Disneyland!

I’d be curious to see if this strategy pays off. All the reservations are taken at this point, so assuming they are striving to keep the same capacity the entire reservation period it should all be equal. It’ll be interesting to see if there is a drop off and if that drop off is Disney led or if it’s just people not taking advantage of their later reservations because the land opens up in a week to everyone.

I’m not even sure all of the reservations are taken. When my spot came up in line (about 30 minutes in), opening weekend was sold out but there were plenty of spots for the rest of the three-week period. And when my brother’s spot came up (about an hour in), the opening two weekends were mostly sold out, but still plenty of other spots available. I’m actually surprised that they closed the line precisely at noon.

In any case, I’m sure the crowds in Star Wars Land will die down in maybe five or six years.

Interesting. I thought they closed it when it sold out. I didn’t realize they set a fixed time to turn it off. I wonder if they will trickle more reservations.

My sister in law has an 8AM reservation for today. She sent a picture of the crowd near Matterhorn of all places. Quite packed.

Smugglers Run only has a 30 minute wait though so it looks like they kept the reservation number low.

I can’t find the particular report I read yesterday - but apparently their crowd-control plan worked really well and it was a generally positive experience. Meanwhile - the rest of the park?

Yea that was the best the crowds have been in the better part of a decade which was really welcome since it was the first time in a long time that we went without a 3 year old. It was made even better with the use of max pass. At some point we had a fast pass reservation for guardians, cars, and midway all reserved within 40 minutes of each other.

Beyond that, Galaxies Edge was really incredible. We had a 2-6PM reservation which meant that we had overlap with 11-3 and 5-9. Those overlapped times got pretty crowded and it was hard to do anything meaningful in that time. As a result we weren’t able to go to the cantina which was a huge bummer. When we got to the line at 2 it was 2 hours long and closed so we passed on it. When we got off the ride (for the second time) it was after 5 and they had closed the line again and we were told they wouldn’t accept our reservation window bands after it reopened.

The food was…interesting. I really liked my ribs, my wife wasn’t impressed with her fried chicken thing. I appreciated it for what it was, but I get the feeling they are going to give up on the creative stuff and redesign the menu for space burgers.

The millennium falcon is special, I just kept staring at it, star struck by a large prop. You get really great views of it in the line for the ride as well. Nothing like some up close falcon booty to make time fly by. On to the ride. It was really fun. It’s more of a video game than a ride. The movements are like star tours with the intensity dropped to a 2. It doesn’t have a pregnancy warning if that gives you an idea. The line was about 15 minutes both times which was amazing. Minor ride spoilers? Is that a thing? There is something really special about roaming around the inside of the millennium falcon and taking a seat inside the cockpit. I didn’t cry or anything, but it wouldn’t be weird to see someone do that. It’s that special.

I really hope they are able to control the flow of people post reservations and that they can figure something out with the cantina because it’s a pretty bad choke point there.
We didn’t built a droid or light saber but we did get our daughter a Porg that she for some reason immediately named apple. She both loves and is scared by it.

Okay here’s my quick-ish trip report:

We went down for an extended-family trip over the weekend (Thursday-Sunday, depending on the family), and my immediate family went to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on Friday from 11-3.

First of all, I was expecting horrible crowds (I was just there with my daughter on January 2 and the security lines went all the way to Harbor Blvd.) but everything was really empty, at least on Friday morning. A short line to get into the park, but otherwise we walked straight back to Tomorrowland. In the park by 8:05, no line to pick up wristbands, we had them by 8:15. We waited in the crowd to get in to Galaxy’s Edge around 10:30, but in retrospect we probably didn’t need to…well, except my wife immediately got into the line for Cantina reservations.

The character interactions were great! We saw Chewbacca with some kids, hiding from First Order Stormtroopers. I made contact with the Resistance spy, Vi Moradi, which is an encounter I would highly recommend. Just hang around near her and she will probably recruit you. And Kylo Ren was around a lot, flanked by Stormtroopers. He spent a lot of time interrogating kids in strollers, including one little girl in a Rey costume who he made cry. To quote the Hulk, “I see this as an absolute win!”

Oh, and when I met Kylo Ren, I immediately told him what the Resistance spy looked out. I was playing a First Order double agent. Hey, it’s no fun if everyone is playing Resistance!

Cast members at the entrance advised against getting in line for Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run first thing, since everyone usually goes there. We got in line around noon, and we were talking pictures at the Holochess table exactly 30 minutes later, and in the cockpit taking off two minutes after that. My son and I were pilots, and my wife and daughter complained that they couldn’t see much from the back two seats.

