News Star Wars Galaxy's Edge opening day reports - Disney's Hollywood Studios

[ImperfectPixie]

To be honest, without FP+ I would have gone maybe twice in the past 5 years instead of 8 times to WDW. I love the Fast Pass system and think it is nearly flawless. We're able to walk into the park we planned to hit that morning and immediately ride 3 great rides usually ones that have long lines (to me waiting any longer than 30 minutes is too much, I have three kids under 9 years old). We can then pick a new Fast Pass ride through the day using the app. We are constantly able to snag stuff like Mine Train and Flight of Passage. I just pick the time and refresh while snacking on something, etc.

Works great, I estimate that over 8 trips we've waited in line maybe 1-2 hours per day combined. That's counting the 5-15 minutes you someone's wait on ultra popular rides even with a fast pass. My kids are tall for their age and fearless. Our trips are pure magic every single time and FP+ plays a big part.

It's all subjective though, just my opinions and experience. I hope the Falcon gets FP by the time we go in Nov.

I'm not saying FP+ doesn't work well when you can get one for the ride you want, what I'm saying is that it inflates standby times. I also think they've implemented it on rides that don't need it at all - like HM, Pirates, and IASW. When one line is loading at a rate 4x faster than another (and in a lot of cases, even more than that), you can't really say that it isn't sticking it to those who don't have a fast pass. I also suspect that in some cases (like when Frozen Ever After was new), ops intentionally loads riders in a wonky fashion in order to bump wait times and create demand. We had a FP for that ride, and STILL ended up waiting for 45 minutes - and when we finally boarded a boat, I noticed that they were only loading 2 people per row, when each row could EASILY fit 4 wide comfortably. Granted, that's anecdotal, but when a ride is posting a 300+ minute wait...you'd think they'd want to put MORE people on the boats, not less.

 

[wdisney9000]

I don't know man. I was there on opening day and the vibe was electric. The park was packed through about 5pm, and then the crowds receded a bit, but were still heavy. The overall sentiments from all the other guests we spoke to seemed to be pretty great, and everybody in my party loved it. As of now if there's any disappointment in attendance I'd chalk that up to external factors like ticket prices, AP block-outs (at DL specifically), and the looming hurricane.

The line never hit 65 min on opening day. Lowest was 75 at 6 PM, 14 hours after the park opened.

Line was > 2 hours until 4 PM, 12 hours after the park opened.

Until 11 hours after the park opened, (3PM) there was a virtual queue before you could even line up.

So there were at least 4 hour waits until about 3 PM, after which it dipped before picking up at night... Never in park history has there been an opening with park hours as long as GE and with a virtual queue before you could even get in line.

The following days the ride has held consistently high wait times, being one of the two longest on property at any time. This as crowds across the resort were at record lows due to the fact that it is a) the only slow season left, and b) a hurricane was predicted.

I suspect that September will be fairly light, but by mid-October, they will be using the virtual queue system again. And once Rise opens, all bets are off.

Guys, please, pretty please try and understand that I am not saying SWGE was/is a failure. I am not saying the land is bad. I am not saying that opening day was unsuccessful. I am saying it was not anywhere near the levels of crowds that the executives had wanted. And IMO, the crowds should have been MASSIVE considering the IP. You dont have to defend SWGE. Im not attacking it. Not at all.

Virtual queues, Dorian, etc,...none of that matters to the suits sitting in the boardroom. I would bet dollars to doughnuts they were expecting it to be so packed that they would need aerial photos to show the crowd levels. When a much lesser known and extremely much lesser loved IP such as Avatar/Pandora can compete with Star Wars for crowd levels on opening day, (on both coasts, and Aneheim didnt have a hurricane), the ya, something is a miss, IMO. And im not referring to wait times for FoP as a metric for crowd levels. There were thousands of people that swarmed Pandora on opening day, same as Galaxys Edge. Do you think the suits in Anaheim are celebrating today about the opening of SWGE in Orlando? Honestly asking.

 

[The_Jobu]

I went to Galaxy's Edge yesterday....saw the actual Rey character, and two other guests dressed exactly like Rey....so I'm starting to understand why they wanted to limit the amount of cosplay going on!

Just wait till I’m stomping around in my first order outfit posing for photos.

 

[wdisney9000]

Just wait till I’m stomping around in my first order outfit posing for photos.

Ill cosplay as a Disney photographer and follow you around.

 

[The_Jobu]

Ill cosplay as a Disney photographer and follow you around.

The latest youtube fad: How fast can you get kicked out of Disney World?

 

[ImperfectPixie]

The latest youtube fad: How fast can you get kicked out of Disney World?

Call me a stick-in-the-mud, but I don't allow the sharing of that kind of thing, or ways to skirt rules, etc in my FB group.

 

[The_Jobu]

Call me a stick-in-the-mud, but I don't allow the sharing of that kind of thing, or ways to skirt rules, etc in my FB group.

I kid! I kid!

Just my lame attempts at humour.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

I kid! I kid!

Just my lame attempts at humour.

THANK GOODNESS! YouTube fads in that vein make my head explode, lol.

 

[planodisney]

Guys, please, pretty please try and understand that I am not saying SWGE was/is a failure. I am not saying the land is bad. I am not saying that opening day was unsuccessful. I am saying it was not anywhere near the levels of crowds that the executives had wanted. And IMO, the crowds should have been MASSIVE considering the IP. You dont have to defend SWGE. Im not attacking it. Not at all.

