Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Opening Day *August 29* Planning Thread

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We are booked for a trip mid Nov that is tied around a Disney Cruise so our dates are locked in.

Asumming we miss the first couple weeks what is the collateral damage to the other parks if we avoid DHS and the craziness that will be Galaxy's Edge. How much will crowds at Epcot increase if SWGE has been open a month?

It’s really difficult to predict as no land has opened on this scale before and no land with a bigger, stronger fandom already. I’m a huge Harry Potter fan and I think it’s going to make those lands at Universal look like peanuts.

GE is going to draw huge crowds for years. I think visiting a month after will make no difference from opening day crowds personally. It probably won’t be as frantic and of course people want to be in Hollywood Studios but the other parks will be impacted. I think the whole of WDW will be like Christmas/Spring Break for at least 6 months. Just a personal opinion though. Everyone is guessing at this point as this is unprecedented.
 
We are booked for a trip mid Nov that is tied around a Disney Cruise so our dates are locked in.

Asumming we miss the first couple weeks what is the collateral damage to the other parks if we avoid DHS and the craziness that will be Galaxy's Edge. How much will crowds at Epcot increase if SWGE has been open a month?

It’s really difficult to predict as no land has opened on this scale before and no land with a bigger, stronger fandom already. I’m a huge Harry Potter fan and I think it’s going to make those lands at Universal look like peanuts.

GE is going to draw huge crowds for years. I think visiting a month after will make no difference from opening day crowds personally. It probably won’t be as frantic and of course people want to be in Hollywood Studios but the other parks will be impacted. I think the whole of WDW will be like Christmas/Spring Break for at least 6 months. Just a personal opinion though. Everyone is guessing at this point as this is unprecedented.
I concur and to add.....all eyes will be on Disneyland and how their opening goes. I have NO idea how they are going to pull that one off.....but I'm sure there will be lessons learned from their grand opening.
 
Honestly we're probably better off with it opening there first. Sorry DL peeps, you get to be the guinea pigs....
I'm not sure they're going to learn many lessons there that will apply to WDW. With it in their castle park, it's a whole different situation (by that I mean worse). At least at WDW things are more spread out and they had the brains not to put it in the Magic Kingdom.
 


I'm not sure any theme park could truly be READY and prepared to handle the onslaught of crowds that will want to take in SW:GE. Yes, putting it in the castle park presents challenges, but putting it in a small park like DHS presents other challenges. Neither one is ready to handle this, imo. It's going to be a wild ride, that's for sure. I just hope nothing happens at the DL opening that is so disastrous that it delays the DHS opening. Like a crowd stampede or some other awful tragedy.
 
I'm not sure they're going to learn many lessons there that will apply to WDW. With it in their castle park, it's a whole different situation (by that I mean worse). At least at WDW things are more spread out and they had the brains not to put it in the Magic Kingdom.

But both SWGE sections are EXACTLY the same size and I believe same layout and everything. So I am betting they can learn a lot during those 4 or 5 months
 
One difference with DL and WDW is the guest makeup. DL crowds are made up much more with locals than WDW.

The question becomes, with DL absorbing a good amount of the first day people and WDW traditionally relying more on people traveling further distances, how many people will be able to plan WDW trips between opening day announcement and opening day. Given the closeness in both openings, this seems like uncharted territory. It also depends on advance how much advance notice they give.

Here's hoping it opens after I leave.
 


One difference with DL and WDW is the guest makeup. DL crowds are made up much more with locals than WDW.

The question becomes, with DL absorbing a good amount of the first day people and WDW traditionally relying more on people traveling further distances, how many people will be able to plan WDW trips between opening day announcement and opening day. Given the closeness in both openings, this seems like uncharted territory. It also depends on advance how much advance notice they give.

Here's hoping it opens after I leave.
Last fall they offered a bounce back for Free Dining that extended well into December 2019. I still can't figure out why they included those months when it was projected that SWGE was going to be open late fall 2019. I'm guessing a lot of people booked this bounce back in hopes that SWGE would be open (guilty)! I'm wondering how much availability there is for December now?
 
One difference with DL and WDW is the guest makeup. DL crowds are made up much more with locals than WDW.

The question becomes, with DL absorbing a good amount of the first day people and WDW traditionally relying more on people traveling further distances, how many people will be able to plan WDW trips between opening day announcement and opening day. Given the closeness in both openings, this seems like uncharted territory. It also depends on advance how much advance notice they give.

Here's hoping it opens after I leave.

This is a good point. Rumor is an opening date might not even be announced until July or August possibly only giving people 3 months or so to make plans. And plus if it opens around the holidays lots of places are booked anyway for the holidays. For people living outside of FL hard to plan a Disney trip with family in 3 months time. and that is if there is availability at the hotels.

Now that being said, the age group SWGE will cater too is a lot older so school holidays will not have any impact. I think we will see a lot more locals here in FL making day trips to SWGE
 
Last fall they offered a bounce back for Free Dining that extended well into December 2019. I still can't figure out why they included those months when it was projected that SWGE was going to be open late fall 2019. I'm guessing a lot of people booked this bounce back in hopes that SWGE would be open (guilty)! I'm wondering how much availability there is for December now?