Ummmm, what else…? We built a droid (they were out of some of the parts when we got there; the black droid parts seem to be the most popular) but left before we got to see how it interacted with things around the area. Oh, and we weren’t planning to make a lightsaber anyway, but the reservations for that were already sold out when we checked.

If you’re into the whole immersive story thing, download the Play Disney app, and it will give you things to scan around the area, missions to complete, transmissions to intercept, and an Aurabesh translator. You unlock things to look at later, but none of my unlocks showed up after I left the area, so I felt kind of ripped off by that whole thing.

And that’s it! Let me know if you have any questions!

How was the cantina? We weren’t able to go in our time slot.

It was…okay. Besides having DJ Rex and a couple of small non-moving creatures above the bar, there wasn’t really much in the way of theming, besides Being A Cantina. I mean, sure, you can get alcoholic drinks, but basically we finished our drinks and then left. I think people hung around longer only because it took so long to get in, and hopefully once the novelty wears off, it will be easier for people to move in and out kind of freely. It would be cool to have some aliens in there too, but I don’t think that’s happening.

Edit: I talked to a couple people who were working outside Galaxy’s Edge (trying to convince them to let me return that night), and they said that Disney definitely has plans to expand things in the area. Besides the new ride, they have room to build out stores and things like that, plus they want to revamp and improve the Datapad. Hopefully they add some of the things they talked about during development, like having the bartender congratulate you on a successful run for Hondo, or having Stormtroopers show up if you are in trouble.

They finally released details on how things will run after the reservation window. Sounds organized on paper. The really question is going to be what crowd size they allow in and how they are going to ensure guest turnover without wristbands.

All right, got it all set up, we’ll be going to Disneyland the week of August 26. Hope I can get into Star Wars Land!

From what I understand, the insane annual pass & ticket price hikes have had quite an impact on attendance. They’ve rolled back a lot of the blackout dates for employee silver passes already. So this is actually probably a great time to go - good luck!

No issues last week with Galaxy’s Edge. Medium crowds throughout the parks. The wait for Smuggler’s Run (the Millennium Falcon ride) varied between 45 and 75 minutes. (Alas, there are Fastpass readers, but none active yet.) Smuggler’s Run is amazing, but it’s definitely best from the pilot’s seat no matter how much people want to justify their fun as engineers or gunners. :) We did it twice, first as engineers, then as pilots.

It really feels like being on a Star Wars universe planet. Only place where you could spot anything non-Star-Wars was in the longer queue for Smuggler’s Run.

Pro-tip: Don’t make a reservation for the custom lightsaber place unless you’re sure you want to make and buy one. We went to cancel and they wanted to charge a $398 cancellation fee for the two of us! (Same $199 each we’d have paid if we built a lightsaber) I sweet talked them out of that, but Jesus, I guess you gotta read the fine print.

Though the whole thing was awesome except the Cantina. Only a few places where you can actually sit so chances are you’ll be led to a counter where you have to stand during the 45 minutes they let you stay, the alien snacks were crappy, and they should have a band, not a DJ…

I’ve heard that knock on the cantina a few times now.

Which is a shame, considering how much I like the food at, say, Epcot. Or even the various themed and character restraunts.

Enjoy! The crowds should still be manageable then. The cheapest pass will still be blacked out then. Also if you know of anyone who has an annual pass that will be there, they can get you a $100 ticket through the 30th. They have to be with you through the entrance though.

I’d volunteer for the job but this will be the third weekend in a row I go and that’s too much Disneyland even for me.

Well, first day down! And I’ll call it a success. This was actually my first time riding Mr Toad’s Wild Ride in all my visits, because my daughter wanted to check it out. I don’t think she liked it much though.

Funny thing happened, we took the Casey Jr railroad ride in Fantasyland and it … broke down. We ended up sitting on the train for a half hour or so while a good dozen or so folks checked it out, eventually they just unloaded us and walked us out. Got a free bottle of water out of it, woohoo!

Got into Smuggler’s Run too, I really dig that, think my family did too. I was given a chip for gunner but my son, who drew pilot, wanted to trade. It’s weird that one pilot steers side to side while the other steers up and down, but it’s still fun. Like Star Tours if they give you a bit of control. Very video-gamey, like others mentioned.

Got double thumbs up from the kids so we’re having a good time!

At Disneyland for the first time since our passes ran out in February. We picked up the flex passes for this year since they seemed the best deal. Not too terribly crowded today. Looking forward to checking out Star Wars land in a bit.

Enjoy! You picked a good time because apparently this weekend is going to be a shit show. Star Wars land is amazing. Smugglers run, while lacking in thrills, makes up in ambiance.