News Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Disneyland opening reports/reviews

[MisterPenguin]

I was scanning crates in the MF queue

Language!

 

[TP2000]

I'm going to post today's E Ticket wait times because I think it's really interesting, and quite telling about how Star Wars Land is going for them.

It's a mid-winter weekday, sunny and warm, and the parks are mostly filled with tourists on a day like this (locals are in school/at work/making a real Target run)...

It's A Small World - 10 minutes
Jungle Cruise - 15 Minutes
Pirates, Submarines - 20 Minutes
Millennium Falcon: Target Run, Splash Mountain, Chase-A-Baby - 25 Minutes
Indiana Jones, Guardians of the Galaxy, Matterhorn, Star Tours, Thunder Mountain - 35 Minutes
Space Mountain, Soarin' - 45 Minutes
Radiator Springs Races - 60 Minutes

Haunted Mansion is closed for refurbishment. Midway Mania is 45 minutes, Peter Pan is 35, Goofy's Sky School is 20.

This Pirates/Falcon similar wait times happens quite a bit, but I think it's a really interesting stat to draw from. The Falcon is a six month old Star Wars E Ticket that gets 1,700 passengers per hour with a height requirement and no Fastpass and it has a 25 minute wait, while Pirates is a 53 year old E Ticket that gets 2,800 passengers per hour without a height requirement and no Fastpass and it has a 20 minute wait. The other Star Wars E Ticket in the land has been slowly operating all day and thus pulling people in to the land and currently on Boarding Group 58.

You can't tell me that Burbank invested all that money to build Star Wars Land to get those kind of modest crowd results. And then have the 53 year old Pirates beat it all with crowd interest and hourly numbers? This obviously was not how it was supposed to go for Star Wars Land.

 

[chadwpalm]

I'm going to post today's E Ticket wait times because I think it's really interesting, and quite telling about how Star Wars Land is going for them.

It's a mid-winter weekday, sunny and warm, and the parks are mostly filled with tourists on a day like this (locals are in school/at work/making a real Target run)...

It's A Small World - 10 minutes
Jungle Cruise - 15 Minutes
Pirates, Submarines - 20 Minutes
Millennium Falcon: Target Run, Splash Mountain, Chase-A-Baby - 25 Minutes
Indiana Jones, Guardians of the Galaxy, Matterhorn, Star Tours, Thunder Mountain - 35 Minutes
Space Mountain, Soarin' - 45 Minutes
Radiator Springs Races - 60 Minutes

Haunted Mansion is closed for refurbishment. Midway Mania is 45 minutes, Peter Pan is 35, Goofy's Sky School is 20.

This Pirates/Falcon similar wait times happens quite a bit, but I think it's a really interesting stat to draw from. The Falcon is a six month old Star Wars E Ticket that gets 1,700 passengers per hour with a height requirement and no Fastpass and it has a 25 minute wait, while Pirates is a 53 year old E Ticket that gets 2,800 passengers per hour without a height requirement and no Fastpass and it has a 20 minute wait. The other Star Wars E Ticket in the land has been slowly operating all day and thus pulling people in to the land and currently on Boarding Group 58.

You can't tell me that Burbank invested all that money to build Star Wars Land to get those kind of modest crowd results. And then have the 53 year old Pirates beat it all with crowd interest and hourly numbers? This obviously was not how it was supposed to go for Star Wars Land.

Honest question(s). For a Monday in January, what percentage of inflation on attendance do you feel to be acceptable for the opening of a new E-ticket ride in an 8-month old land? How many people daily should be taking off work to go ride a theme park attraction? How many people do you think vacation in January?

I think most of the people who are there now are probably locals who work retail and have the day off, or retired, or some other legitimate excuse to be there. Even a smaller handful that are there could be the odd vacationer who saved their money not taking time off over the holidays so they can be there with lower crowds because most people don't vacation in January. Do they? You actually think they do? IDK, maybe they do. I don't. <shrug>

BTW, groups are at 63 now.....the point where it broke yesterday, which was actually a half hour earlier. It's a little behind yesterdays pace, but at least it's staying consistently open. Perhaps that's the problem over the weekends. They try to push it harder and put more people on and it can't handle the load.....which worries me because they have to get the load up a lot to reach its potential capacity.

 

[Disney Analyst]

I'm going to post today's E Ticket wait times because I think it's really interesting, and quite telling about how Star Wars Land is going for them.

It's a mid-winter weekday, sunny and warm, and the parks are mostly filled with tourists on a day like this (locals are in school/at work/making a real Target run)...

