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

Stripes

Well-Known Member
The prez of DL is just hanging out in the land.
It has been incredible today. Truly. We smartly decided to go on the attractions outside of Galaxy’s Edge when there was literally zero wait and the park was virtually empty. We’re in Boarding Group 21 to get back into the land. We’ve covered so many attractions, it’s been crazy. The crowds are smaller than I’ve seen them in a long time.

Pic of DL President we took as we were passing by (guy in the suit):
383690
 

Disney Analyst

Well-Known Member
It has been incredible today. Truly. We smartly decided to go on the attractions outside of Galaxy’s Edge when there was literally zero wait and the park was virtually empty. We’re in Boarding Group 21 to get back into the land. We’ve covered so many attractions, it’s been crazy. The crowds are smaller than I’ve seen them in a long time.

Pic of DL President we took as we were passing by (guy in the suit):
View attachment 383690

You lucky duck! UGH.
 

Disney Analyst

Well-Known Member

On early impressions from Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland:
We knew there would be intense demand to go see it, so we put in a reservation system to control crowds. It’s beyond our greatest expectations in terms of merchandise, food, beverages, and so on. But most important is that visitors say they cannot believe how closely it resembles the worlds they know and love from the films. It’s so immersive they forget they’re in Disneyland.
 
Last edited:

rodserling27

Well-Known Member
Alright, here goes. I went last Sunday and have been processing my thoughts for the last week (as a Star Wars fan, a Disney Parks fan, and a fan of storytelling in general) but didn’t want to say anything for fear of pooping on everyone’s parade.

This land does nothing for me. And before I get into it - this mostly has more to do with me than anything else. I know there are plenty out there who will visit this park and have memories forged in irons no amount of cynicism or negativity can crack, and I appreciate those perspectives; I also understand that this is a different age and time for theme park design, but let me try to explain my position.

This land is hollow and joyless. Something about all of the brown, tan, smoky, dusty, laser-singed, metallic, cold, music-free ambience really flips the switch that the rest of the park turns into the “ON” position. The details are there, sure, along with the ambient sound, useless jargon, sign-free restaurants and shops, Imperial soldiers that bump into you and don’t apologize for fear of sacrificing “theme,” and shopkeepers that gently remind you of what, exactly, they sell that you’re not allowed to wear immediately outside of the shop, but there’s something missing here.

From the day it opened, Disneyland has committed itself to keeping uniform themes and motifs that are in line with the film industry that helped facilitate its creation: subtle changes in tone, musical shifts, stories within the attractions presented - the whole thing is built to be a walk-through movie. Moving through Main Street, to Tomorrowland, to Fantasyland, Toontown, Frontierland, Adventureland, New Orleans Square, there are individual themes presented; however, each theme, while disparate, still ties into the overall “story” that is Disneyland (I guess it helps more if you think of each land as a vignette in this story). With this being said, the addition of “Galaxy’s Edge” is a total quagmire.

With “Galaxy’s Edge,” all of the careful theming put into place over the last sixty years is now slowly being disregarded and dismantled. In 2011, Universal Studios took “Harry Potter” - the “Star Wars” of nerdy things - and turned the whole thing into a theme park phenomenon. The sheer magic of walking through Hogsmeade Village for the first time is impeccable; the sounds of creatures lurking behind any door, the magical music piping from all around, the cutesy shops that each have their own purpose - it’s all perfectly formed around the IP it represents. With that being said, it seems clear that Disney has seen what’s worked here on the financial side and strived to implement that, whereas anything that worked from a thematic or storytelling perspective was set by the wayside.

Now, part of this can be easily explained away. Hogsmeade Village is an established locale in the massive cultural juggernaut it represents: from the first time it was established in the books, the scenery has been vividly imagined and only represented sparingly throughout the film franchise. Looking at the “Star Wars” end of the spectrum, Batuu is a crappy craphole planet that I have never heard of, or believed in, or (frankly) wanted to see. I don’t mind most of the locales from Star Wars; give me an Endor forest, or Naboo, or Hoth, or ANYTHING related to these movies, over whatever made-up battle-torn refugee warzone that’s been concocted for the purpose of telling this story.

Oh wait! There is no story!

