Born in 1977, Star Wars has been part of my life since birth. Something I've shared with my dad and now my daughter (she wore a different Star Wars onesie to daycare every day the week that TFA came out). I booked my trip the day that opening day was announced. So here is my Opening Day report: Good/Bad/Ugly Style
Basics
Arrived from Beach Club by Friendship Boat at 3:55AM. Was walking through the tunnel at 4:52AM. Went through the MF:GE line and piloted the Falcon by 8:14 AM. Then single-ridered it with a 45 minute wait. Drank the milk, ate a Ronto Wrap, met the Gatherers at Savi’s, shopped in the Marketplace, built a droid to my 4 year old daughter’s specs (she christened her Droid R2TUTU), a 30-minute single rider for MF:SR, drank a beer flight and a Rodian Ration at Oga’s, bought some holocrons and Kyber crystals at Doc Ondar’s, did some photopasses and explored the land. Walked out the way I came in at 5:07, for a 12:15 minute day in Batuu.
It was great. After booking this trip the day Disney announced opening day, then reading all the doom-and-gloom coming out of California, I was nervous. But I have to say I was impressed and cannot wait to get back. On to my specific thoughts:
The Spectacular
MF:SR –Right Pilot; Queue: Pulling the lever to make the Falcon jump to hyperspace was a dream come true, and the queue (all around the MF on the exterior and the interior, especially once you get into Hondo’s room, then the Chess Room, then the hallways and the cockpit) was breathtaking. I watched New Hope and Empire with my daughter this morning, and it was so cool telling her that I was in the Falcon, then showing her pictures of me at the chess table and in the halls!
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Savi’s Workshop: this was an amazing experience; Disney storytelling at its finest; quality product; moving experience. In my opinion, it was well worth the cost. If my daughter wants to do this, I want to wait until she’s in the 9-11 range, just so she would appreciate it more. Here is my build (purple crystal; also bought yellow/red/green/blue - white was sold out):
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The Great
Oga’s Cantina: I had the beer flight and the Rodian Ration. Enjoyed three of the beers, and the jello shot was good and fun. We had a party of 7, and we got to sit at a booth with other folks. The atmosphere is great. It is tight, but the intimacy makes it feel like a packed bar (which it is). The charcuterie plate was interesting. They need more food options, and they could probably build 2-3 more of these around the land. Others I was with had varying reactions to their drinks. (If you are getting the flight to take home the barware, it is MASSIVE. I actually got Dok-Ondar's to ship it home for me, but I don't know if they're going to do that for long - they only charged me $4.95 to ship two of these and a Yub Nub glass).
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The Look of the Land: It is gorgeous in dark and daylight, and you really don’t feel like you’re in MGM. Other than being able to see in to TSL due to the extended queue for Falcon, you would not be able to see any of the rest of the park. The colors are great, the attention to detail is immaculate.
Cast Members: Most stayed in character very well. They started around 2AM, and were really doing a great job under a deluge of humanity. Good mix of cheeky and friendly. Waitress at Oga’s was fantastic; the ladies at the hostess stand at Oga’s were doing great work; Gatherer at Savi’s was amazing; the folks leading you out of the Chess Room into the cockpits were great. Also, in the extended queue for MF that went into the backstage area, which was surrounded by the planters, one of the cast members welcomed us to “Galaxy’s Hedge.” We laughed way harder at that than we needed to….
Guests: 12+ hours, and I really didn’t see much in terms of bad guest behavior. Lot’s of folks were turned away at Savi’s and Oga’s, but they didn’t throw any fits. Despite the mass of humanity, everyone kept their cool. And you know what, I didn’t hear anyone B&Ming about every little detail. People seemed to genuinely be enjoying their time. It was great to spend time with tens of thousands of fellow fans letting their geek flags fly!
The Good
Droid Depot: This is chaotic, but neat. Great for younger kids, good for adults. I can’t imagine walking around with a boxed Droid for a long time, buy splurging for the backpack made it fine. It was fun when people would ask to take pictures of my Droid, or when it would start moving and beeping randomly.
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MF:SR – Single Rider: The great was that I only waited 45 and 30 minutes using this instead of the 4.5 hours in the main queue at opening. The bad is that you were virtually guaranteed Engineer, with a slight possibility of Gunner. Which I understand on Opening Day, but hopefully this changes as the land ages. Also, the merge point is AFTER the Hondo animatronic, so you merge into the Chess Room.
Efforts to Thwart EBay Vultures: all shops had a limit of one of each item per person. So while this prevented me from buying two Christmas ornaments, which was disappointing, I appreciated their effort to keep folks from buying a bunch of merch to just put up for sale on EBay
Ronto’s Roasters: This is a cool little food stand. Like the animatronics, and the Ronto Wrap was delicious and filling. Also, the line moved quickly, in part because their menu is so small).
Blue Milk: I enjoyed this. To me, it was like liquefied Smarties. And the version with rum is also really good.
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Photopass Photographers: Lots of them around, and the lines moved quickly. Also, they are prepped on folks wanting pictures with their lightsabers/Droids/other toys, and they had a great overlay for Thursday:
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The Weird
The Shops: These are all TINY. Barely storefronts. So while there were lines, they do move really quickly. It was odd that there was a 2-3 hour wait at one point to get into Dok Ondar’s. Can anyone else but Disney convince people to wait that long for the right to buy some very expensive merch?
The Characters – We saw Rey, Chewy, Vi (?), Kylo, R2D2 and Stormtroopers. But it seemed like only Kylo and the Stormtroopers actually interacted with people. The Chewy I saw was acting perturbed and like he didn’t want anyone to see him or notice him (how in the world can you miss a 7-foot tall hairball?). Rey and Vi kept scurrying around. But just seeing them scurry around doesn’t really mean anything. So it was just strange to me.
Metallic Gift Card - Oddly, Droid Depot is the only place in the land to find that metallic gift card (which we forgot until we were about to leave, then backtracked to buy). Also, you can’t use your MagicBand to buy the gift card – cash or credit card only.
The Bad
Green Milk: My personal opinion is that it is nasty. There was no flavor to the actual drink, then a really grassy/treelike aftertaste took over.
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Holocrons: These are $50 a piece, and they are not good quality. Cheap plastic. Not easy to open to insert the crystals. Awkward to use. Don’t want to stay active. And for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to make the Jedi and Sith ones work together. Seriously, if you know how to do this, please PM me so I can make it work.
Datapad: I couldn’t get it to work on translations. It kept crashing when I was doing a job for Hondo. I really like how it tracked how much I earned on my Falcon rides, but then it gives you achievements that you assign, but it isn’t clear (to me) what that’s supposed to mean. I couldn’t get it to link up to the Falcon to hack. I know other people were able to use it and enjoy it, but it was more frustrating for me.
The Ugly
Green Milk w/Tequila: they took something awful and added rotgut tequila; if you buy this, do yourself a favor and get a rummy blue milk so you have something to wash it down with (that is what my buddy did)
Final Thoughts
I think this is a great start to what should be an incredible land, once its headlining attraction and additional streetmosphere are added in. It is great as-is (and yes, I mean it is great – to me, it is better than Pandora). They opened a land where the only free things to do are one ride, the datapad, and the restrooms. Every other thing that is offered costs you money. And yet tens of thousands of people showed up.
I am heading back in April with my wife and daughter (and, God willing, my parents). I cannot wait to share this with them.
Bright Suns, my friends. Bright Suns.
blogmickey.com
