Disney’s Galaxy’s Edge

We just got back from a family trip out to Disney World. I grew up in Florida and we had made many family trips over there during my childhood. A few years back we had taken my son there for a day while visiting my sister who still lives in Florida. But for the first time I became a Disney tourist. It was a very different experience. For starters, no hour drive in the morning or at the end of the day, which was nice.

Aside from checking out what had changed at the various parks over the years my biggest interest was seeing the new Star Wars area in Hollywood Studios. Star Tours was around when I was a kid and that was fun. And we did do the Jedi Training when we went last time which my son thoroughly enjoyed. But Galaxies Edge is supposed to be something completely different than anything they’ve done before.

I can honestly say it lives up to the hype. The level of detail in the area is quite spectacular. Despite the crowds, you can feel like you’re actually on a Star Wars planet. In fact, Star Wars often looks crowded so that doesn’t necessarily distract.

Coming around the corner to see the Millenium Falcon was very cool. We waited in line for almost two hours for our first trip on Smuggler’s Run. Then did it another four times over the course of the week trip. And my son still wants to go back. The ride itself is amazing the first time. The line winds around the Falcon so the wait lets you get lots of angles on her. This gives you something to focus on rather than just waiting. And it was only our first time that we have a substantial wait. The rest were under an hour, two under thirty minutes.

Once inside, you get to meet Hondo. Having watched him through Rebels and Clone Wars (and quite enjoying that he’s voice by the same actor who does WInnie the Pooh) it was cool to see a cartoon only character brought to life. For other’s he’s just another alien but it works.

Past Hondo you are broken up into groups of six. Two gunners, two pilots, two engineers. You wait in the lounge area of the Falcon. There you fight with the rest of the crowd to get a picture at the holochess table before your group is called. From there you’re taken out one of two doors. Either you head straight for the cockpit or go through the engineering section in the center of the ship and loop around to the cockpit. It took me a few times to realize they actually do a good job of matching the Falcon’s layout as, despite going in a different direct, so that they can have multiple groups boarding the simulators at once, you end up passing by the gun turret ladders this way. Nice details.

The ride itself has you in the Falcon’s cockpit. This is my only gripe. Instead of the four seat cockpit you get a modified six seat version. This is to accommodate more people. I get that. But after all the other attention to detail this feels like a fumble at the one yard line. It’s compounded by the two extra seats being the gunners. I get now being able to have two special gunner seats in different areas. That would be technically difficult. But the gunners job is pretty boring instead of very exciting. You just push a button to shoot the guns. You can’t aim them or anything.

The pilot and gunners are a lot of fun though. It can be hard to maneuver since one pilot goes left and right and one goes up and down. But the ride does a very good job of keeping you engaged. The engineers have to do repairs every time the pilots, inevitably, crash into things. That was surprisingly fun to do. And it’s incredibly satisfying to pull back on the hyperspace lever to send the ship to lightspeed.

Elsewhere on Batuu you have a lot of shopping potential and food to eat. I had started reading the Galaxies Edge book before coming and it was cool seeing some of the things from the book. My brother in law tried to turn Vi Morandi into the First Order storm troopers. The book is, um, not that great but I liked Vi as a character.

We didn’t do to much shopping because things are your typical overpriced tourist fair. I did try some Endorian Yip-Tips (fancy fried chicken) which was pretty good. Biggest regret is not going into the cantina and getting some blue milk. The line was always so long. Plus we had to save our money for the big purchase; a lightsaber from Savi’s workshop.

As a surprise, though not much of one since he’s far to clever, I took my son to build his own lightsaber.  The experience was very well done. You go in with a pretty large group and then they do a presentation. It’s all very well handled. Could be hokey but everyone in there is a Star Wars nerd so that keeps it going.

The lightsaber itself is nice for the price. You can get much better ones for a whole bunch more money. And you can get far more flimsy ones for a lot less. It’s a nice compromise in the market. Plus, part of the cost is the experience. My son loved it. He couldn’t stop smiling for quite a long time.

Now the biggest new attraction for the land is the new Rise of the Resistance ride. We had to get to the park at 630 in order to get through security and into the park for the official open at 7am. Once that happened, we and everyone else, had to try to get a boarding group using the app. Unfortunately, we had a pretty large party consisting of my parents and older sisters family. And they weren’t linked properly. That meant we spend the first 20min after park open trying to get it straightened out and missed the early chance to avoid the lines for some rides. Hence why our first trip on the Falcon took two hours.

When your boarding group is called you have a two hour window to get into the rides line. It’s not bad of a line here, still 30minutes or so but better than standing in line all day. Unfortunately, when it was our turn, we got past the first stage and the ride broke. That led to us needing to come back later. But it did let us experience parts of the ride twice so that’s cool.

You start out going through a Resistance base set into the ancient outpost on Batuu. You are greeting by Rey and BB-8 and welcomed to the Resistance. But your time is short as a First Order star destroyer is enroute to crush your pitiful band. The Rey hologram was very well done and looked like you’d think a real Star Wars hologram would look.

From there you’re rushed past Poe’s X-wing as it’s preparing to take off and then board a shuttle. And you actually are led into a waiting Star Wars looking transport. Aboard you stand in the crew bay and can see a Mon Calamari and Nien Nunb in the cockpit. You watch take off watching from a monitor or through the cockpit window as you launch to space and are intercepted by TIE’s. Poe flies escort but you’re caught by a tractor beam and pulled aboard a Star Destroyer. From there you’re arrested by the First Order. It all works quite well to convey that you’re really there. The First Order even boards using the same door you came in from so the room you’re in does move.

After being thrown in a prison cell, Finn rescues you and you’re taken on a wild ride through the bowels of the Star Destroyer. At one point you face off against an AT-AT while Finn lays down covering fire against some Stormtroopers. The effects of blasters flying around you and explosions going off destroying parts of the walls work.

It was a top notch ride. We didn’t feel like getting up at 6am another other days in order to do it again but we considered it.  Overall the experience in Galaxy’s Edge was, wait for it, out of this world….