The time it was about Star Wars Land

Posted June 15, 2019 by Stacee in A Disney Diversion | 6 Comments

When a Star Wars land was announced at Disneyland, it was definitely something we were excited for.  Information about what was actually going to be inside was pretty hush hush for a while, but it wasn’t long before we could see buildings going up.

I would always forget to ask where the coming soon sign was, but finally we got around to finding it.

Finally Disney shared that reservations were going to be needed for the first month or so. If you got an on property hotel, you were guaranteed a reservation before the reservations were opened up to everyone.

Now, Hubs has friend who is the biggest Star Wars fan we know. It didn’t even phase him to get a room reservation, even though he already had a hotel at another place.

Fast forward a few weeks…

We ended up staying at Paradise Pier and the hotel had upgraded us to a special view, which was pretty cool because we were able to see into California Adventure.

We went into the park Thursday night for a few hours before heading back to the hotel to watch the World of Color water show.  {The room had a tv station that we could turn on to hear the music played while the show was going on.}

Our reservations were for Friday morning 8-12 — that meant check in was at 6am.  Annnnnd that meant lining up no later than 5 {although we learned from people in line that they were there before 4am}.

They opened the park just after 6am and we were gathered right inside the main gate for them to announce how it would work: we would be taken to Launch Bay to check in and get our wristbands.  From there, we would be taken to the dining area in Tomorrowland to hang out until 7:45.  At that time, we would be escorted across the park to one of three SWL openings.

We headed in right after 8am.  Hubs’s friend and his son went to go build light sabers and we decided to walk in the opposite direction that the crowd was going in.

We wandered and saw Chewie and Han walking around.  There were Stormtroopers everywhere.  We heard from cast members that there was a Kylo Ren and Rey, but we didn’t see either.

The world is completely immersive.  You cannot see the rest of the park, which makes it easy to imagine that you’re really on Batuu. Hidden speakers have ambient noises of people talking and ships flying overhead.

There was a bit of a marketplace set up and there were several small shops and a couple of places to eat.  And then all of a sudden, we rounded a corner and there was the Millennium Falcon.

All of the blogs and Disney IG accounts suggested not to run to Smuggler’s Run right away, that the wait would be an hour.  We walked over to the ride and decided to do single rider and both of us got to walk onto the ride.

Once you’re with your “team”, you’re given an assigned role of either pilot, gunner, or engineer.  The objective is to work together, shoot some stuff, steal some stuff, and bring the ship back in as close to one piece as you can.

The first ride was amazing.  Since I didn’t know what to expect, I couldn’t stop looking around.  I don’t think I even looked straight ahead the entire time. The group of strangers I was with were fun and they couldn’t stop screaming.  With them in front of me the entire time, it was hard to take any photos.

Hubs and I met up and immediately went back on the ride.  This time we were gunners {I was an engineer the first time} and man, you spend the entire ride pushing one button repeatedly. My arm was actually tired afterwards.

We found the First Order side of things.  They had official Disney photographers to take your photo in front of the TIE fighter and the lines were fairly short {not like at the MF}, so we did that before getting into the shopping portion of the day.

We went into all of the shops and touched all of the things.  We then went into one of the food places and shared a breakfast platter.  I didn’t get a photo of the food, but it was cheese eggs, red potatoes, turkey sausage, and sweet roll and it was delicious.  It was actually pretty fairly priced for the amount of food we got.

In the middle of the food place, there was this thing that looked like the flame part of a rocket {I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s the photo on the left}.  Off to the side, there was a robot turning a BBQ spit that was next to the flame.

After eating, we met up with our friends and rode Smuggler’s Run one more time.  We desperately wanted to be pilots, alas neither of us got it.  Even with asking the cast member if we could get the pilot ticket.

After the ride was over, they were going over to try for the cantina {which had a 2 hour wait line when we walked in, plus a hold over line}.  We said our goodbyes as it was close to 11a and Hubs and I only had one more section to go look at.

We walked in the direction of the Resistance “base”.  It was a little further away from the hub of the layout, but it was a nice little walk with lots of gorgeous trees and flowers.  Again, we rounded a corner and saw a small shopping kiosk with things to buy {pins, lanyards, magnets, shirts, and one awesome backpack} and then there was an x-wing fighter with a Disney photographer.

We saw the ride entrance for Rise of the Resistance and as we were sitting there, we saw the next group of people getting ready to be let in.  And as soon as we realized that was happening soon, we talked about going to see anything else a second time and decided against it.

The crowd streamed in {and it was fun to see their reactions to seeing everything for the first time} and after that happened, we continued out of the land.  As we left, the cast member told us that we were able to come back in for the remaining 45 minutes of our time.  We thought about staying at the park because it was so empty, but we were both tired and decided to just go home.

Overall, it was pretty amazing to see Star Wars land, especially with such a small crowd of people.  I’m sure we’ll be going back in at some time, but who knows when.

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6 responses to “The time it was about Star Wars Land

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