It's A Small World - 10 minutes
Jungle Cruise - 15 Minutes
Pirates, Submarines - 20 Minutes
Millennium Falcon: Target Run, Splash Mountain, Chase-A-Baby - 25 Minutes
Indiana Jones, Guardians of the Galaxy, Matterhorn, Star Tours, Thunder Mountain - 35 Minutes
Space Mountain, Soarin' - 45 Minutes
Radiator Springs Races - 60 Minutes

Haunted Mansion is closed for refurbishment. Midway Mania is 45 minutes, Peter Pan is 35, Goofy's Sky School is 20.

This Pirates/Falcon similar wait times happens quite a bit, but I think it's a really interesting stat to draw from. The Falcon is a six month old Star Wars E Ticket that gets 1,700 passengers per hour with a height requirement and no Fastpass and it has a 25 minute wait, while Pirates is a 53 year old E Ticket that gets 2,800 passengers per hour without a height requirement and no Fastpass and it has a 20 minute wait. The other Star Wars E Ticket in the land has been slowly operating all day and thus pulling people in to the land and currently on Boarding Group 58.

You can't tell me that Burbank invested all that money to build Star Wars Land to get those kind of modest crowd results. And then have the 53 year old Pirates beat it all with crowd interest and hourly numbers? This obviously was not how it was supposed to go for Star Wars Land.

My honest question, and I really do mean this... what did Disney plan with building two of these at the exact same time? They must have had different goals? DHS is having a far busier and more successful time then Disneyland, but it also has like... barely any rides. Where as Disneyland has SO much to do and was having major crowding pains, which seem to be less terrible now that Star Wars opened.

Was the plan to include this at Disneyland to try and increase guest spending and tourist visits? To have the highest attendance they've ever had? Or to give Disneyland some more space to deal with the already high crowds? Can Disneyland even get much higher attendance then it already had before GE opened? Wouldn't the goal be to ensure DCA is busier?

Are that many people suddenly avoiding Disneyland? Did this increase of park space help spread crowds?

What is really happening?

 

[Phroobar]

My honest question, and I really do mean this... what did Disney plan with building two of these at the exact same time? They must have had different goals? DHS is having a far busier and more successful time then Disneyland, but it also has like... barely any rides. Where as Disneyland has SO much to do and was having major crowding pains, which seem to be less terrible now that Star Wars opened.

Was the plan to include this at Disneyland to try and increase guest spending and tourist visits? To have the highest attendance they've ever had? Or to give Disneyland some more space to deal with the already high crowds? Can Disneyland even get much higher attendance then it already had before GE opened? Wouldn't the goal be to ensure DCA is busier?

Are that many people suddenly avoiding Disneyland? Did this increase of park space help spread crowds?

What is really happening?

Well the land was designed exclusively for Disneyland. Notice the shape at DHS mirrors the non-existing Rivers of America there. DHS needed it to increase their ride count and to turn it into a full day park. Tourists at DHS will ride anything and everything. Disneyland locals will wait until AP crowds have left. There is also more to do at Disneyland and Southern California in general than in Florida. Different markets.

 

[TP2000]

Honest question(s). For a Monday in January, what percentage of inflation on attendance do you feel to be acceptable for the opening of a new E-ticket ride in an 8-month old land? How many people daily should be taking off work to go ride a theme park attraction? How many people do you think vacation in January?

I wouldn't expect a new E Ticket to generate a whole lot of local "Let's ditch school/work and go to Disneyland!" interest on a winter weekday. But I would expect it to generate more interest among the 40,000 people that are there today on vacation or their day off.

There's tens of thousands of paying customers inside the gates right now at the Disneyland Resort, so there's a captive audience for this little social experiment.

Which is why I think the Pirates/Falcon wait time comparison is so handy. Both don't use Fastpass to skew the wait times, but they have radically different hourly capacities yet shockingly similar wait times. That tells me the popular demand for the Falcon isn't as strong as we all assumed it would be in the years leading up to the opening of Star Wars Land.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Well the land was designed exclusively for Disneyland. Notice the shape at DHS mirrors the non-existing Rivers of America there. DHS needed it to increase their ride count and to turn it into a full day park. Tourists at DHS will ride anything and everything. Disneyland locals will wait until AP crowds have left. There is also more to do at Disneyland and Southern California in general than in Florida. Different markets.

I get that it was designed for Disneyland first, but the real question is why did they want this in Disneyland? What was the goal/thought behind putting it in a regional style locals park and then also in the tourist heavy destination resort? There was no way HUGE change was coming for Disneyland from this.

