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Galaxy's Edge at Disney


D-Ray Kenobi
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Really had a good time at Disney. Galaxy's Edge is load of fun. It suffers from the same thing that Harry Potter does at Islands of Adventure. It's a nice start, but they could have done so much more. It really does feel like you're walking around a Star Wars set. All the ships around the place, the droids, parts, I feel like I should read the book about Black Slide and Batuu.

 

There are only two rides. Smuggler's Run and Rise of the Resistance. Both rides are fun simulations, but IMO pack any real re ride value.

 

Smuggler's Run has 2 pilots, 2 gunners, and 2 engineers riding at once. I was an engineer and find it difficult to pay attention to what was going on on screen while pushing buttons. I decided to use my ears instead of my eyes and was able to focus on the screen. While fun the only way to fully enjoy the ride is to be in the pilot's seats. If you've been in Star Tours

 

Rise of the Resistance has to be gone on to appreciate the scale of beging on a Star Destroyer. The way to get on though leaves a lot to be desired. The queuing system if you've heard is frustrating. You have to not only log into the Disney app, but be in the park to try to get in a group. While it alleviates long lines, it means you have to be there at 8. With everyone in the park using the same so at the same time it is a crap shoot. I got group 117, while the guy standing next to me got 16. Right now there is no guarantee anything above 74 will be called. I got lucky and they had no problems all day so 129 groups got called.

 

D Ray have fun, but if you get an early queue you most likely won't spend the entire day at Galaxy's Edge. There is enough to do at Hollywood Studios to spend the day.

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I've heard that the process to get a boarding group for ROTR is getting pretty cut-throat.

Your experience lines up with what I've heard, the group number you get assigned seems to be fairly random and the competition to get one has gotten pretty rough. I read some reports last week that a lot of people have found a way to kind of hack the process, they'll air drop as many iPhones as they can right at the opening time so that other users can't book a boarding group in those critical few seconds.

We'll be down there next Saturday. I'm not exactly a morning person, but I'll have to be that day to do everything I can to get on.

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People who have park hopper passes have it best. Since Hollywood Studios opens before then other Disney parks you can get a boarding group and if you're relegated to later in the day you can hang out at another park. It's your can walk down Main Street in the mail Kingdom and wait until 8. Either way you have to be at Disney early.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay well that was a pretty cool deal.

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We really lucked out with a lot. We got group 20 for Rise of the Resistance and rode it around 9:30, the whole thing went off perfectly and was absolutely insane. We got lit at the cantina, got to pilot the Falcon, and then built our little blue R2 towards the end of the day.

I already had high expectations and it still managed to blow past them, that whole thing is mindblowing.

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The whole thing is wish fulfillment on the grandest scale, so it makes it easy to be that kind of kid. Even if you're a big kid.

I really appreciated the level of detail with absolutely everything. There's all kinds of deep cut easter eggs all over the place that you'd only appreciate if you're a long time nerd for this kind of stuff. Not just the props all over the place, but the immersiveness of the whole cast too. The Resistance and First Order people that direct you through lines or stores are always joking around with visitors and making references to all sorts of things. If you can suspend disbelief for just a little bit, it literally is like you're in one of the movies. It's really hard to understand until you've been in it.

 

If this is what they can do with one corner of a Disney park, I can't imagine what they'll be able to do with the hotel and other additions in the future.

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Have you seen what they want the resort to be? Omg it is so cool. You pull up to the place, they take your bags and you get in a transport to take you to the Starcruiser. Your entire experience is suppose to be of a luxury hotel in space. I think at first they are limiting the stays to 2-3 nights. I haven't seen a price tag yet, but when we go for the weekend we stay at a nice resort to make the weekend seem worthwhile. Seeing as we're basically a little over an hour down the road.

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I'd love to do the resort thing and the whole immersive experience that's been rumored, but the price is just such a roadblock to me.

I did the math based on the projected costs, and I think I'd spend at least $6.5K for both me and the wife and go and do it. In total for our trip last weekend, I just spent around $600 or so. We like to travel and we don't spend a lot of money on much of anything else, but I can spend over a week in Asia for less than $2K for us both. I loved Batuu, but not enough to shell out three times as much to go travel the real world.

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My parents thought Star tours was better because they refused to believe that their actions had any impact on the Falcon ride at all. Even though aspects of the ride are certainly similar, they gave me very different experiences. I was tense on Smuggler's Run because I really wanted to do well. I probably should have been speaking to my wife more during it to help us coordinate the piloting better hahaha. I hope they eventually add in some other missions and/or spice it up some to make re-rides more desirable, but, like you said, the experience was amazing. It was really exciting for me, though, just because of the thrill of the experience, so it is hard for me to say after just the one time that it wasn't more exciting than Star Tours.

 

With the huge number of possible sequences for Star Tours, it is so nice to be able to just sit back and enjoy the ride in a more relaxing way. We went on it three or four times when we went because of short lines. While I loved every time, the most exciting was easily when we went the day that TROS opened and they had a version completely based on it. Lando showing up to narrate at the start of it was so completely unexpected, it kicked my excitement into super high gear.

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On the surface, both seem to be kind of the same. They're both simulator rides where you go to different planets and stuff.

Star Tours doesn't feel like you're actually in the universe though. It kind of has a cheezy vibe of being a tourism flight, and a lot of stuff like the goofy droids working the attraction just don't feel as authentic. Threepio and R2 are there trolling each other, which helps. But something about it just feels off and you can't suspend disbelief like you can with Galaxy's Edge rides.

Smuggler's Run was way different. Everything you see are literally things you've seen in the movies a million times, so you kind of already feel like you've been there in a weird way. Once you actually get in the cockpit, it's a lot different than Star Tours because it isn't really a passive ride like it is. You've got to work with the five other people in the cockpit and there's a ton of stuff you need to do to have a good run and change what happens. Sharla and I piloted it, but there was a lot more to do than just use the controls. You had to push buttons to go into turbo, pick up the coaxium, and you also get to pull the levers to go into hyperspace. I freaked out when we did that because you actually feel a jolt in the whole cockpit that responds exactly when you pull the lever.

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IMO the Hondo animatronic was the most amazing part of the ride...er...attraction. (Disneyland only has one ride. Everything else is an attraction.) It was so life-like that it almost seemed like there was someone in a costume playing the part. Past animatronics are stiff and seem to move in sections. Hondo was smooth through and through.

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