8 year old me would be so jealous of adult me. Our family was able to experience the brand new, immersive land called Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland Park last night. The entire day was filled with good buzz as we saw pictures, posts, and heard first-hand accounts of things people experienced at Galaxy’s Edge. Our time slot was for 8 p.m. until 12 a.m., so we had the last shift of the night for reservation holders.
In this blog post I am not going to give in depth reviews of everything we saw and did. I am just going to give some basic first impressions and offer my thoughts on our experience as a whole.
The Good
The size, scope, and magnificence of the land is not properly captured in Instagram posts or YouTube videos. I had seen several pictures and videos before the land even opened to the public (in a small respect, I felt like too much got spoiled before we went in – small quibble), but nothing can compare to walking in and seeing everything for the first time. It is breathtaking. Seeing the Falcon in person for the first time literally took a breath away from me. It was amazing!
Another big positive was the wide variety of shops and opportunities to do things like build a droid, build a lightsaber (more on this later), explore a neat store like Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities, or take home your very own Kowakian Monkey Lizard.
Smuggler’s Run was a fun experience. I got to be the right pilot, my two daughters (ages 3 and 5) were the engineers, and my mother was a gunner (two other gentleman made up the other two jobs). Getting to take a picture at the Holochess table was dreamlike. Getting to walk down the corridors of the Millennium Falcon was also a dream. Pulling the lever for our first jump to hyperspace? Priceless! The controls of the ride itself were a bit finicky for everyone else. I was the right pilot and I basically got to go up/down one or two times (the rest of the time it seemed to be on auto pilot because it didn’t go up or down as I pulled up/down) and pull the hyperspace lever twice. We crashed into just about everything! At the end everyone was smiling and excited though. My 5 year old ran over to Nicole and said “Mommy dad got to fly that ship!” (she was pointing back/up at the Millennium Falcon in the esplanade) So that was a really cool experience.
A final “Good” experience was the whole process of getting your wristband. Disneyland knocked it out of the park in our opinion with that. It was seamless and didn’t take long at all. You can pick up your wristbands up to 2 hours before your scheduled reservation time over at Star Wars Launch Bay. The cast members were incredible over there. In fact, the cast members (overall) were AMAZING in Galaxy’s Edge too! They were happy and excited to be there (at least that was our impression). Kudos to you Cast Members – you made our day better!
The Not So Good
I don’t want to seem like a bitter park guest when writing this. I’m just trying to be honest with some of my experiences and feelings on the matters here. My experiences may not be what your experiences were or are, so please take this with a grain of salt.
Oga’s Cantina was my number one *must try* when we entered the land. I had been VERY excited to get into an actual Star Wars Cantina. Only problem? Right when we came in at 8 p.m. the queue to get into the Cantina was already closed! The cast member told me to come back in 15 minutes, because “the influx of offworlders/outlanders will be over.” I came back at approximately 8:20 p.m. and the line was still closed. “Bummer” I thought, but we decided at that point to get dinner, because we saved our appetite for Galaxy’s Edge (We ate at Docking Bay 7 – review coming later). We then walked around and shopped for a bit and decided to ride Smuggler’s Run before going back to the Cantina at 10 p.m. We were told for a 3rd time “line is closed”, but this time it wasn’t “come back later” it was “the line is closed for the night.” At 10 p.m. we were cut off from my number one must experience item. I’m not going to lie – I was crushed. I’d come 3 separate times and could never even get into the line. The cast member told me that in the future if I want to get in I just have to stand in that area and run into the queue when it opens. My only thought with that is “man, what a waste of time if you only have 4 hours in here.” So we didn’t get to experience Oga’s Cantina.
I spoke with some people from earlier reservation time slots and they all told me that they were able to get into the Oga’s queue at the end of their time slot. They all said they were able to stay in Galaxy’s Edge way beyond their official exit time. So it seems that it is a serious disadvantage to get the 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. reservation time slot if you want to get into Oga’s or the other experience we missed out on (more on that in a minute). They closed the line TWO hours before the park closed. Another small disappointment is that I was told that there was no line and to not wait around in case they were able to let more guests in (around 11:15 p.m.). They told us “there is no hope for getting in” and then took two separate small groups in from among those standing there (at about 11:20 p.m.). Don’t know what to say about that other than it was another small jab of disappointment.
My other “Not so good” experience was #3 on my hierarchy of *must do/try* thngs. My number one was experiencing the Cantina, my number two was riding Smugglers Run, and my number three was to build my own lightsaber. After being told the Cantina line was closed off for good at 10 p.m. we walked over to Savi’s Workshop to build a lightsaber. Only problem? Their line was closed as well. I wasn’t as heartbroken over this being closed, but it still stung a little. Two of my three things didn’t get to happen. It seemed like another serious disadvantage to getting the 8 p.m. to midnight time slot.
The final “Not So Good” things were the following: mobile ordering is available in Galaxy’s Edge but the wait times were all over 2 hours immediately upon our entry; also, we had seen lots of characters (namely Storm Troopers and Kylo Ren) in pictures and posts throughout the whole day, but during our 8 p.m. to midnight time slot we didn’t see a single storm trooper and didn’t see Kylo Ren. We saw Chewbacca walking around several times and even saw Rey once, but that was it. Another strike against getting a late time slot. My feeling is that every guest should get the same experience – especially during this reservation time period for the next several weeks.
Final Thoughts
Like I said at the beginning, I don’t want to seem like a grumpy or bitter person when I talk about the “Not So Good” stuff from last night. Much of the night was extremely magical. The sense of awe and wonder I had was very high. I’m very hopeful that some kinks get worked out and everyone gets the same, wonderful experience no matter their time slot. I get to go back to Galaxy’s Edge next week for a final time during the reservation time period, so I’ll be posting about that experience as well. We get to go during the day on that one (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.). Lasty, I wanted to say “Thank you” to Disneyland and LucasFilm for building this land. It was a dream to get to wonder the streets of a legitimate land dedicated to Star Wars. My two favorite things – Star Wars & Disneyland collided for an experience that I won’t soon forget! Thank you for reading and May the Force Be With You!