Star Wars Secrets of the Empire

[rickybobby]

Anybody with inside knowledge of this? Wonder if it would make me sick as an older fellow. Kids are really interested, but only 2 of them. The site says it takes 4 to play.

 

[rickybobby]

Okay, just back and my son did the Secrets of the Empire, and he says it was absolutely the highlight of the trip.

 

[ccvh]

Tell me more about it. Just your son, not you? Did they put him in another group? I hear really short. He felt it was worth the money?

 

[rteetz]

Tell me more about it. Just your son, not you? Did they put him in another group? I hear really short. He felt it was worth the money?

It is about $30 and the entire experience lasts 30 minutes but that includes gearing up and instructions so the actual VR is about 15 minutes. You are put in a room with four people total.

 

[rickybobby]

He said it was unreal, but very real. If you see something in front of you, you can reach out and grab it and it is something real you put in your hands i.e. a gun or droid. You actually feel, smell, all senses involved. It was a group of 2 guys that knew each other, himself, and another single player.
One of the employees told me that several thousand test subject had been used to try it out before the launch, and none of them got nauseated from the experience.
I did not participate because there were no openings. It is very popular right now.

 

[frisbeego]

Tell me more about it. Just your son, not you? Did they put him in another group? I hear really short. He felt it was worth the money?

If you don't have 4 people, they join you with others to make a group of 3 or 4.

As I mentioned in another thread, it is an amazing experience. My son enjoyed it so much that he wanted to do it again. In our first group, it was the 2 of us, plus a 66 & 67 year old couple. When we were done, the woman went up to a Void worker and said, "My husband's 67, and I'm 66. You can tell everyone that we thoroughly enjoyed it." The second time, it was the 2 of us, plus a mid-30s couple. The husband was on his second time. It was the wife's first time. Judging by their reactions at the end, they enjoyed it too.

"Worth" is subjective. For me, it was worth it. The actual experience is about 10-15 minutes. There's another 15 minutes of preparations.

If it shows no availability, I suggest stopping by and asking if they have last minute availability. Our time slot was sold out, but they were able to accommodate us to go a second time immediately.

 

[DemonLlama]

We did this as a group of 6 (two teams of 3) on Sunday, Dec. 17, just a day after their grand opening.

They were sold out on opening day, but when I asked (we'd made reservations as soon as it was announced and realized it was during our trip) they said that they still had some walk up availability that Sunday.

Here's our quick review:

We had 4:45 reservations, having just finished experiencing Pandora and Flights of Passage at AK that afternoon. Hubby said, prior, "I don't see how this can be topped."

After the Star Wars Experience he had completely changed his mind.

I had contacted their customer service after the diagnosis of a fractured pelvis landed me in a wheelchair a month before our vacation and had gotten a prompt reply that they are indeed wheelchair accessible. This was also posted at the entrance of The Void when I rolled in.

First, you scan your ticket and enter your info so each person has a wristband to enter.

Then you head into the briefing area in teams.

We teamed up by gender, so the three girls, me in a wheelchair, went through together. The three boys were getting their set up and briefing in the same room, just on the opposite wall:

You choose which color you want so you can differentiate one another, because all you're going to see are other stormtroopers.

After this, you move into the gear area where you suit up in the VR equipment. One of the workers asked if I would like her to go through with us and push my chair so I could enjoy the VR more than navigating doorways, etc. She wore a headset so she could talk and hear us, but not the visor, so she was able to see the openings better to get me through. This was immensely helpful. Of course, in the chair, I couldn't wear the pack on my back, which did impact the immersion. But it was still fun, I got to shoot blasters and fail at puzzles and get stared down by Darth Vadar, and wonder if my eyebrows were getting singed off without having to push myself through the maze. I wore the pack in my lap strapped across my chest, so I could feel some of the hits from enemy fire. My height in the chair I think made it harder than anything else, since my visor seemed to be a bit off (couldn't always see my hand).

The boys actually went in ahead of us while we were suiting up and I could hear my son, age 24, whooping and hollering almost immediately. This kid has played Star Wars first person shooter games since he was a little kid in the 90s and owned just about every gaming system in existence. This was RIGHT up his alley.

You are on a mission to retrieve something from the Empire, so you're undercover as Stormtroopers, moving about from transport to Empire ships, trying to get to where you need to be, solving puzzles, moving across gangplanks over molten lava, facing down monsters as well as troopers, and eventually Darth Vadar himself.

When we rolled out, my future son-in-law (also a big gamer from way back) nearly bowed down at my feet thanking me for getting these tickets. My son was right behind him, raving about the entire experience. They had been reaching out and touching R2 units "in real life!" and basically said the whole thing was literally life changing and none of them wanted to return to the real world.

You ask anyone in my group, they all ranked this as the top #1 experience of the entire trip.

 

[hiroMYhero]

@DemonLlama ~ Thank you for such an amazing review! And that you achieved #1Mom and #1FutureMomInLaw makes it even better!

 

[Davey Jones II]

Sounds great. How much does it cost (I shudder to ask)?

 

[IvyWinter]

Doing this in January and as a huge star wars fan, and someone who loves VR (I Own a PSVR that i play daily) I am STOKED. @Davey Jones II my ticket, if i remember correctly, cost $30.

 

[rteetz]

Doing this in January and as a huge star wars fan, and someone who loves VR (I Own a PSVR that i play daily) I am STOKED. @Davey Jones II my ticket, if i remember correctly, cost $30.

I believe its about $35 after taxes and fees but yes the actual ticket is $30.

 

[DemonLlama]

With taxes, each ticket will run you $34.75 exactly

 

[cuewittyname]

How long will this be at Disney Springs? Looks amazing but I won’t be there until April

 

[mesaboy2]

How long will this be at Disney Springs? Looks amazing but I won’t be there until April

No way to know for sure, but I would expect it will still be there then.

 

[cuewittyname]

No way to know for sure, but I would expect it will still be there then.

I just wasn’t sure if it was a limited release kinda thing where the close date was released when it opened. Thanks!! Seriously hoping it’s still open. Must. Go.

 

[Takket]

looks cool but.... yikes.... is everyone sharing the VR gear that everyone else used?

 

[rteetz]

looks cool but.... yikes.... is everyone sharing the VR gear that everyone else used?

I am sure its cleaned. This isn't the first rodeo for VR for The Void.

 

[Bronte]

We did it last Saturday. Dh age 50, DD age 24, DD age 22 and myself (48)
I can sometimes suffer from motion sickness and I did go a little slow but it was ok (I did not eat before of course)
The kids and husband LOVED IT !!!! They thought it was totally worth it.
I would NOT recommend for anyone that gets vertigo or is unsteady on their feet in any way.

To be honest I did not see them clean anything and there does not seam like there would be a way to clean it in between guests but I could be wrong (I hope that I am wrong)

 

[magicmountainmama]

Is the equipment heavy/cumbersome for a kid? My son will be 10, but is somewhat small for his age. He'll be fine, right?

 

[DemonLlama]

Is the equipment heavy/cumbersome for a kid? My son will be 10, but is somewhat small for his age. He'll be fine, right?

He should be fine -- there wasn't anything very heavy about the equipment. There are adjustment knobs on the helmet to get it to sit snugly on just about any size head.