Yes, as far as Disney is concerned, this land is a piece of the current saga’s canon, and is tied into the plot of “Star Tours” (which takes place on the whole opposite side of the park), but what in the actual hell is the plot? What are we doing here? What is the point of having earthlings from Disneyland visit this space? Even Tomorrowland presents itself through the lens of “you’re visiting the future while you’re visiting Disneyland”, which, truth be told, is lacking in subtlety but keeps the mission intact. Batuu is basically wandering from the Hungry Bear restaurant, drenched in the recycled flop sweat and unused Dasani filling the waters of Splash Mountain, finding yourself in a futuristic version of a middle-eastern war zone, and then wondering just where exactly Big Thunder Mountain is.

Yes, I know I’m being overly facetious with my description - I can only imagine the aforementioned scenario in ten or twenty years, but for now, this park is only about appealing to the people who truly know about it: the exact people who influenced the design of the park.

Plenty of discussion has been paid to the wares on display at “Galaxy’s Edge,” and for good reason: $200 for a lightsaber? $150 for a custom droid? Get out of town, buster! Of course, I’m speaking for myself: most of the items being sold in the park are already hot commodities, with lines for Oga’s Cantina and Savi’s Workshop extending beyond the mere physical concepts of “lines” and into the pure metaphysical, becoming part of waiting itself, becoming a part of your very essence, trapped in time forever. With all that being said, is it really worth it? Like, really? As someone who’s single and childless with expendable income who enjoys spending time in these parks, really? Like, really? I think part of this extends into the new theme park trend that began with Hogsmeade, which is “sell as much crap as you can.”

Of course, the entire concept of Disneyland has been lampooned to death with “Exit Through the Gift Shop” jokes, but there’s something different between being spat out at the end of “Pirates” and seeing pirate tchotchkes and visiting an entire themed land built seemingly solely on the idea that people will spend extra money on a custom wand from Ollivander or, more appropriately, a custom lightsaber from whoever “Savi” is. My time waiting in line just to be let in to this land was mostly spent next to a couple, one half of whom was FURIOUS at the other for failing to secure an early enough spot in line to guarantee an early enough spot in line to guarantee an early enough reservation at the already comically-cramped cantina; this act of attrition was apparently enough to ruin the 4-hour reservation window and doom the failed half to a lifetime of being reminded of their failure in the eyes of god itself. I wasn’t that bothered, though, because I wasn’t there to drink booze. I can do that at home! I was here to do one thing - fly the Millennium Falcon, baby!!!!!!

God, this ride is terrible. I really, really wanted to like Smuggler’s Run, but it seemed to actively work against my wishes in an effort to turn itself into a hulking genie of anti-wish, like Will Smith in “Aladdin.” Even the queue, with record-low waits of 30 minutes on average, failed to inspire any real confidence in the experience. Loads of control panels with pushable buttons line the railings alongside various components of the queue, but pushing the buttons does nothing. Long stretches of the queue itself are just cold, musty hallways meant to evoke the “feel” of the Falcon, which may as well be an alternate-universe Space Mountain where the future is no longer clean and pristine, but hollow, dirty and metallic.

Once you actually get past the life-like Hondo Accord animatronic and get your assignment, you learn how truly cruel and impassive this world has become to the dreams that dominated the kingdom beyond Batuu’s reach. If it sounds like I’m being dramatic about any position but “Pilot” sucking, it’s because I am. Getting on this ride with any card other than Pilot is basically a waste of time. Engineers: get into the cockpit, and stare at your control panel until Wakandan Tigger - OOPS - Hondo! - tells you to do something. Gunners, get ready to stare at whatever the pilots are doing and press a button when things get hairy. Pilots, have fun doing the job this ride was designed for! If you’re unlucky enough to not get the Pilot job and imagine that sitting and enjoying the ride is enough, think again. The ride itself truly is not thrilling or exciting; it’s simply a video game in a moving theatre designed to get groups to work together. The ride doesn’t take into account that most groups of people don’t want to talk to people outside of their group (and I say this as a frequent single rider).

