Galaxy’s Edge First Week. Was it a Success?
It’s been 7 days since Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge opened, allowing the general guests to enter Batuu and the Black Spire Outpost using a reservation system. After the hoopla of Cast Members and Media Previews we have a good understanding of what the guests liked and didn’t like. By scouring Twitter, fan pages and forums we can now form a well rounded idea of what was a hit and what was a miss.
The Hits:
*Land Immersion: it seems everyone loves how immersive the land is, from the sounds of space ships landing or flying over head to the minuscule details on crates and buildings. People have been enjoying looking in all directions and completely forgetting they are in Disneyland.
*Cast Members: The interaction with Batuuians (Cast Members that work in Batuu) has been superb. Most have stayed in character, when a guests asks when will the other ride open they seem confused. When asked what is their favorite Star Wars movie they respond with “I don’t know what Star Wars is”. When asked why are there fireworks over Black Spire at night they give answers like “Oga must be celebrating something” or “there seems to be a battle overhead”. The interactions continue in the shops and every experience in the land.
*The lack of lines for Smuggler’s Run: Everyone was imagining hours worth of queue for Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run, but with the reservation system it seems to be moving quite well. The line does tend to hop over an hour when there is an overlapping of time slots but it has mostly hovered on the 30 minutes wait or lower.
*Reservation System: People are raving about this. They enjoy being able to go in at a certain time without the need to line up before your set, it also seems to help the overall experience in the land, with less people than predicted walking around.
*The Food: Almost everyone seems to enjoy the food and most of the drinks inside Black Spire Outpost (we will get to the Blue Milk later). People are enjoying the clever names of everyday items like Tip Yip for Chicken.
*The Merchandise: There is truly something for everyone and although some experiences are a bit pricier than others, everyone has said that what they’ve bought has been worth it, from the animals to the toys to the lightsabers.
The Misses:
*Line for Oga’s Cantina: Everyone knew that the Cantina would be popular but to most it has been a surprise as to how popular. Even with a reservation system in place for the land, Oga’s has seen wait times of up to 3 hours, so much so that they have implemented a text reservation, where you put your name and phone number and they text you when you can enter. The service inside has been said to be on the slower side but this is understandable being the first week and everyone getting into a proper rhythm.
*Line for Savi’s Workshop: The lightsaber building experience has also seen long lines, in the 2 hour plus most of the time. Again very popular despite the $200 price tag, we might see some sort of reservation in the future to do this.
*Blue and Green Milk: Probably the most disappointing thing for any average Star Wars fan. The reviews have been mixed but most do not seem to like one, the other or both. They used to have blue milk during Star Wars Weekends, that was actual milk with blueberry flavor, which was a hit with almost everyone, not sure why they decided to go with a combination of flavors that has left most people discarding most of their cup. Hopefully Disney is watching and they will change the recipe for the future.
The true test is yet to come, when Disneyland finishes the reservation system period on June 23rd and everyone is allowed to enter until the land hits capacity. They do have a virtual queue system in place because they are expecting land capacity to hit everyday.
The other questions moving forward is how will Walt Disney World control crowds for Galaxy’s Edge. With the same reservation system almost impossible to implement due to the number of onsite resorts will it be a free for all? Will they do some sort of fastpass system that you can sign up for ahead of time? Will they allow overnight camping outside of Disney’s Hollywood Studios gates? Only time will tell. Until then…May the Force Be With You.