Tested the ride today and got one ride in each position.
Some thoughts:
—Piloting the Millenium Falcon is a must if you’re building a Star Wars Land. It should be a given. It’s like the Hogwarts Express at Uni. It’s not so much about the ride, but about the entire experience of stepping aboard the most famous vehicle from each respective franchise. The excitement is in stepping inside something the characters are actually seen riding and truly becoming a member of the world.
—The technology is seemless. You feel like you’re aboard the only captain’s room (I don’t know the correct term) on the ship, as you should be. You never really notice any merging or converging. And the ride vehicle is seemless with the rest of the ship, so it seems like you’re taking the whole ship with you. Importantly, there’s no noticible physical gap between the rest of the ship and the vehicle, so there’s no indication you “detach.” Doors thruout the queue slide open as they do in the movies. The gangway to board the Falcon has “bounce” to it like a Jetway to an airport.
—Advice to having fun: embrace the interactivity and social element. Part of the experience is trying to coordinate with your copilot if you’re flying... trying to strategize together as a team. Even piloting is not too difficult, however. It basically functions like a simple phone app; like “Temple Run”, there’s a certain path you follow and you’re just dodging obstacles. The big factor that determines the experience is the damage your ship endures, so the engineer plays a pretty important role. Funny enough, if you do bad and bang up your ship, your damaged hyper drive caused you to stop short of Batuu on the return trip and get stuck in an asteroid belt, attacked by tie fighters. In fact, the ride experience lasts longer if you do WORSE. otherwise you stall in the ship bay at the end while they count up points.
—Narrative wise, the plot is a rehash of the train scene from Solo. The main experience is a high speed chase to gun down a train to steal coaxium. This train hijacking helped sell me on the idea of Galaxy’s Edge as a sort of extension of the Wild West of Frontierland.
—Those worried about boarding the ship, when it’s parked out front, needn’t worry. Occam’s Razor applies here. In the pre show with Hondo, you see the ship land behind him on a screen (the whole room rumbles!), AND, a little flight control map shows the ship moving.
—Those worried about gum trashing the Falcon needn’t worry either. The second story looks out thru glass windows.
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