All in all, I’m just bummed from the disappointment. I wanted to like this land, but even the hummus and pita I got was as lukewarm as the initial feelings I had - both turned cold quickly, and only one was easy to swallow. The “Disney touches” - the extra ways in which the land is designed to appeal to the curious minds who love to search every nook & cranny - are mostly reduced here to mini games within the app that let guests Hack and Scan and Translate and stand completely still in the middle of a thoroughfare while I’m just trying to find a water fountain. Maybe my gripes are unjust; maybe I can’t really tell if my problems with “Galaxy’s Edge” are just my problems with theme park design in the 21st century. We’ll see where things lead in the next 3-5 years; until Rise of the Resistance opens, though, I can’t say I’m excited to see the edge of this galaxy again.
Standing ovation. I agree with everything you said here. I visited last Thursday and didn't even spend my whole reservation time there. (Why is a ride from 1959 so much better than this land from 2019?) You have put my feelings and thoughts into words so much more eloquently than I could. Thank you!!

I will add to this that the land basically felt like they built a Star Wars land without anything Star Wars in it beyond the life-size Falcon. The most fun I had was putting on the Emperor's robes in a store with my brother and quoting all his lines in ROTJ. (How many freaking gift shops does this land need, by the way?? NINE?!?!) Other than that, there are the few scattered reminders that the new trilogy (unfortunately) exists and WE WILL BE MADE TO LIKE IT, but that's about it. I don't think Lucasfilm or Disney understand why people love Star Wars. Even the best part - the queue after the pre-show where you can walk around the Falcon - was marred by the lack of Chewbacca or Han and the presence of porg nests all over the place. Ugh.
 
Last edited:

donsullivan

Premium Member
Wow! The usual suspects of Disney negativity are turning it up to 11 today. Meanwhile lots and lots (I’m one of them) of guests are thoroughly enjoying our visit to Batuu this afternoon. Just came from my Cantina reservation which was lots of fun. It was cool to see DJ-Rex in person.

The crowd reactions when Kylo Ren and the storm troopers roam around and interact with the guests is too fun. Some are totally confused and others get totally into it. It’s cool to the the performers adapt.

And Chewie just came out right near me and the crowds loved it. Especially sine he sounds like Chewie instead of the normal mute version.
 

ParkPeeker

Well-Known Member
Wow! The usual suspects of Disney negativity are turning it up to 11 today. Meanwhile lots and lots (I’m one of them) of guests are thoroughly enjoying our visit to Batuu this afternoon. Just came from my Cantina reservation which was lots of fun. It was cool to see DJ-Rex in person.

The crowd reactions when Kylo Ren and the storm troopers roam around and interact with the guests is too fun. Some are totally confused and others get totally into it. It’s cool to the the performers adapt.

And Chewie just came out right near me and the crowds loved it. Especially sine he sounds like Chewie instead of the normal mute version.
Why do you care about these 'negative reviews' so much when you yourself enjoy it, and know that the vast majority enjoy it? They are just opinions other people have after all
 

MrsJackSparrow

Active Member
Alright, here goes. I went last Sunday and have been processing my thoughts for the last week (as a Star Wars fan, a Disney Parks fan, and a fan of storytelling in general) but didn’t want to say anything for fear of pooping on everyone’s parade.

This land does nothing for me. And before I get into it - this mostly has more to do with me than anything else. I know there are plenty out there who will visit this park and have memories forged in irons no amount of cynicism or negativity can crack, and I appreciate those perspectives; I also understand that this is a different age and time for theme park design, but let me try to explain my position.

This land is hollow and joyless. Something about all of the brown, tan, smoky, dusty, laser-singed, metallic, cold, music-free ambience really flips the switch that the rest of the park turns into the “ON” position. The details are there, sure, along with the ambient sound, useless jargon, sign-free restaurants and shops, Imperial soldiers that bump into you and don’t apologize for fear of sacrificing “theme,” and shopkeepers that gently remind you of what, exactly, they sell that you’re not allowed to wear immediately outside of the shop, but there’s something missing here.

From the day it opened, Disneyland has committed itself to keeping uniform themes and motifs that are in line with the film industry that helped facilitate its creation: subtle changes in tone, musical shifts, stories within the attractions presented - the whole thing is built to be a walk-through movie. Moving through Main Street, to Tomorrowland, to Fantasyland, Toontown, Frontierland, Adventureland, New Orleans Square, there are individual themes presented; however, each theme, while disparate, still ties into the overall “story” that is Disneyland (I guess it helps more if you think of each land as a vignette in this story). With this being said, the addition of “Galaxy’s Edge” is a total quagmire.

