On DME headed to the airport. Will probably update my journal for the first time in a long time later in the week with pictures and more detailed thoughts. But to catch up:
SAFD-before I had my AP I loved to spend time in Disney Springs walking around and exploring our resorts. Now? I’m in the parks most of the time and rarely hit up DS and time away from the parks is spent mainly resting up and cooling off for the next adventure. Particularly this trip, it was 100+ heat index every day. We were at AKL this time and, despite not being in a Savannah view room, had an amazing view:
Unfortunately, we were in a sideways room. It made things like sleeping and staying on the surface of the earth difficult. I think we got the “there’s no one here because of Dorian and you’ve got a nice face” (minus the nice face) free savannah upgrade. Chilling out and watching giraffes was definitely a good time.
Other impressions:
-It was virtually empty Thursday and Friday. Walk-ons on attractions everywhere.
-Contrary to most (anecdotally), Smuggler’s Run was, by far, my favorite thing in Galaxy’s Edge. Pilot is the best experience, but I had fun as an engineer. Single rider queue was very fast moving and a good option as long as you’re fine being an engineer
-Built a droid as did my niece and nephew; they both went BB-series and I was drafted to make an R2-series. I think the R2 are far superior as practical vehicles and my niece and nephew (8 and 10) had a lot of envy about how much easier it was to maneuver mine. It was a pretty cool experience and souvenir. Maybe not $100 cool, but I don’t feel bad about it.
-Oga’s was meh. I don’t drink, I’m not the target but... It was aggressively overpriced even by Disney standards. The “seating” areas are overpacked. We were a group of 5 and seated in a corner nook next to the fire exit with a small ledge that would accommodate 4-5 adults standing. There was a group of 8 in there with us. I realize why Disney operates and don’t mind their commercialization, this is the first thing in any park that far outdistanced my taste for such things. We knew we would be standing, just didn’t realize we’d be packed in like cattle. Even the server, when they brought over the second group, was visibly angry that they were fitting 13 people in 2 groups into the area. Only good thing, my vastly overpriced non-alcoholic drink (blurrrgfire, I think, there are either too few or too many rs in there) was pretty good.
-Green and Blue milk. Not to my taste. May be fine for others. Very floral. Kind of tasted like drinking a tropical candle.
-Overall, the land is a good addition. We didn’t do everything or explore every corner, but it pretty much was what I thought it would be. Looking forward to Rise of the Resistance.
-We went multiple times during our days in HS. No land closures while we were there and Smuggler’s Run rarely eclipsed 75 minutes.
-We did every ride at all the parks in our days there. Soarin was a walk-on both times I was in Epcot. We hit flight of passage from the standby queue in under 25 minutes on Friday afternoon and under 40 minutes at 9:15 AM (no where near rope-drop) yesterday (Monday). It was crazy how empty the parks were. I’m know the hurricane influenced some of that, but I don’t think they would’ve been packed even without the weather. They were almost as empty as they were hot.
Sorry for rambling, full trip report in my journal in a few days.
I’m still excited for the “weekend” and finally earning that Pluto medal! (Oh, and the Mickey medal too...and another Oswald medal because one was not enough?
)
