I had a harrowing (but ultimately thrilling) experience attempting to ride Rise my first time last Wednesday, Feb. 12. I ended up being fortunate enough to ride it twice in one day. I was going to DL as a party of four: two couples arriving separately. We made it to the parking garage by 7 a.m. and were inside the park by about 7:30 a.m. I had studied this thread and prepared for this moment. The tickets were linked. The data speeds were tested. Practice rounds were, ummm, practiced. However, I didn't account for the other couple arriving late. (I warned them not to come after 7 a.m. and definitely not after 7:30 a.m.)
I panicked and tried to remove them from our group, so it wouldn't delay us when the clock struck 8 a.m. If they weren't present, we'd forgo them and book a boarding group for just the two of us. I couldn't figure out how to remove them from the DL app. I started freaking out. I went to City Hall and learned that linked tickets must be manually removed by a CM. I swear I thought you could do this on the app? With my friends still nowhere in sight, we booked it out of the park. The plan was to head to Starbucks in Downtown Disney for optimal speeds and no anxiety-inducing crowds, but it was already 7:58 a.m. by the time we reached La Brea Bakery. We stopped in front and got boarding group 26. Woohoo!
Of course, a few minutes later, our friends showed up. By that point, the lines at the gates were extremely short, so we all breezed right into the park. We linked our tickets back together, but our friends were not part of our boarding group, so they tapped on their app and received boarding group 80. I think it was about 8:05 a.m. We went to City Hall to attempt to be grouped together, but we were told that the formal policy is groups will only be reassigned to the LATER boarding group. I said: Sorry, suckers. I know this thang breaks down all the time, so I ain't gonna give up my precious boarding group 26.
Our group was called with a window of around 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. We had an 11:30 a.m. reservation for Oga's (which I thought was underwhelming, TBH). We decided to get space drunk before going on the ride. (A Fuzzy Tauntaun does help with the immersion.) By the time we got back to Rise, it'd broken down. Thankfully, it was back up about 15 minutes later, and we successfully convinced the CMs to allow our friends to join us. It probably helped that one of them was celebrating a birthday. We experienced the full attraction — no B modes for us!
How did I ride it twice? Well, my unpunctual friends left the park before us, while we stayed and played all day and night. I had forgotten about their boarding group until I noticed they were up past boarding group 100, and it wasn't close to park closing. We booked it back to Batu and used their boarding group passes that were still linked on our DL app. Apparently, it didn't matter the window for 80 was over. The CMs scanning the boarding groups don't see your mugshots, so it also didn't matter we were pretending to be our friends. Ultimately, it was all worth it — and I think the Force Ghosts rewarded our punctuality and commitment with the opportunity to experience both the day and evening versions of the attraction.