With “Galaxy’s Edge,” all of the careful theming put into place over the last sixty years is now slowly being disregarded and dismantled. In 2011, Universal Studios took “Harry Potter” - the “Star Wars” of nerdy things - and turned the whole thing into a theme park phenomenon. The sheer magic of walking through Hogsmeade Village for the first time is impeccable; the sounds of creatures lurking behind any door, the magical music piping from all around, the cutesy shops that each have their own purpose - it’s all perfectly formed around the IP it represents. With that being said, it seems clear that Disney has seen what’s worked here on the financial side and strived to implement that, whereas anything that worked from a thematic or storytelling perspective was set by the wayside.

Now, part of this can be easily explained away. Hogsmeade Village is an established locale in the massive cultural juggernaut it represents: from the first time it was established in the books, the scenery has been vividly imagined and only represented sparingly throughout the film franchise. Looking at the “Star Wars” end of the spectrum, Batuu is a crappy craphole planet that I have never heard of, or believed in, or (frankly) wanted to see. I don’t mind most of the locales from Star Wars; give me an Endor forest, or Naboo, or Hoth, or ANYTHING related to these movies, over whatever made-up battle-torn refugee warzone that’s been concocted for the purpose of telling this story.

Oh wait! There is no story!

Yes, as far as Disney is concerned, this land is a piece of the current saga’s canon, and is tied into the plot of “Star Tours” (which takes place on the whole opposite side of the park), but what in the actual hell is the plot? What are we doing here? What is the point of having earthlings from Disneyland visit this space? Even Tomorrowland presents itself through the lens of “you’re visiting the future while you’re visiting Disneyland”, which, truth be told, is lacking in subtlety but keeps the mission intact. Batuu is basically wandering from the Hungry Bear restaurant, drenched in the recycled flop sweat and unused Dasani filling the waters of Splash Mountain, finding yourself in a futuristic version of a middle-eastern war zone, and then wondering just where exactly Big Thunder Mountain is.

Yes, I know I’m being overly facetious with my description - I can only imagine the aforementioned scenario in ten or twenty years, but for now, this park is only about appealing to the people who truly know about it: the exact people who influenced the design of the park.

Plenty of discussion has been paid to the wares on display at “Galaxy’s Edge,” and for good reason: $200 for a lightsaber? $150 for a custom droid? Get out of town, buster! Of course, I’m speaking for myself: most of the items being sold in the park are already hot commodities, with lines for Oga’s Cantina and Savi’s Workshop extending beyond the mere physical concepts of “lines” and into the pure metaphysical, becoming part of waiting itself, becoming a part of your very essence, trapped in time forever. With all that being said, is it really worth it? Like, really? As someone who’s single and childless with expendable income who enjoys spending time in these parks, really? Like, really? I think part of this extends into the new theme park trend that began with Hogsmeade, which is “sell as much crap as you can.”

Of course, the entire concept of Disneyland has been lampooned to death with “Exit Through the Gift Shop” jokes, but there’s something different between being spat out at the end of “Pirates” and seeing pirate tchotchkes and visiting an entire themed land built seemingly solely on the idea that people will spend extra money on a custom wand from Ollivander or, more appropriately, a custom lightsaber from whoever “Savi” is. My time waiting in line just to be let in to this land was mostly spent next to a couple, one half of whom was FURIOUS at the other for failing to secure an early enough spot in line to guarantee an early enough spot in line to guarantee an early enough reservation at the already comically-cramped cantina; this act of attrition was apparently enough to ruin the 4-hour reservation window and doom the failed half to a lifetime of being reminded of their failure in the eyes of god itself. I wasn’t that bothered, though, because I wasn’t there to drink booze. I can do that at home! I was here to do one thing - fly the Millennium Falcon, baby!!!!!!

God, this ride is terrible. I really, really wanted to like Smuggler’s Run, but it seemed to actively work against my wishes in an effort to turn itself into a hulking genie of anti-wish, like Will Smith in “Aladdin.” Even the queue, with record-low waits of 30 minutes on average, failed to inspire any real confidence in the experience. Loads of control panels with pushable buttons line the railings alongside various components of the queue, but pushing the buttons does nothing. Long stretches of the queue itself are just cold, musty hallways meant to evoke the “feel” of the Falcon, which may as well be an alternate-universe Space Mountain where the future is no longer clean and pristine, but hollow, dirty and metallic.