We can expect big increases for parks like DHS, USH, USO, and IoA as they are parks that underperform... any major expansion/addition will drive attendance to those parks. Disneyland is already at the top... how much more can you drive to it is my question?

We already know that what drives locals to Disneyland are crazy nights filled with evening entertainment. The park was running on all cylinders when it had Paint the Night, Disneyland Forever, and Fantasmic.

 

[Disney Analyst]

I wouldn't expect a new E Ticket to generate a whole lot of local "Let's ditch school/work and go to Disneyland!" interest on a winter weekday. But I would expect it to generate more interest amongst the 40,000 people that are there today on vacation or their day off.

There's tens of thousands of paying customers inside the gates right now at the Disneyland Resort, so there's a captive audience for this little social experiment.

Which is why I think the Pirates/Falcon wait time comparison is so handy. Both don't use Fastpass to skew the wait times, but they have radically different hourly capacities yet shockingly similar wait times. That tells me the popular demand for the Falcon isn't as strong as we all assumed it would be in the years leading up to the opening of Star Wars Land.

To put it simply, Falcon just isn't that great of a ride. It's not a draw, as is even more evident with RotR somewhat open. It's fine for a highly themed supplemental ride, but the main attraction? Nopes.

 

[TP2000]

To put it simply, Falcon just isn't that great of a ride. It's not a draw, as is even more evident with RotR somewhat open. It's fine for a highly themed supplemental ride, but the main attraction? Nopes.

Agreed.

But I'm sure that wasn't the sales pitch WDI gave the Burbank execs when it was greenlit and funded five years ago.

Flashback to January, 2015 at a stylishly decorated board room on the WDI campus in Glendale, where hipster Imagineers present their well-rehearsed sales pitch to Bob Iger and his Sharp Pencil Boys...

"Since all Americans were children they have wanted to experience the Millennium Falcon for themselves. We're going to build a giant E Ticket with an elaborate queue and animatronic pre-show that leads to an all-new turntable ride system technology built in quadruplicate but only capable of 1,700 riders per hour, and Disneyland guests will be able to board the ship and sit in the cockpit and fly the Millennium Falcon themselves! Then about a year before it opens a new Parks Chairman with no experience in show business or the hospitality industry will ask us to cut out all the variable destinations and options on the ride and dumb it down to one single experience that has no real point of reference to any characters, locations or plot lines from any Star Wars movie. That way, when our new Falcon E Ticket opens it's going to generate very modest wait times of at least 20 minutes, maybe 45 minutes on busy holiday weekends! Oh, almost forgot, that opening summer will also be a ghost town at the park. Sign here and give us $400 Million to begin work on this new ride.
Thank you, and there are still scones left on the buffet if anyone wants one."

 

[Disney Analyst]

Agreed.

But I'm sure that wasn't the sales pitch WDI gave the Burbank execs when it was greenlit and funded five years ago.

Flashback to January, 2015 at a stylishly decorated board room in the WDI campus in Glendale, where hipster Imagineers present their well-rehearsed sales pitch to Bob Iger and his Sharp Pencil Boys...

"Since all Americans were children they have wanted to experience the Millennium Falcon for themselves. We're going to build a giant E Ticket with an elaborate queue and animatronic pre-show that leads to an all-new turntable ride system technology built in quadruplicate, and Disneyland guests will be able to board the ship and sit in the cockpit and fly the Millennium Falcon themselves! Then about a year before it opens a new Parks Chairman with no experience in show business or the hospitality industry will ask us to cut out all the variable destinations and options on the ride and dumb it down to one single experience that has no real point of reference to any characters, locations or plot lines from any Star Wars movie. That way, when our new Falcon E Ticket opens it's going to generate very modest wait times of at least 20 minutes, maybe 45 minutes on busy holiday weekends! Oh, almost forgot, that opening summer will also be a ghost town at the park. Sign here and give us $400 Million to begin work on this new ride. Thank you, and there are still scones left on the buffet if anyone wants one."

I mean, everyone has a miss now and then. I don't even know if variations would fix the ride. It's cool, but I think it's just not everyones cup of tea with the interactivity and all that jazz. I haven't ridden it mind you, and I'm sure I'd personally love it, as I can only dream of having multi-million dollar highly technical rides at my disposal to play with...

Instead we are stuck with this in Vancouver...

 

[chadwpalm]

Besides the pad behind kylos ship, where could they even put a third attraction now I wonder?

