MusicalAstronaut
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2017
- Messages
- 2,011
I'm home! And crazy exhausted because I was only there for 46 hours and I didn't sleep Friday or Sunday night (worried about my super early flights/excited). I'll try to get my thoughts down.
I had the 5-9pm slot on Sunday. When I registered I had some issues, like a lot of people. Mine was that it wouldn’t let me click anything – couldn’t choose a time, couldn’t add an experience, couldn’t unselect/select people from my party. So, I had some people on there who ended up not going. We talked to a few cast members (AP hotline, general guest services at DHS, and the CM who looked to be in charge at Galaxy’s Edge) about swapping my parents’ names for two of my friends who live in Orlando. They DO have guest services people set up at the Galaxy’s Edge entrance to help with issues like this. They told me that they did have some wiggle room/grey areas for things like this. The main thing was I could bring my friends in instead of the people who couldn’t make it, IF they were qualifying passholders for the preview. This was told to us by the CM in charge over at the SW:GE entrance so we didn’t bother talking to the guest services people there, because my friends were silver & gold FL APs and didn’t qualify to get in. This was different from what the people on the AP hotline told me – but keep in mind these were the folks with the power to let people in, so if you have a weird situation, I don’t think it would hurt to politely inquire with the CMs over there. We went before our time slot started, around noon, and there wasn’t a line or anything.
We entered SW:GE just after 5pm (we were told that they were letting people in about an hour before their time started if they showed up, but we went to the outlets and stuff before going back to DHS). There wasn’t a line to get in. They checked IDs and scanned our AP cards. SW:GE is massive! It’s much bigger than I thought it would be, and the detail is awesome. The land is visually stunning. It was crazy hot on Sunday (Saturday felt like normal hot; Sunday I was getting sunburned and pouring sweat by 9am) and the lack of A/C throughout the land because apparent very quickly. A lot of the stores/dining spots are open air and not as cool as I would’ve liked. We went around the land once slowly to take a look at everything before getting on Smuggler’s Run. The line was over 70 minutes when we got in, and I think it’s partly due to them not enforcing the time slots and the overlap of the afternoon & evening slots drove the wait time up. We decided to do single rider. The single rider queue is very plain (instead of how like on RNRC you follow the standby line, this one takes you in a hallway & up a stairwell) and there isn’t anything to see or do. That would be fine…if it wasn’t insanely hot in there. The stairs in particular had no airflow and I was standing in there with sweat running down my back. It was awful. Hopefully someone has noticed that & they put in some fans or something. The other downside is that you don’t get to hear the “story” of the ride, so when they loaded us into the ride, we had absolutely no clue what to do. We were the gunners and I couldn’t see past the head of the person in front of me, and the buttons you’re supposed to hit are on the side. This means a lot of glancing back & forth. Engineer has to pay the most attention to what buttons light up – gunner for the most part just has to know the bottom/middle/top buttons. It was fun, but very confusing. The second time we did standby and the objective of the “game” in the ride made a ton more sense.
After riding SR in the single rider line, we went by Oga’s to see if they were letting in standby but they weren’t at the time. We did another lap of the land, and then felt sort of let down. The rest of it was gift shops or quick service dining, and there weren’t any super interesting snacks. We decided we’d go to Toy Story Land and get a bite to eat there for dinner. However, we were told that if we left we wouldn’t be let back in, even though it was in our time slot (again, 5pm-9pm). So we stayed and had one of those hot dog taco things. It was pretty good, but nothing special. The drinks in Black Spire are quite expensive and not strong (at least not $16 strong). We sat for about 45 minutes as the day finally started to cool off and the afternoon people left. We went into a couple of the gift shops but didn’t see anything worth the money to me. If there was anything that let me down, it was the merch. I bought the Black Spire t-shirt but no other souvenirs. We also didn’t look at every single gift shop so it’s totally possible we missed some gems but most of it wasn’t stuff I would spend my money on.
SR was down to 30 minutes standby so we got in line to ride it again. The first time I couldn’t get the Play Parks app or whatever it’s called to recognize that I was in Black Spire, but this time it loaded. It was fun – the line actually moved faster than the mini games so we did what we could. They’re basic but if the line is moving slowly it’s a nice way to pass the time. We didn’t do any of the jobs/quests that would’ve had us explore the land earlier because it was too hot (and I hadn’t realized it was working), but I think that would’ve been fun too. When we got near the front we saw that a lot of people were asking to wait for pilot (I normally request to wait for the front/back/top/whatever part of a ride is my favorite anyway) so we did too. I wonder if they’ll eventually make a mini waiting area for that like they do for the front row of Everest or RNRC, but since it’s just 6 to a group at most they’ll have 4 people go past you and then it’s your turn, so it’s not a big deal. That might change when it’s open to the public.