Once you actually get past the life-like Hondo Accord animatronic and get your assignment, you learn how truly cruel and impassive this world has become to the dreams that dominated the kingdom beyond Batuu’s reach. If it sounds like I’m being dramatic about any position but “Pilot” sucking, it’s because I am. Getting on this ride with any card other than Pilot is basically a waste of time. Engineers: get into the cockpit, and stare at your control panel until Wakandan Tigger - OOPS - Hondo! - tells you to do something. Gunners, get ready to stare at whatever the pilots are doing and press a button when things get hairy. Pilots, have fun doing the job this ride was designed for! If you’re unlucky enough to not get the Pilot job and imagine that sitting and enjoying the ride is enough, think again. The ride itself truly is not thrilling or exciting; it’s simply a video game in a moving theatre designed to get groups to work together. The ride doesn’t take into account that most groups of people don’t want to talk to people outside of their group (and I say this as a frequent single rider).

All in all, I’m just bummed from the disappointment. I wanted to like this land, but even the hummus and pita I got was as lukewarm as the initial feelings I had - both turned cold quickly, and only one was easy to swallow. The “Disney touches” - the extra ways in which the land is designed to appeal to the curious minds who love to search every nook & cranny - are mostly reduced here to mini games within the app that let guests Hack and Scan and Translate and stand completely still in the middle of a thoroughfare while I’m just trying to find a water fountain. Maybe my gripes are unjust; maybe I can’t really tell if my problems with “Galaxy’s Edge” are just my problems with theme park design in the 21st century. We’ll see where things lead in the next 3-5 years; until Rise of the Resistance opens, though, I can’t say I’m excited to see the edge of this galaxy again.
Agree 100%! My family visited last Monday evening and we were fairly underwhelmed. In an attempt to avoid spoilers, we missed out on the race to the Cantina reservation line. I cannot comprehend why the Cantina is so small, other than to create false demand, something WDW loves to do. Our expectations must have been outrageously high because we found the CM interactions to be borderline frustrating when asking simple questions and winding up immersed in a story we didn’t know was happening. It’s almost campy idiocy, and, for whatever reason, I enjoy being spoken to like an adult. Smuggler’s Run was colossally disappointing. We were so fired up for this, but the button pushing nonsense was incredibly distracting from a film that rivaled the darkness of this season’s battle episode of Game of Thrones. It was nice to see on our second ride that the attraction is variable with scenery, but it does not come close to the technology of Universal attractions, which I was kind of expecting. The hype around the colored milk is comical. Both taste faintly of cleaning products in a confusing but somewhat tasty way. Lack of cohesive signage made navigation initially troublesome as everything has a generic nondescript look from the outside. Entirely too many gift shops with a bunch of nothing in them and lacking in helpful CMs was just overkill. Lack of music was hugely disappointing, considering I listen to park music most days online. We also expected far more wandering characters to interact with, a la Star Wars Weekends, so that was wildly disappointing. We will go back, but it’s certainly not the level we had hoped for. I’ll take the camaraderie and immersion of Star Wars Weekends any day over this bleak, storyless corner of the park.
 

RobWDW1971

Well-Known Member
Agree 100%!

Me too, sadly. We were AMPED for this, paid $1,000+ to take the family to see it, got to ride the Falcon multiple times with just 15 minute waits, the whole deal. Felt sad and depressed most of the time walking around a desolate, abandoned, bombed out area. Even when you see droids, they are rusted, broken, behind a fence. Same with the landspeeder, flying bikes, etc. It's like Batuu has just been evacuated and left to decay. The brown buildings with no windows, no music (the "atmosphere" sounds are a joke), just no "life".

Watch the end of Star Tours when you land in Batuu - the land is filled with droids, aliens, greenery, THAT is what they should have built, but didn't. Honestly, watching the procession through DHS felt more like Star Wars than this experience.

Good news is if they commit to atmosphere entertainment, you can dramatically change the experience. Think of a Star Wars Convention and if they land was filled with aliens, droids, bounty hunters, storm troopers, etc. walking around it would have a dramatic effect.

