We are back from Batuu and I have a few observations to add. We booked the 8 am time slot to have three hours without overlap, as opposed to the middle slots where you overlap on both ends. After checking in at Launch Bay (they only carded the prime reservation holder) around 6:20, we lined up by the Matterhorn until 7:45. That put us close to the front of the scrum, but still behind a lot of people. We were then marched all the way across the park to the middle entrance, then divided into cantina and lightsaber routes. I got in line for the Cantina, and we were in at 8:35. We could have taken a reservation to come back later, but opted to do that first. We ordered a variety of drinks and snack mix. It’s hard to tell in the still photo, but the second drink had some kind of chemical reaction going that caused the berries to churn and the whole thing to steam. Sorry, not sure which one that was. There were several critters hanging out in tanks above the bar, and when we asked who they were, we were told they were laying the eggs that were in the drinks.
We rode the Falcon three times in order to experience each of the positions. We had six in our group so could trade off internally to make that happen. The first time was 25 minute wait, but by the third time around 10:30 it was a walk-on into the Hondo room. There is a lot of background noise and announcements in the queue, which really seemed to add to the atmosphere. It didn’t seem repetitive, so I’m not sure how many things they have. We were really rushed through the Chess room after the first time, when we were able to get a photo. I hadn’t really thought about this until that night, but the second time we were in the ADA pod. I didn’t see anyone who needed it, so they were running regular guests through there as well to keep the lines moving. The only thing different was the corridor in, the elevator right at the exit, and then at the end of the ride, there was an added video clip where a rathtar attached itself to the outside of the Falcon and had to be removed. This must be something they’ve added to provide additional time, but I’m not sure how that would help, as we were still locked in and not going anywhere. Overall, the ride was nice, but I wouldn’t want to wait more than 45 minutes for it, especially with only a 1/3 chance of being a pilot. The other two positions are worthless – lots of button pushing that only serves to distract from watching the action. I picked manual mode as a gunner but saw no difference on which button I pushed. One comment I had about the queue was the back side of the Falcon really looked fake when you got up close. That was disappointing. The front was breathtaking when you see the whole thing, but not the back and details.
Our two little ones built droids, maybe a 20-30 minute wait by the time we got in line just before they let in the 11:00 crowds. It was cool to watch the parade of people being led in by a bunch of CMs to keep them in line. Everyone was so excited to be there. The droid experience was a mess. We did one BB unit and one R-2 unit ($99 each). Only one person could watch each builder, so the other two had to watch from across the room. There was little help and assembly was a mess. The BB unit wouldn’t work, so they had to swap out a bunch of parts and redo a lot of the assembly. It continues to fall apart occasionally in my living room. Oh, and they were out of some of the accessories, including the personality chips. Thoughtfully, they said we could come back later for those. Yeah, we have to leave because our time is up and there’s no telling when we’ll be back since we are from out East. That whole fiasco probably took 45 minutes in addition to the line.
We quickly walked around the rest of the land. Dok Ondar’s looked really cool and I would have liked more time there. I liked the marketplace stalls and Ronto Roasters, but both of those were just a quick walk-through for us since we devoted our time to the cantina, Falcon and droids. We walked out through the forest to Critter Country, and that area seemed really neat. Can’t wait for that ride to open and have a reason to spend more time there.
There were stormtroopers walking through the land the whole time, asking people for their identification, and asking them what they were doing on their datapad (phone). We saw a lot of fun interactions there. Chewie and Rey were also out at times; never saw Kylo or Vi. As others have said, the casting for Rey is impressive. I had to do a double-take to make sure it wasn’t Daisy Ridley. She and Chewie both talked to my girls for a while, and we got lots of pictures. We overstayed our time by over an hour and no one tried to toss us, but we also didn’t try to do anything beyond wandering and pictures during the extra time. Oh and buying the sodas that look like thermal detonators.
Overall, it was a great experience. I think having special ticketing procedures was phenomenal for crowd control, but also for ensuring the people there were fans who wanted to be there. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings, and the next few months as more casual fans show up. The current headliners (cantina, Falcon ride, expensive saber, droids) were not the best parts; it was the little things and the entire atmosphere. We will be back once the other ride opens, probably in Florida since that’s closer for us.