I thought pilot was more fun than gunner, but possibly that’s because I now knew what was actually happening in the ride, haha. I liked that after you rode it & opened the app, it knew you’d been on the ride. After this we went back to Oga’s (it was maybe 7:30 or 8pm) and they let us go in. They told everyone going in that it was 90% standing room only, 2 drink max, and 45 minutes max. We were a party of 2 and lucky enough to be sat at a table with 5 other people. They have seating all the way around and they put strangers together since there is such limited seating. The tables are actually really cool because they have what looks like that pink rock salt in it with lights underneath that pulse with the music. My friend and I tried the Dagobah Slug Slinger, Jet Juice, and Jedi Mind Trick. Two of those are VERY small amounts of liquid (like 1/3 of a wine glass) which was a bit of a shock when they brought it out. Again, it wasn’t weak, but $16 for a 5oz mixed drink was quite pricey. I’d only go back to Oga’s for the novelty of it, not as a fun watering hole to grab a casual drink at. It was a really fun atmosphere though, I highly suggest checking it out at least once.
When we left Oga’s it was almost 8:30. The line for SR was really short at this point and we rode it 2 more times before the park closed. Unlike MK where you can hang out, take pictures, shop etc., when it was 9pm they immediately started ushering people out of Black Spire. I was fine with it because I had a 6am flight the next morning (today, so if there are any mistakes in this or it’s confusing it’s because I’m dead tired). Black Spire was so beautiful at night so I’m really glad I ended up with that time slot.
My final thoughts (TL;DR) are that it’s visually amazing and the detail they put into the land is incredible. The food is okay and the drinks are really pricey for what you get, but definitely worth trying. Smuggler’s Run is fun but it hasn’t replaced TOT as my favorite ride. I think I could go back (if it’s not too hot or crowded) and spend a lot of time just exploring! If you have any specific questions I’m happy to try to answer them.
I had the 5-9pm slot on Sunday. When I registered I had some issues, like a lot of people. Mine was that it wouldn’t let me click anything – couldn’t choose a time, couldn’t add an experience, couldn’t unselect/select people from my party. So, I had some people on there who ended up not going. We talked to a few cast members (AP hotline, general guest services at DHS, and the CM who looked to be in charge at Galaxy’s Edge) about swapping my parents’ names for two of my friends who live in Orlando. They DO have guest services people set up at the Galaxy’s Edge entrance to help with issues like this. They told me that they did have some wiggle room/grey areas for things like this. The main thing was I could bring my friends in instead of the people who couldn’t make it, IF they were qualifying passholders for the preview. This was told to us by the CM in charge over at the SW:GE entrance so we didn’t bother talking to the guest services people there, because my friends were silver & gold FL APs and didn’t qualify to get in. This was different from what the people on the AP hotline told me – but keep in mind these were the folks with the power to let people in, so if you have a weird situation, I don’t think it would hurt to politely inquire with the CMs over there. We went before our time slot started, around noon, and there wasn’t a line or anything.
We entered SW:GE just after 5pm (we were told that they were letting people in about an hour before their time started if they showed up, but we went to the outlets and stuff before going back to DHS). There wasn’t a line to get in. They checked IDs and scanned our AP cards. SW:GE is massive! It’s much bigger than I thought it would be, and the detail is awesome. The land is visually stunning. It was crazy hot on Sunday (Saturday felt like normal hot; Sunday I was getting sunburned and pouring sweat by 9am) and the lack of A/C throughout the land because apparent very quickly. A lot of the stores/dining spots are open air and not as cool as I would’ve liked. We went around the land once slowly to take a look at everything before getting on Smuggler’s Run. The line was over 70 minutes when we got in, and I think it’s partly due to them not enforcing the time slots and the overlap of the afternoon & evening slots drove the wait time up. We decided to do single rider. The single rider queue is very plain (instead of how like on RNRC you follow the standby line, this one takes you in a hallway & up a stairwell) and there isn’t anything to see or do. That would be fine…if it wasn’t insanely hot in there. The stairs in particular had no airflow and I was standing in there with sweat running down my back. It was awful. Hopefully someone has noticed that & they put in some fans or something. The other downside is that you don’t get to hear the “story” of the ride, so when they loaded us into the ride, we had absolutely no clue what to do. We were the gunners and I couldn’t see past the head of the person in front of me, and the buttons you’re supposed to hit are on the side. This means a lot of glancing back & forth. Engineer has to pay the most attention to what buttons light up – gunner for the most part just has to know the bottom/middle/top buttons. It was fun, but very confusing. The second time we did standby and the objective of the “game” in the ride made a ton more sense.
