My favorite park in Walt Disney World has always been Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It’s themed to match the inside of my very soul and has everything I love most: Pixar, classic movies, Muppets, Indiana Jones, and of course… Star Wars! Ever since the addition of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (an entire section that completely immerses you in the Star Wars universe) was announced, I’ve been chomping at the bit to get back to my favorite park and let the immersion commence. As of writing this, I’ve been to Batuu twice and, as anyone who knows me could safely assume, I have some thoughts!
So let’s get into it! Here’s my review of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – the good, the bad, and… the good! …Mainly the good.
I’ll start with the attractions… specifically what I consider THE attraction! It’s still crazy to say this, but I’ve flown in the Millennium Falcon! I piloted the thing! On multiple occasions! The most magical part of Walt Disney World is the ability to make you feel like a kid and this was no exception. When my daughter and I first stepped foot onto that ship, we were BOTH giddy eight-year-olds!
As with all Disney attractions, the amount of detail that went into designing this attraction was superb! There’s the holochess table, the Jedi training droid, the chair where Han sits and is all, “I call it luck.” My daughter repeatedly asked if I was okay as she fanned my teary eyes. It was just so beautiful.
Our first visit was in July of 2020, just a few weeks after reopening. Now, under normal conditions, it’s six people to a cockpit and everyone is randomly assigned a position: Pilot, Gunner, and Engineer. Everyone wants to be a pilot. Due to the safety precautions in place because of the pandemic, however, my fellow Star Wars fan and I had the entire cockpit to ourselves! Every time we rode! I can’t think of a better way to first experience this attraction, and to answer my daughter’s question – No. I don’t think I was okay. I was a blubbery mess.
As much as I do adore this ride, I have a few tiny nitpicks. The main one being that the “mission” you’re on takes place in a Corelian ship yard. It’s a very bland and unrecognizable setting in my opinion and I think it would have been better to have been stealing cargo from a Star Destroyer or something more iconic. Also, this attraction is basically Jim Cummings: The Ride as his character, Hondo Ohnaka, is talking your ear off the entire time. Stop telling me what to do and just do it yourself, Hondo!!
Now that I hear myself say this, however, I’m not sure I’d call it a complaint. It’s a very interactive ride and someone has to tell you what to do! Who better than my favorite voice actor?
The other attraction in Galaxy’s Edge is quite the hot commodity. Rather than just waiting in line to ride like you would any other attraction, Disney requires guests to make reservations for what they call a “boarding group.” This prevents guests from having to wait 5 hours in a line that stretches all the way to the front gate, but it also creates an air of exclusivity where people who might not even like Star Wars feel compelled to ride just because it’s the thing! On our first visit, I attempted to get boarding passes at the exact second they became available THREE different times throughout the day, and THREE different times I was too late! I felt like that movie trope where the guy at the night club stands at the front of the line watching the bouncer lower the velvet rope and letting all the attractive people into the night club ahead of him.
But that’s just the way the game is played, I guess. It’s all good now because, on our second visit, WE were the attractive people… and boy did I feel beautiful! Rise of the Resistance is a combination of elements from pretty much every type of Disney attraction! There’s impressive animatronics, projectors, trackless vehicles, simulators… the only thing it doesn’t have is a it’s a small world-esque song to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
There’s a moment before guests load into their vehicles where you enter this GIGANTIC hangar of a Star Destroyer. The doors slide open and there you are, face-to-face with a battalion of shiny animatronic Stormtroopers! It was at this moment that the ride managed to break down and left my daughter and I stuck in this room for about 20 minutes. Everyone else in the group groaned and complained but not us. We sat there directly in front of those Stormtroopers feeling like kids locked in a toy store!
We were eventually ushered out and given redemption passes that would allow us to return at any point in the day after the ride was repaired and hop right on with virtually no wait! It’s funny how that aforementioned air of exclusivity thing feels less pretentious when you’re not the one being excluded.
Docking Bay 7
I don’t want to just fly spaceships and look at Stormtroopers though! I want to Eat, Pray, Love me some Star Wars also! The primary place to eat at Galaxy’s Edge is Docking Bay 7. This quick-service restaurant is meant to look as if the cook just unloaded a bunch of weird space foods from a dingy freighter crate and served them up to the guests… I realize that may not be the most appetizing of descriptions, but this fanboy was already ordering a second helping before he walked through the sliding doors!