The red area I indicated below is what early maps were calling "Future Expansion". Those buildings there now were probably used heavily during construction and may have been re-purposed for other things now, but I don't think they were meant to be permanent (well, nothing's really permanent backstage anyway). It's a decent sized chunk of land and you can probably do a multitude of ride systems there.

Not sure if that space is what you meant by "behind Kylo's ship" and your orientation was off, as there technically isn't space directly behind.

 

[Snow Queen]

I mean, everyone has a miss now and then. I don't even know if variations would fix the ride. It's cool, but I think it's just not everyones cup of tea with the interactivity and all that jazz. I haven't ridden it mind you, and I'm sure I'd personally love it, as I can only dream of having multi-million dollar highly technical rides at my disposal to play with...

Instead we are stuck with this in Vancouver...

View attachment 444628

Well... at least the doughnuts are decent?

 

[Disney Analyst]

Well... at least the doughnuts are decent?

That they are. And the coaster.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Instead we are stuck with this in Vancouver...

View attachment 444628

The landscaping is impressive.

 

[Disney Analyst]

The landscaping is impressive.

It’s quite innovative. I heard Chesters and Hesters is actually designed based on imagineer trips to Playland in Vancouver

 

[Phroobar]

I get that it was designed for Disneyland first, but the real question is why did they want this in Disneyland? What was the goal/thought behind putting it in a regional style locals park and then also in the tourist heavy destination resort? There was no way HUGE change was coming for Disneyland from this.

We can expect big increases for parks like DHS, USH, USO, and IoA as they are parks that underperform... any major expansion/addition will drive attendance to those parks. Disneyland is already at the top... how much more can you drive to it is my question?

We already know that what drives locals to Disneyland are crazy nights filled with evening entertainment. The park was running on all cylinders when it had Paint the Night, Disneyland Forever, and Fantasmic.

I though DL got SWL to keep capacity during the TL rebuild.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

The rebuild of grass?

 

[Blu]

They had R2-D2 out roaming over the weekend and the CMs that were with it were good at having R2 interact with the guests and he always had a good size crowd around him. At one point the CM was trying to have R2 open up the door that doesn't open to the right of the landspeeder garage, but he couldn't reach, so the CM had a young boy (about 8 yo) come help and the CM "translated" R2's beeps and was telling the kid to press buttons on the control pad. Of course the door didn't open, and R2 beeped and the CM said that the kid actually "locked" the door so the first order couldn't get in and it was a win for the resistance. It was cheesy but the boy loved it. This type of interaction does help the streetmosphere aspect and they need more.

They also did a mini-show at the Tie Echelon with Kylo asking a First Order officer if teams were sent out to look for a spy, and he said yes, but Kylo said he didn't see any and started force choking the guy. Unfortunately it was only a minute long show. They need more of this. More of the stunt stuff they did for the opening of RotR at WDW.

Regarding music....I'm in the minority here, but it doesn't bother me. Seems like a low-hanging fruit as to find something the nit-pick about because there's music in the rest of the park. I like the real ambiance sounds going on. Makes me feel like I'm really in another place. Also, if you stand just south of the marketplace, near the overhead bridge west of the landspeeder area, there's a window in the building that I assume is a residence that is playing a Star Wars radio station. I believe the same station can be heard in the landspeeder bay.

I also heard Oga chewing out an employee from one of the windows to the right of the Cantina.

A lot more people were using the Play Disney app to hack into things much more than last time I was there. I was scanning crates in the MF queue and a family behind me was asking what I was doing, and I introduced them to the app. The teenage boy was scanning crates and translating text throughout the rest of the queue.

Sure on the music. The ambient stuff is fun. Music around crowded areas like the marketplace, or inside docking bay restaurant would, for me, be the right balance. i had a great time on my visit, but we did the light saber thing and built a droid the first day, after that each day was : hit the bar, falcon and out. R2’s arrival and its success is exactly what’s needed in the area. Just more vibrancy, more energy or how ever it needs to be put.

 

[Blu]

The red area I indicated below is what early maps were calling "Future Expansion". Those buildings there now were probably used heavily during construction and may have been re-purposed for other things now, but I don't think they were meant to be permanent (well, nothing's really permanent backstage anyway). It's a decent sized chunk of land and you can probably do a multitude of ride systems there.

Not sure if that space is what you meant by "behind Kylo's ship" and your orientation was off, as there technically isn't space directly behind.

View attachment 444629

Yeah that space is what I meant. don’t think there gonna fit a bantha ride behind kylos ship, thanks on the clarify.

 

[Blu]

The rebuild of grass?

Which major project gets done first the grass or the SM stair case??