I got to experience Galaxy's Edge yesterday after being away for a while in Europe. I am currently a peasant SoCal Select pass, and one of my buddies with a Platinum Pass was nice enough to get me a $100 park hopper with that deal going on. I stayed from opening until closing.
Of course the first thing we did was Smuggler's Run. I am totally convinced that Hondo Onaka is the best AA in the entire resort. People who saw that on my Instagram story kept asking me if that was an actor. It blew my mind how fluid his movements were and how he was able to lift his legs and shift his weight around. two or three of my rides involved single rider so missing out on the pre-show was kind of a bummer on those rides. While we were waiting in the "lobby" for one of our rides, some sirens went off and the lights were flashing. The CMs were yelling for someone to push the red button at the far end of the room to make it stop. Even before the ride started, there was already some interactivity. We were able to get a whopping six rides on that thing the entire day and managed to have all three positions. Out of all of them, I think Pilot is the most fun, but I'm still indecisive to whether I think Engineer or gun is my least favorite. Gun is kinda fun because you get to shoot at the bad guys, but at the same time, it's a little boring as it mainly involves just holding down the button to shoot. Engineer is more interactive as you get to push all of the light up buttons to fix the ship and fire the harpoons at the train you're going after; but at the same time, it is kinda distracting when you want to see what's going on. I was also a little surprised how aggressive the motion is. When you crash into something, man that ride punishes everyone for screwing up. You can really feel that jolt.
I really liked how they disguised both entrances to make it seem cohesive as one hallway but allow for multiple cockpits for capacity. On one of the two rides I did single rider, I ended up with a group that had someone in a wheelchair. When it was our turn, I discovered something really cool: When you enter the right hallway, there is another door. I always thought that to be an emergency exit, but no; it's actually the wheelchair access entrance. It's a copy of the same hallway that you would normally enter, but it's designed for wheelchair access. It was almost a totally different experience. Where the hatch would be to cover the other end of the hallway to maintain the cohesiveness, to the right was an elevator entrance for wheelchairs. While it would normally be a fast-paced experience to get you in there ASAP, it was a lot more slower-paced. You had an extended video with Hondo talking about your mission and a moment where he would complain about something not working. After that, the CM would discuss everyone's roles, and we saw the previous party leave the cockpit and go to the exit.
It was really neat to do the "wheelchair version" of the ride because it felt like an extended cut of the ride. The cockpits are all on a rotation that rotates out, but this one clearly was just "on its own", independent from all of the cycles. This was very apparent as 1) The pacing for the loading was much slower 2) When you go in, there screen is blank. Normally when the ride begins, there is an image, and you can see and feel the ship "rotating". Here, the image just fades up, moves forward, and then takes off. 3) The ride was at least 30 seconds longer because there was a bonus mission! After you collected the Coaxium (Spelling?), you would go into space and get attacked by tie fighters. Although it was not long, it was cool to see an extension of the ride. The only downer about it is if you damage the ship, there's no cues to make that apparent when you exit as the next party would be waiting in the wheelchair access. It was really neat to see an alternate experience of the ride. Overall, I think it's a really fun ride, but it's not got enough to anchor the entire land. I did enjoy it more than Star Tours but I can see why people would think otherwise. Either you will love the ride or you'll be tepid about it. The interaction really cuts the line down the middle as to whether it's fun for people or not.....but I loved it!
Whew! That was a lot of time discussing the ride. Now for the rest of the land but will do it quickly as I want to get this into one post. Let's discuss food and drink. Didn't eat at Docking Bay 7 as I didn't feel like paying $16 for a fairly small plate. I had a breakfast Ronto Wrap which tasted good, but was a galactic hot dog. The texture of the meat was a little rubbery. The blue milk was actually tasty (Didn't try green). It tasted like a jolly rancher shake. I think they made a good balance of making it enjoyable and making it as "realistic" as possible. What would you expect from milk of a bantha? We went to Olga's. Side note: I was surprised that you can line up as early as 8:30 to get in there. You could see a small line of people in there trying to get in that early. You can tell who the true alcoholics are.
So I got the Gamorean ale and Batuu Bites. My buddy got the lager one (Couldn't remember what it was called) and the Slug Slinger. I liked my ale. I had a sip of both of my buddy's drinks and we liked the lager he got but both disliked the Slinger as it was too minty. The Battu bites were....interesting. It looks amazing, but some of it I liked, some of it I thought tasted weird. Don't know if I'll get that again. I'm actually more interested in trying their non-alcoholic drinks next time I go. The sound better and are far cheaper. lol I really loved the atmosphere of the Cantina. Rex was great and I loved how the whole thing "shut down" and had to restart. I do think it was a missed opportunity to not have the OG Cantina band play. Like, c'mon. That's what everyone was expecting....but oh well.