Virtual queues, Dorian, etc,...none of that matters to the suits sitting in the boardroom. I would bet dollars to doughnuts they were expecting it to be so packed that they would need aerial photos to show the crowd levels. When a much lesser known and extremely much lesser loved IP such as Avatar/Pandora can compete with Star Wars for crowd levels on opening day, (on both coasts, and Aneheim didnt have a hurricane), the ya, something is a miss, IMO. And im not referring to wait times for FoP as a metric for crowd levels. There were thousands of people that swarmed Pandora on opening day, same as Galaxys Edge. Do you think the suits in Anaheim are celebrating today about the opening of SWGE in Orlando? Honestly asking.

And please please understand we are saying you’re wrong about your opinion on opening day.

BTW, wait times have come down on SR since this morning but 4 of the top 7 longest wait times of the entire resort are in DHS. This kind of sucks for my upcoming end of September visit. I see it being even worse then. Hopefully I’m wrong.

 

[larryz]

R2D2 is cute, but not that cute. $25,000? Wonder who’ll be the first to buy one? Anyone on here thinking about it?

There's a club organized by people who build R2 unit replicas. They have their own website.... I don't know how much it costs, but it's considerably less than $25K.

 

[planodisney]

Opening DHS at 6am is proving to be so smart. They are able to burn off a lot of MFSR demand those first few hours. 6-9am the lines are consistently above 2 hours while everything else in the entire resort is basically walk on or 30 minutes or under for the biggies.

 

[The_Jobu]

There's a club organized by people who build R2 unit replicas. They have their own website.... I don't know how much it costs, but it's considerably less than $25K.

Yeah but do those lovingly handmade ones have Disney magic in them??

 

[TalkingHead]

Funny to see people saying the ride’s shorter wait time is because FP isn’t being used.

So I guess we can all finally agree that FP inflates wait times.

That’s one good thing to come out of this.

 

[djkidkaz]

Opening DHS at 6am is proving to be so smart. They are able to burn of a lot of MFSR demand those first few hours. 6-9am the lines are consistently above 2 hours while everything else in the entire resort is basically walk on or 30 minutes or under for the biggies.

I think a difference we’re also seeing is that this ride is not as amazing as Flight of Passage. I don’t think the majority of people are riding this and then getting back in line to do again. I would say FoP definitely has that issue of people wanting to ride more than once in a day which keeps wait times up.

I sure hope the Resistance ride is the best theme park ride ever created. It will allow people to forgive a lot of the shortcomings of the land.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Funny to see people saying the ride’s shorter wait time is because FP isn’t being used.

So I guess we can all finally agree that FP inflates wait times.

That’s one good thing to come out of this.

Of course it inflates wait time for those who don't have a FP. But now, average in the wait time of all those who used a FP.

 

[ChrisFL]

Of course it inflates wait time for those who don't have a FP. But now, average in the wait time of all those who used a FP.

"aww sh__, here we go again"

 

[larryz]

Yeah but do those lovingly handmade ones have Disney magic in them??

Probably not. But that sure explains the additional $20K in cost.

 

[MisterPenguin]

"aww sh__, here we go again"

FPs have been mentioned in the past three pages. Some, just in an ancillary manner, such as "When will they start using FP on this ride."

Blame the ones who wanted to take such comments as a starting point to rehash their grudge/support for FP.

 

[TheDisneyDaysOfOurLives]

Guys, please, pretty please try and understand that I am not saying SWGE was/is a failure. I am not saying the land is bad. I am not saying that opening day was unsuccessful. I am saying it was not anywhere near the levels of crowds that the executives had wanted. And IMO, the crowds should have been MASSIVE considering the IP. You dont have to defend SWGE. Im not attacking it. Not at all.

Virtual queues, Dorian, etc,...none of that matters to the suits sitting in the boardroom. I would bet dollars to doughnuts they were expecting it to be so packed that they would need aerial photos to show the crowd levels. When a much lesser known and extremely much lesser loved IP such as Avatar/Pandora can compete with Star Wars for crowd levels on opening day, (on both coasts, and Aneheim didnt have a hurricane), the ya, something is a miss, IMO. And im not referring to wait times for FoP as a metric for crowd levels. There were thousands of people that swarmed Pandora on opening day, same as Galaxys Edge. Do you think the suits in Anaheim are celebrating today about the opening of SWGE in Orlando? Honestly asking.

I'm confused.

Are you privy to the 'expectations' (attendance also isn't the barometer it used to be. It's all about getting the SPH or Per Capita from the guest. THAT is what truly tells if something is a success or not a success)? Are you sitting in the boardroom and analyzing the metrics that define success or failure?

The reality is, opening something at the end of August, is going to have softened expectations. You're not opening during the peak period. You're just not. As a result, your expectations are different. You look at YoY increase in terms of attendance/spending/wait times, etc. and if they're moving in the right direction, then you start to see the impact SWGE has. If you don't, then you know you have an issue. None of those execs are expecting summer-like crowds heading into the fall season as families are starting back with school, college is starting, etc.

 

[TalkingHead]

FPs have been mentioned in the past three pages. Some, just in an ancillary manner, such as "When will they start using FP on this ride."

Blame the ones who wanted to take such comments as a starting point to rehash their grudge/support for FP.

No, it’s being used an explanation for why the wait is 60 minutes instead of, say, 90 minutes.

Take it up with those folks since they seem to be grasping for reasons why the wait time hasn’t been higher.