After riding SR in the single rider line, we went by Oga’s to see if they were letting in standby but they weren’t at the time. We did another lap of the land, and then felt sort of let down. The rest of it was gift shops or quick service dining, and there weren’t any super interesting snacks. We decided we’d go to Toy Story Land and get a bite to eat there for dinner. However, we were told that if we left we wouldn’t be let back in, even though it was in our time slot (again, 5pm-9pm). So we stayed and had one of those hot dog taco things. It was pretty good, but nothing special. The drinks in Black Spire are quite expensive and not strong (at least not $16 strong). We sat for about 45 minutes as the day finally started to cool off and the afternoon people left. We went into a couple of the gift shops but didn’t see anything worth the money to me. If there was anything that let me down, it was the merch. I bought the Black Spire t-shirt but no other souvenirs. We also didn’t look at every single gift shop so it’s totally possible we missed some gems but most of it wasn’t stuff I would spend my money on.
SR was down to 30 minutes standby so we got in line to ride it again. The first time I couldn’t get the Play Parks app or whatever it’s called to recognize that I was in Black Spire, but this time it loaded. It was fun – the line actually moved faster than the mini games so we did what we could. They’re basic but if the line is moving slowly it’s a nice way to pass the time. We didn’t do any of the jobs/quests that would’ve had us explore the land earlier because it was too hot (and I hadn’t realized it was working), but I think that would’ve been fun too. When we got near the front we saw that a lot of people were asking to wait for pilot (I normally request to wait for the front/back/top/whatever part of a ride is my favorite anyway) so we did too. I wonder if they’ll eventually make a mini waiting area for that like they do for the front row of Everest or RNRC, but since it’s just 6 to a group at most they’ll have 4 people go past you and then it’s your turn, so it’s not a big deal. That might change when it’s open to the public.
I thought pilot was more fun than gunner, but possibly that’s because I now knew what was actually happening in the ride, haha. I liked that after you rode it & opened the app, it knew you’d been on the ride. After this we went back to Oga’s (it was maybe 7:30 or 8pm) and they let us go in. They told everyone going in that it was 90% standing room only, 2 drink max, and 45 minutes max. We were a party of 2 and lucky enough to be sat at a table with 5 other people. They have seating all the way around and they put strangers together since there is such limited seating. The tables are actually really cool because they have what looks like that pink rock salt in it with lights underneath that pulse with the music. My friend and I tried the Dagobah Slug Slinger, Jet Juice, and Jedi Mind Trick. Two of those are VERY small amounts of liquid (like 1/3 of a wine glass) which was a bit of a shock when they brought it out. Again, it wasn’t weak, but $16 for a 5oz mixed drink was quite pricey. I’d only go back to Oga’s for the novelty of it, not as a fun watering hole to grab a casual drink at. It was a really fun atmosphere though, I highly suggest checking it out at least once.
When we left Oga’s it was almost 8:30. The line for SR was really short at this point and we rode it 2 more times before the park closed. Unlike MK where you can hang out, take pictures, shop etc., when it was 9pm they immediately started ushering people out of Black Spire. I was fine with it because I had a 6am flight the next morning (today, so if there are any mistakes in this or it’s confusing it’s because I’m dead tired). Black Spire was so beautiful at night so I’m really glad I ended up with that time slot.
My final thoughts (TL;DR) are that it’s visually amazing and the detail they put into the land is incredible. The food is okay and the drinks are really pricey for what you get, but definitely worth trying. Smuggler’s Run is fun but it hasn’t replaced TOT as my favorite ride. I think I could go back (if it’s not too hot or crowded) and spend a lot of time just exploring! If you have any specific questions I’m happy to try to answer them.
