We went, we saw, we conquered, we had an amazing trip to Disneyland!
I'm going to do my recap posts sort of backwards, starting with the last day first.
Our final day was spent primarily in Galaxy's Edge and I have to give kudos to Disney's imagineers at creating such an immersive experience. Literally, it feels like you are in Star Wars, which was sort of what I was expecting, but not to that level.
We'll cover the Galaxy's Edge rides with this post.
Yes, we paid for lightning lane for Rise of the Resistance because neither of us wanted to wait 1-2 hours in line for a ride. We're just not those people. With that being said, this is a pretty cool ride, as immersive as Galaxy's Edge itself. You are involved in the story. You're captured by the First Order, interrogated, rescued, all the things. The special effects are pretty epic too, especially one drop in particular that neither of us was expecting, so that was thrilling!
What was hilarious was that the ride went down that morning, something that seems to happen with decent regularity. I get it, that ride is complicated, and it would be super easy for things to go wrong. So, nobody was in line for lightning lane (can't speak for the regular line). We just happened to be there at almost the exact second the ride came back up. So we dashed through with our lightning lane passes and we literally had an entire transport to ourselves, JUST THE TWO OF US! That was crazy! And it made the experience that much more immersive, especially considering this was our first time on the ride!
Disney put a lot of money and effort into that ride, and I give them absolute props for what they created. We both loved it and will definitely ride it again on our next trip.
Next up is Smuggler's Run, which we both thoroughly enjoyed as well. We were with a sweet little family of 4, and the main concept of the ride is that you are in control of the Millennium Falcon. Each of you is given a job to do with the buttons, knobs, switches in the cabin to make sure the Falcon flies properly. And you get a rating at the end for accuracy. Mine was about 60% accuracy with the buttons, so considering I had no idea what I was doing, that was pretty awesome.
My favorite part wasn't necessarily the ride, but the sense of being inside the Millennium Falcon. I'm old school Star Wars, so for me, anything from the OT is going to be a hit. It was fun feeling like you were walking where Han and Chewie had walked.
I do wish the ride was designed in a way that allowed you to focus on the experience and not on pushing buttons or flipping switches to keep the Falcon from crashing. I feel like I was looking at the console for flashing buttons more than I was focusing on the actual experience. That may just be because this was our first and only time so far on the ride, so I may not have the same response next time.
Of the two rides, because I am old school, I did personally enjoy Smuggler's Run more than Rise of the Resistance. Kylo Ren was never my jam so to have an entire ride be First Order centric was a bit over the top for me, but still, they were both amazing, and I will gladly go on both again. It just depends, I think, on where riders are in their personal Star Wars fandom journey as to which ride they will enjoy more.
A brief mention is that Galaxy's Edge does need more rides. Just having two rides there is not enough for the enormity of that part of the park, so I hope that a few more rides will be added. And for me and mine, we would love a ride that is Mandalorian themed. That would be epic, in the best way!
Future Galaxy's Edge posts will cover the Bounty Hunter magicband+ game, the Shadows of Memory Skywalker Saga light show, the lightsaber build experience, Character experiences, photo ops, and more.
Photo Disclaimer: All photos, unless otherwise stated, have been taken by either me or my sister. I will be hiding our faces when sharing photos where our faces are seen.