Ok, let me try and compose my thoughts on everything. The passholder deal prompted me and a buddy to head out yesterday and explore SWL for the first time, something that I wouldn't have done till September otherwise, so I imagine attendance is going to start rising in bits going forward.
So first thing I should mention is that overall I like the land, though it has a good amount of flaws, some easily fixable, some not so much. I think they did a very good job of creating a world that (and I'm sorry for using the phrase) makes you feel like you're on another planet. Rounding the corner and seeing the Falcon for the first time is one hell of a moment, and I absolutely understood the people who started crying the first time they saw it. I love a lot of what's going on in the shops - there's a ton of smaller details that they put into the place, and I enjoyed just spending time exploring every knook and cranny in the land. I rode the Falcon ride (3 times! On the first day of July!) and did Savi's, but I'll get to those in a minute.
Let's actually talk about some of my criticisms, and the first one really isn't fixable, but the land feels too big. Compare the size of everything in SWL to New Orleans Square, or Adventureland - there's not a lot of space to maneuver, and the buildings are built to scale. SWL has everything built at what feels like actual size (with some exceptions), and it creates a weird sensation of the land being out of sorts with the rest of the park. This was, in hindsight, always going to become an issue with two similar SWLs being built on both coasts, and the version at DHS most-likely won't have this issue because the land will be at scale with the rest of the park. I imagine the bigger scale is going to come in handy when the parks become way more crowded by the end of August, but for now it just plays as odd.
Another big criticism was the lack of music. This was something that really stood out to me while I was in line for MFSR, but I started paying attention to it more after that point, and the lack of music ends up creating a weird sensation of the land lacking a spark. This is a Star Wars area! Play some of the iconic Star Wars music! It's not that difficult!
A lot of talk has been going on regarding the CMs in the area. I'll say that I tried to be on the lookout for any poor show, and for the most part I was pleasantly surprised by the CM performance. There were some areas with issues, but one thing I did notice is that the issues I saw tended to be in places where they had waaaaaay more staffing than was necessary. For example, I got to listen to a conversation at the popcorn vendor, in part because they had 5 CMs staffed for a stall that saw almost 0 business. Same things at the entrances. What I saw didn't surprise me, as I had been the same way when I worked minimum wage jobs and had no business. The solution is either pay the CMs more to encourage better behavior, or get staffing for appropriate levels based on the crowds.
I also thought about the entertainment thing, and to be honest, I felt as if what they had currently was fine for the land as it currently is (with a notable exception which I'll get to in a moment). While I think you can have things like droids moving around the area, or more things like the Citizens of Buena Vista Street, I didn't feel I was missing anything by the lack of inclusion. The CMs I talked to did a good job of keeping to the fiction of the area, the Stormtroopers were excellent, and we saw some Troopers walking along the rooftops at one point. The one thing I'm shocked hasn't moved over is Jedi Training; they don't really have a great spot for it, but with the land being completely open, this feels like something that can and should be brought into the area as soon as possible.
Ok, let's get into the two big SWL things I got to do. We'll start with Savi's, because I absolutely loved that experience. I was a bit skeptical going in because I had seen the opening videos with the CMs who had no idea how to provide a good show, but they seem to have improved by leaps and bounds, because every CM we interacted with during the show had their characters and lines down perfectly and made the whole thing flow naturally. In particular, I asked for help in picking my kyber crystal (I'm colorblind and have trouble differentiating between blue and purple, among other things) and he went above and beyond, checking on me repeatedly to make sure I was having a great experience. I also fully recommend getting a reservation as late as possible, because otherwise you're stuck carrying around that unwieldy case all day (or you end up like me and get seated on Matterhorn, only to be told that I couldn't bring the lightsaber on, which was just hilarious).
Now for Millenium Falcon. I'm going to talk about the queue first, because the first room you are in is just abysmal. I get the whole "cargo bay" thing it's going for, but there's no life, no movement, no nothing. Occasionally they do a thing over the radio that messes with the engine, but that's it. There's even a window in one of the corners that looks like it is clearly meant for some kind of scene, but it just sits blank. This area could have used some animatronic droids (copy over the droids from Star Tours! They'd work perfect here!) and more consistent audio instead of something every 3 minutes or so. This room is so bad that it lets down the rest of the queue, which has the excellent Hondo AA and a pretty-solid chess room.
Now for the ride itself. Like I said, we rode it three times, so I actually got the chance to try all three positions. I'm not going to rehash how the positions work, because we all know it by now, but I will say that I may have had more fun with the engineer and gunner positions than I did as the pilot. This is not to say those positions are difficult - lord knows they are extremely easy. But they were easy to the point that I was able to enjoy the attraction as a whole experience. Piloting is stressful, especially for a bunch of people you may not know, because you want to provide a good experience and the pilots have more control over that than anyone.
The actual ride itself is....fine. I think the biggest problem it has is that it's not an anchor E ticket like RotR is supposed to be, and since it's the only ride in the land open at the moment, it has to try and carry the expectations of the entire land on its shoulders, which it really can't. But then again, it was never supposed to, and instead was supposed to be the complimentary ride to a bigger experience. It's entertaining enough, especially if you only ride it the one time on a trip. I'd be interested to see the number of people who ride it on subsequent trips, to see if it goes the way of Soarin or of any of the shows.
But that maybe brings me to the final point, which is that it's very clear that the land isn't done yet. The big E ticket isn't open, so a whole half of the land feels empty and relatively lifeless. There's expansion space and clear area to add more to the land. That's maybe the best thing I can say from an optimistic standpoint, as they have room to fix things and grow, and we know some cavalry is on the way. I'd be interested to see if my opinions change by, like December (because I'm assuming RotR will open by December. Boy it really needs to open by December).