Maybe Disney plan all along to have the "late fall" at first and then drop the "late" to get more reservations.

That would be interesting.
 
Last fall they offered a bounce back for Free Dining that extended well into December 2019. I still can't figure out why they included those months when it was projected that SWGE was going to be open late fall 2019. I'm guessing a lot of people booked this bounce back in hopes that SWGE would be open (guilty)! I'm wondering how much availability there is for December now?

We had a very stressful experience when free dining was released for 2019 here in the UK. It is always offered in April the year before your wanted dates. So in April 2018 we booked our two weeks at Beach Club to arrive at the end of November 2019. As Disney lets UK guests book so early, we don't get the MDE link number until something like 400 days out so obviously being so early at 575 days out, we didn't think anything of it.

As we got towards our DL Christmas trip last year, it made me realise we didn't have our MDE link number yet. I called the agent we used, just thinking I was too early and she said that they hadn't had some holidays confirmed by Disney yet because of overbooking allocation on their part. :surfweb:

I then googled to see if other people were having the same problem and they were. This kicked off several phone calls between me, Disney and our agent to try and understand what had happened. Basically Disney oversold their allocation to the UK guests and then realised it was going to be their busiest time ever due to GE opening. I am sure dollar signs were beginning to appear for them too as they obviously panicked they had offered too many people free dining during what was going to be a lucrative time for them.

There was no way I was backing down from the confirmation I had from my agent which had come direct from Disney. They finally found me a room in Yacht Club, honoured my free dining and linked my MDE booking that day. The agent spent hours trying to find us a room and had to call in her managers as apparently everything is sold out for beginning of December. How true that is, I don't know - I just know some bright spark at Disney realised that they were offering too good a deal too early to UK guests.
 
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Yep! Forgot about he EMM...bet those prices go up too, so will be matter of weighing VIP access for a day or for few hours...hmmm. Actually all these paid access events their really isn’t a reason to stay in cramped Disney rooms when offsite, more space is so much cheaper. Especially if one is an AP holder...

Curious if you stay off site won't you be worried you will not be able to get into the park? They do close it sometimes when it reaches capacity to those not staying on Disney property.... just a thought.
 
We are planning on going last week of Jan- first week of Feb. 12 days total. Unfortunately it’s a 6/6 split stay on rented DVC points. Im not sure we will be able to book our fastpasses in one clump, despite being told we could multiple times by DVC member services. So, I’m wondering, if can’t get fastpasses...how early in the morning do you all think people will start arriving at HS? We are staying at BWV so we will walk there...just wondering how early. It’s such craziness trying to plan anything!
 
We are planning on going last week of Jan- first week of Feb. 12 days total. Unfortunately it’s a 6/6 split stay on rented DVC points. Im not sure we will be able to book our fastpasses in one clump, despite being told we could multiple times by DVC member services. So, I’m wondering, if can’t get fastpasses...how early in the morning do you all think people will start arriving at HS? We are staying at BWV so we will walk there...just wondering how early. It’s such craziness trying to plan anything!

I'm anticipating that everything in SWGE (access to the land, fastpasses for the rides) is going to be fundamentally different than what we're used to in the current parks. The SW fandom will sit outside a theater for DAYS just to get in to see a $15 movie. This land is going to be like nothing Disney has ever experienced before, even the usual method of reactively closing parks for capacity won't work with SWGE. It's going to be really interesting to see how they handle it!
 
Planning to be at Galaxy's Edge on opening day? Discuss how you plan to get around the crowds and how early you plan to be in line to get inside the most anticipated land ever built!

Disneyland set to open in June 2019

Hollywood Studios in Fall 2019

Just wanted to stated that Star Wars: Galaxy Edge is set to open at Disneyland Summer of 2019. Not June unless the announcement tomorrow indicates so. :)
 
Just wanted to stated that Star Wars: Galaxy Edge is set to open at Disneyland Summer of 2019. Not June unless the announcement tomorrow indicates so. :)
Iger has said June.

We will get an official date tomorrow.
 
We are planning on going last week of Jan- first week of Feb. 12 days total. Unfortunately it’s a 6/6 split stay on rented DVC points. Im not sure we will be able to book our fastpasses in one clump, despite being told we could multiple times by DVC member services. So, I’m wondering, if can’t get fastpasses...how early in the morning do you all think people will start arriving at HS? We are staying at BWV so we will walk there...just wondering how early. It’s such craziness trying to plan anything!
We did a split stay on rented points last year but we bought a multi day ticket that covered both stays- we could start booking FP+ 60 days prior to the first check in date for the length of our ticket - it did not matter about the split stay or renting for that matter. Just make sure your reservation and tickets are both linked to MDE and you should be fine. If you are an AP holder, I'm not sure if that changes anything. you will love walking from BWV - we walked over 1 hr prior to EE to make sure we could get Jedi training and we were first in line but that was even before Toy Story Land - as others have said, with SWGE who knows but I'd still try to get FP+ when you can and go to DHS for EE (perhaps 2 hrs before opening?) if there is no FP+ - even so, I'd get there super early so I could look around before the crowds.

My guess is they will actually offer a FP+ for a time to "enter" SWGE in general (if you do not have a FP+ for a ride within that same window). At least, that's how I'd do it ;-).
 
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