The culinary wizards at Disney deserve a huge pat on the back for this one! Passing off real foods as weird stuff that we’ve never heard of, but would still like to eat, is very impressive to me. Originally, each item on the menu had some fake spacey name to match the theming of the land. There was Shaak Roast, Endorian Tip Yip, Yobshrimp, etc. Unfortunately, this was changed to accommodate people without the patience to read the item descriptions.
You know it’s chicken, Karen! JUST LET ME HAVE THIS!!
Ronto Roasters
Speaking of eating aliens, next up is Ronto Roasters, home of the famous Ronto Wrap! (For whatever reason, that name doesn’t need clarifying.) This place isn’t so much a restaurant per se. It’s more of a snack bar type eatery with, like everything else here, a Star Wars overhaul. Built around a giant fire-pit where a droid roasts what I assume is our meal over a podracer engine, Ronto Roasters serves up a sausage wrap that’s truly OUT OF THIS WORLD!
Yes… I just said that… I’m not proud of myself.
I love this thing so much that my amazing wife figured out how to make it at home! Be careful though. While tasty, it’s a little heavy, so don’t go riding Slinky Dog directly afterwards or this dog might slink back uuu… That’s disgusting. I apologize.
Milk Stand
Is there a beverage more synonymous with Star Wars than Blue Milk?! Flying the Millennium Falcon and being able to drink this stuff are the biggest no-brainers of the whole park! I find it odd that most of reviews I read go on and on about how much they dislike the taste of the Blue Milk. I, personally, think it tastes like someone blended a bunch of Sweet Tarts into a slushy, but the taste isn’t the point! You’re here to be immersed! When Luke sat in that dessert cave called a kitchen and sipped that gluey blue liquid, did it look tasty?? Or when he squeezed the green stuff out of that walrus thing’s teat, did anyone think, “Mmm! Betcha that’s refreshing!?”
No! Of course not! The Star Wars universe is not a pleasant place, but immersion is what we want, so plunk down your $8 dollars and… Wow… $8 dollars??? …fine. Whatever. Plunk down your $8 dollars and do your best to enjoy that frosty cup of immersion!
Shopping
Of course, the whole immersion thing carries over to merchandise, as well. I hit the spending pretty hard on our first trip. There’s just so many things that look like they came right from the movies: lightsabers, kloo horns, lizard monkeys, sabaac cards… I even bought a little pair of chance cubes to hang over the dashboard of my mom car as if it were the Falcon itself!
Galaxy’s Edge offers two places to shop: the Batuu Marketplace and Dok Ondar’s Den of Antiquities, and between the two of them, you’ll find pretty much every item you’ve ever wanted from a Star Wars movie… and even a few that you didn’t know you wanted, but you did! You totally did!
Droid Depot
I take that back! There’s a third place to shop: Droid Depot!
Back before there was a Galaxy’s Edge, Droid Depot was what they called the little tables in the gift shops where you could assemble your own 3.75 scale R2 unit. They even had little sorcerer hats and mouse ears that they could wear… I thought it was great! So when Disney announced this more involved (not to mention more expensive) version, I initially thought, “Meh. We’re good.” But then my sweet little girl was like, “Ooooh! I want to do that!!” and I instantly changed my entire outlook. She spent the months before the trip saving up the hefty $100 it cost to build one. She researched everything online so she knew exactly what was available as to not be overwhelmed with decision making on the day of, and then, with a proud smile on her face, handed the cashier her own money along with a confident “No thank you” when they tried to upsell her on accessories. It was adorable.
I guess my only complaint with Droid Depot is that the color palette of droids is a little limited. That and none of the droids have that weathered look that goes hand-in-hand with Star Wars. Then again, these droids are right off of the assembly line so I guess it makes sense that they look their best.
I nitpick as we nerds are prone to do but overall, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is everything I wanted it to be! With the same fondness that I remember watching the original trilogy for the first time, my parents rushing my brothers and I to a garage sale directly afterwards to buy us a bunch of original action figures, and acting out my own adventures with those action figures while dreaming about actually visiting this spectacular universe… in the same way as ALL OF THAT, I will always remember my first trip to Galaxy’s Edge and how that childhood dream became as much of a reality as it ever possibly could.
I still haven’t been to Oga’s Cantina or Savi’s Workshop so I’ll have to add on those reviews after I inevitably revisit this magical place. Until then, I’ll leave you with the expression shared among the citizens of Batuu: “May the Spires Keep You!”
…
Okay. THAT is one thing I would definitely change! You have decades worth of well-established material to draw from, Disney! There’s no need to crap out new catchphrases!
Just say, MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!
