SWGE - WOW! First day opening - light crowds
Man. where to begin, my head is still spinning from my trip to Batuu.
My DS 10 and I arrived at Disneyland Hotel at noon on Friday, checked in and headed to DL to go pick up the annual passholder pins/t-shirts.
I was surprised when we arrived at the security point to find there was no line.
Walking through DTD, well... lets put it this way. I think the only other time I saw the place with that few of people was an hour after the parks had closed. There were a few people, but very thin crowds.
Same thing in Disneyland. It reminded me of going to Disneyland the first couple weeks of December in the 80's. 5-10 minute lines on most things.
This trip had several fun elements outside of SWGE.
The first one was the main shop is setup in the upper level of Star Wars Launch Bay. The last time I was up there, was when I was a very small child and you took an escalator up there at the end of Carousel of Progress.
Lots of neat stuff for sale. If you want to see some of the more popular items, swing on over to ebay and search for Disneyland Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. too much to talk about. but let me tell you. it all is very nice quality and some really cool items!
Despite the light crowds, we live so close to Disneyland, we never stay at the hotel. So, we were more interested in hanging out at the pool and enjoying the resort.
The food they serve at the pool comes from the same kitchen as Trader Sams, so we enjoyed some good drinks and snacks at the pool. the new renovation of the pool area is complete and it is really nice. Mickey & Minnie hot tubs, nice and hot! 2 salt water pools and a water slide area.
My Sister and BIL arrived around 6, so we headed into Disneyland and had corn dogs for dinner.
on a side note, unfortunately, I have surgery scheduled soon and am in quite a bit of pain and feel cruddy. Nothing life threatening! But when I am standing up very long, I am in pain and gets worse over time.
However, My doctor (a Disney fan too) said, so long as I took it easy, it would be fine to go if I could stand it.
So after showing my sister where to go buy the opening day swag, we rode the monorail back to the hotel and I called it a night.
DW ad DD made it to the hotel around 8:30 and we all chatted about how excited we were for our reservations.
This morning, we slept in til 9:30 and checked out of the room at 11 and headed into the park.
I went ahead and rented a wheel chair and my now exhausted family pushed me around Disneyland. :thumbsup:
Originally our DD 14 wasn't going to be able to make it with us for this quick trip. Since her plans changed, and its her birthday weekend, she came along despite not having a reservation to SWGE.
But in Disney Fashion. The castmembers made magic happen and added her for us. :) the look on her face!!!!
We headed on over for our 2pm reservation about 20 minutes early and waited for entry. Right at 2 exactly, they let us in.
We did a quick walk through of the general area (boy is it confusing first round lol) and headed straight for smugglers run.
We went twice in our 4 hours and had about a 20 - 25 minute wait the first time and about a 15 minute wait for the 2nd time.
Can we say - wow... reservations work....
Since we had 6 people, we got to choose where we sat, no problem. I played the left pilot (controls left right control of the falcon) and right pilot (controls up, down and "LIGHTSPEED BABY!".) I want to do gunner next!
I have flown the Falcon!!!!
I am not going to give away any spoilers, but some things I can say besides - WOW what an amazing ride. The visuals are stunning.
No idea what all of the switches, buttons and levers do... yet. :) But, almost every single one of those in the cockpit work.
There is a learning curve to this ride and we did quite a bit better the 2nd time, getting more of our objective.
We tried to get into Oga's cantina when we had 90 minutes left in our reservation and the line was closed to our color of bands. So, that will be our first stop on Friday.
We tried the blue and green milk. We all liked the Blue milk better. As i mentioned in an earlier post, these are frozen drinks and are really good. My sister and myself both thought it would be really good with rum in it :) ! she is a bartender.
We were able to get into all of the shops.
Wow. it is AMAZING the detail everywhere here!
When you look through the shops, you never know what neat thing is in the shop. I am not talking about merchandise here, the theming of each shop includes amazing detail. Creatures in a variety of habitats. Lots of droids!
Highlight: R2D2 was in the droid shop and there was like a half circle of people standing trying to coax R2 over to them for a picture. One of the cast members told them you know, you can always go to him instead of trying to get him to come to you, So, i went around them to check out the merchandise near R2 and after a few seconds said "Hey R2 whats up with you today!" and he rolled right up to me and we had a short conversation
and my DS posed for a quick pick. TOO cool! I want one! :D
I am working on a more detailed shop by shop review and will post more soon. I am just exhausted, but wanted to let you all know what we saw today.
One of the really cool things in SWGE is the PLAY app they have. I had "hacked" several terminals today around the land and before I was leaving, I had a storm trooper call me out as that trouble maker going around hacking all the terminals! :mickey: :thumbsup:
"Hacking" a terminal involves getting near said terminal and using your phone to play a game before a timer runs out. No idea how many of them there our, I found a dozen.
There are storm troopers on top of building, walk ways above and wandering the land.
By the time the 4 hours were up, I was pretty exhausted. It was hard to stay in the wheel chair. it was way easier to get around the shops on foot, but after a few minutes, the pain would send me back to the chair.
On our way out, we went to the Haunted Mansion for my DD. For the first time, I got to ride the ride past the exit around to where the loading area was. For a disney geek like me... YAY!!!! was cool you could see the area underneath the ride some and see like a break area. Then.... We got to ride the stretching room back UP!!!
That was a nice cherry on top of a great short trip!
Looking forward to Friday! The plan is to hit Oga's first thing, so expect some reviews of that next weekend!
Any questions? Please feel free to ask away!