We'll see, but for now I honestly have no desire to go back until the big ride opens.
 

Jones14

Well-Known Member
The sound issues should just be a matter of turning up the volume; music and noise that seems loud and booming in an empty area can be barely audible when the area is full of people.
 

BubbaQuest

Well-Known Member
Savi's reservations were gone in about 17 minutes. Oga's reservations gone after about 20 minutes. That's actually not that bad.
At 5:05pm they turned off the Virtual Queue system to enter the land. Star Wars Land is now wide open, free-flow, for anyone who wants to wander in. The wait time for Millennium Falcon is holding at 60 minutes with the land wide open for all.

I'm confused by these numbers. I never read about any large numbers entering the park today, but I also read they stopped walk-ins 1 hour after park opening (turning on virtual queue only).


Also, Savi's had times from 8am to 12am. That's 17 hours x 3 sessions per hour x 14 builders x $199.99 per saber = $142,792.86 in sales before the park even opened.

That also sounds like a *huge* missed opportunity. It they stopped taking reservations 17 minutes after opening, just image the lost revenue numbers. If I did the math right (4000 visitors per hour vs 700 total Savi slots), that means they can only sell to 1% of their total Star Wars customers?!
 

captveg

Well-Known Member
Watch the end of Star Tours when you land in Batuu - the land is filled with droids, aliens, greenery, THAT is what they should have built, but didn't. Honestly, watching the procession through DHS felt more like Star Wars than this experience.

Good news is if they commit to atmosphere entertainment, you can dramatically change the experience. Think of a Star Wars Convention and if they land was filled with aliens, droids, bounty hunters, storm troopers, etc. walking around it would have a dramatic effect.

We'll see, but for now I honestly have no desire to go back until the big ride opens.

Is there "greenery" that just needs time to grow in a bit? It wasn't until the last couple days that this criticism has cropped up, so I am not too informed about the landscaping re: plants/trees.

As for droids and characters walking around - one would hope that once the tweaks to how the land flows are worked out they'll add what they scaled back right before they opened. I'd put it at 50/50. This is one of those things that is a catch 22: If the land is busy they can pay more cast members but they would have less space to have them walk around, yet if the land is under performing its capacity they would have the space but be less inclined to increase the cast members. Or would they see the extra cast members and droids as a way to draw more crowds in? They may even wait to see how Rise of the Resistance alters the land's attendance / crowd patterns to make these changes.
 

Magenta Panther

Well-Known Member
Me too, sadly. We were AMPED for this, paid $1,000+ to take the family to see it, got to ride the Falcon multiple times with just 15 minute waits, the whole deal. Felt sad and depressed most of the time walking around a desolate, abandoned, bombed out area. Even when you see droids, they are rusted, broken, behind a fence. Same with the landspeeder, flying bikes, etc. It's like Batuu has just been evacuated and left to decay. The brown buildings with no windows, no music (the "atmosphere" sounds are a joke), just no "life".

Watch the end of Star Tours when you land in Batuu - the land is filled with droids, aliens, greenery, THAT is what they should have built, but didn't. Honestly, watching the procession through DHS felt more like Star Wars than this experience.

Good news is if they commit to atmosphere entertainment, you can dramatically change the experience. Think of a Star Wars Convention and if they land was filled with aliens, droids, bounty hunters, storm troopers, etc. walking around it would have a dramatic effect.

We'll see, but for now I honestly have no desire to go back until the big ride opens.


Okay, so I'm wondering about something. I've been to Renaissance Festivals all over the country. And in every one of those Fests, there have been actors roaming the grounds - peasants, Lord Mayors, wenches, clerics, wizards, elves, pirates, etc. - and they all do little skits that amuse and add tremendously to the atmosphere. And all of those actors are PAID (I asked). So why doesn't Galaxy's Edge have actors like these? Or does it? Am I missing something? (And no, I don't mean walk-around Chewbacca, I mean actors putting on SW skits etc.) Or is the "PAID" element I mentioned the issue? Wouldn't surprise me that Iger is cutting corners on this new attraction, just like he does everything else in the parks.

For my part, when GE has look-alike Han, Luke and Leia actors in it, I'll pay it a visit. Otherwise, hard pass.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom