As a huge Star Wars fan I was very excited when I learned that Disney was going to be building a Star Wars land into their theme parks. Knowing that Disney does the best theme park experiences made me excited to see what they would do with “Star Wars” land, which is actually called Galaxy’s Edge.

Unfortunately the day we visited Disneyland it was poring rain, and so our trip to Galaxy’s Edge was somewhat dampened from what it could have been. Due to the weather I was not able to engage as much with the features of the land as I was hoping, and it looked like most other people were not able to either. I’ll still try to walk you through what is there as best I can.

Environment at Galaxy’s Edge

Perhaps expectedly, Galaxy’s Edge does not feel anything like the rest of Disneyland. It become very apparent as you enter it that you are in a different place altogether. While that was probably intentional on the part of the Disney imagineers I think it is a little bit jarring. The best analogy to it is the way Pandora feels in Animal Kingdom, it just does not really belong with the rest of things around it.

It is still a really well designed area that feels like the world they are trying to recreate. It is a very rocky space meant to feel like an outpost on the Galaxy’s edge. There is extreme attention to detail, as with everything Disney does.

As an environment in reminded me a lot of the Wizarding Worlds for Harry Potter in both California and Florida. Both are very immersive environments giving big fans just the feeling that they are looking for, and both have limited attractions but are primarily aimed at the experience and a lot of the experience is selling you something.

The Ride at Galaxy’s Edge

That being said there is one ride at Galaxy’s Edge. It is called Smuggler’s Run and gives you the chance to be on the Millennium Falcon. Even though I am not the world’s biggest ride fan, since I have always wanted to be on the Millennium Falcon I had to go on this ride (I sent Meagan first to check it out though).

Smuggler’s run is essentially a 4D ride, very similar to something like the classic Star Tours ride, but a much more refined experience. Because we had Lucy with us and one of us always needed to be with her we each went through the single rider line and avoided the more than hour long wait that is normally there, sometimes it was over two hours long.

This means we basically just walked right on to the ride, but it also means that we can’t tell you much about the line experience. It seemed that there was probably some context that was given while you were in line that we were missing for the mission we were going on in the ride.

The reason they have a single rider line is that for the ride you join a crew on the Millennium Falcon, each crew needs 6 people, if a group doesn’t have exactly 6 people they will supplement from the single rider line. Each person on the crew is given a job, pilot, gunner, or engineer. This is not a passive ride, you will need to be engaging with the buttons around your seat in the cockpit throughout the ride.

Experiences at Galaxy’s Edge

In addition to the ride there are also several experiences that you can go through in Galaxy’s edge. The first one is the Datapad where using the Play Disney Parks app you can interact with the area around you. You can complete various tasks and help either the resistance or the first order gain control of the outpost. Unfortunately it was pretty difficult to play this during the rain, at it seemed to be that way for other people as well because very few people were doing it. So I can’t give you a full review of this, but I did play with it a little and it seemed like it would be fun if conditions were better.

While the Datapad experience is free as long as you are in the park, the other two experiences require you to make a purchase. You can build a lightsaber or build a droid. Building the lightsaber requires you to have reservations, while Lucy and I were able to walk right into the droid shop and watch people putting their droids together. Neither of these activities were within our budget.

Food at Galaxy’s Edge

There are a number of food choices at Galaxy’s Edge as in most places in Disneyland. We didn’t go into most of the restaurants, but it was nice and warm in the area near Ronto Roasters, so Lucy and I waited there while Meagan rode on Smuggler’s Run and I had a Ronto Wrap, which is basically a sausage in a flatbread. It was nice and warm though, so that made it taste amazing.

Sum Up

For Star Wars fans Galaxy’s Edge is basically a must see. We are, of course, still just at the beginning of it so improvements will be coming all the time. A new ride should be opening early next year and I imagine a lot of other things will evolve over the next bit so that the next time we come back it will be an even more full featured experience.

Thinking of going to visit Galaxy’s Edge yourself? Remember that the best way to get your Disneyland tickets is through our Get Away Today link and use code: YellowVan at checkout.

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