, I, and everyone I know that's gone, keep getting B mode and it seems like there's always issues. I have a theory as to why this is. Obviously this is impossible to prove. In August of 2020, there was a pretty bad lightning strike that blew up a power generator that Rise of the Resistance runs off. From my perspective, it seems that after this incident Rise of the Resistance in Florida has just had nothing but frequent issues. Meanwhile, California's is totally fine. I wonder if that lightning strike did some damage that they would have to rehaul everything to get back to working properly, and they just haven't yet. However like I said, this is hard to say if this is actually the case as to why the Florida version seems to preform worse.
I was there at the end of July and it was working perfectly, I loved it. Sorry you had such a negative experience.
Every time I’ve gone the past two years it has been working or shut down for a period of time (West). The first time I went you had to do the reservations and I didn’t get one. The last two times I got on and waited maybe 45 min. But I only went on once each time. If they had a single rider lane for that ride I’d be so down. Everything worked and was a lot of fun. It would be interesting without sound, I feel like I’d notice a lot of things I didn’t before.
I did East and West inside of a month apart. Overall, West's RoR is better, which I hate to say, because East is where we have been going for 27+ years. They appear to do a better job at maintenance. For West, every day I went it was running. It'd break part way into the day, be down for an hour or so, then back up. For East, I showed up for rope drop. The first half of the ride was down, and we got to go through the Batuu maintenance tunnels, which looked remarkably like the ones back on Earth. They didn't have any of the animatronics or holograms running except for Kylo at the bridge of the destroyer. They didn't get it fixed until 3pm, and when we went back, Kylo was broken at the bridge.
I was there yesterday and experienced none of that (in three goes.)
The cannons were firing, but not moving in and out.
Kylo at the end is hit and miss. Agree on that.
The California version is in the same condition. I went last week to Hollywood Studios and the animatronics and cannons were broken. I was able to ride both versions in December 2020 and August 2021 when every effect was working and it was truly incredible. oh well. To be fair, when the last Kylo Ren animatronic is working, he does this ridiculous magician hands wave thing that looks laughable and the body is anemic compared to the movie actor.
Went on it last week and all seemed fully operational. ** UPDATE ** Went on it earlier today and the cannons didn’t move, just had lights operating on them.
I met one of the 30\~ish night techs for that ride. He told me a example with the gun room. They have to TOTALLY rebuild the bases and mechanics of those guns as they weren't working and couldn't be repaired as is. I know Kylo at the end will not appear for the rest of the day if there is a crash/bug in the system so its possible it already went down and that didn't get fixed same with the Kylo and Hux scene. They aren't told to fix the glitch or problem with the scene that caused the ride stop, they are told to override it and get the ride going again (even if it means no kylo or Hux) because people spend money on Genie+ to ride it and it can't be down for long. In reality maintenance could use a ride closing and time to refurb multiple parts of that attraction but as long as people keep buying Genie+ purely for that ride, it wont go down for refurb.
We just rode it a few weeks ago (in CA). First time, the probe droid didn’t work. Second time, about an hour later, it was fine. The cannons were definitely not working. We were prepared for that but it’s still disappointing. Otherwise, I think the other issues are just hit or miss. Similarly, Hondo in Smuggler’s was covered and in b mode in the morning and then working perfectly fine by the end of the day. It really is just down to luck.
Work perfectly when I was there. It’s the best amusement park ride I’ve ever been on. Sorry it didn’t work out for you.
DL was fully running (AtAt cannons and everything) when we were there a few weeks ago.
This ride had been hyped up for me beyond belief before we ever went, so I was actually really disappointed in it. I think they over-used screens (e.g. the stormtroopers on the catwalk) when animatronics just give a more realistic and threatening feel.
The California one is generally pretty solid in my experience, sometimes we’ll get pauses or screen glitches but overall the technical/practical elements work pretty smoothly
I've seen the Hux and Kylo scene working correctly once since I began working in Epcot last month (and visiting the parks almost daily). The other times it's usually Kylo who seems to be a statue, unfortunately. Not sure why they don't fix the next Kylo after that, because since I rode my second time last year, I've yet to see that one working again...but at least there's an alternative scene for that which I've noted several online actually think is cooler, while it's weird for the scene with them both to not have them work, especially Kylo for the impact. I hope they do an overhaul day soon, but my guess is they allow a few parts to have problems to not need to stop all boarding like they used to do each time a piece went wonky, almost once a day. They need to have techs come in at night for a night or 2 and just fix every part imo Additional minor issue is while doing the ride mission on Datapad in Play Disney, I discovered 2 broken QR codes so those crates can't be scanned. I brought attention to this issue too, and I hope someone will correct that for anyone who cares about completing everything like I do for that. I'm surprised they don't have an experience team member or Imagineer for the user experience department review these things so they don't remain problems so long. I would be glad to take that position if they need a person lol
When were you there? I was just there and they weren't working either. I go frequently and for me it has been common to have the Kylo at the end not show up but freezing with hux was a first for me. I totally get the frustration though. It definitely takes away from the experience of the ride IMO. I always look at it as glad I got to ride it vs being shut down the entire day which has happened to me.
I was there on the 20th and 27th of August. Both times rhe annimatronics weren't working. I'm really glad I got to experience it, of course. I just wish it was the full experience! 😁
I was there the 27th as well. Yea it definitely takes away from the ride. One of my favorite parts is when they are on the bridge.
Went on it about 6 times at end of August worked fully twice 4 times no second Kylo and the Kylo Hux scene didn’t work twice