Cannot complete Canto Bight "Heist" Batuu mission

I cannot complete "The Heist" Mission on the Batuu Scoundrel Mission List

PC/Win10

This mission requires you to recruit at least one Sim to assist with the Canto Bight heist-

I go to the Cantina and speak to Hondo. I recruit at least 3 scoundrels (after 30 min of chatting, sabaac, etc) and head over to the Falcon. I also make sure my droid is deployed and in follow mode.  Instead of taking off, we all hang out around the entrance of the falcon but the ship never takes off.  After the mission timer elapses nothing happens.  The NPC's either run back to the Cantina or disappear.  I even tried adding them to a 'group' before proceeding and that didn't work either.  I saw a previous thread that said you have to recruit Chewbacca first but I watched a Youtube playthrough and that was not the case.  I ran the repair prompt on the EA home page and I'm not running any mods or pirated software whatsoever and the issue persists.  Am I missing something?  Is there a workaround?