Visiting Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios 🇺🇸
After visiting Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, I decided as a Star Wars fan to visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios near Orlando.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Several theme parks surround Orlando, including Universal Studios and the Disney parks. Disney’s Hollywood Studios is one of them.
Each park contains numerous attractions and rides. The rides can be compared with European roller coasters, although motion simulators are increasingly common, including versions using 3D glasses. You remain seated while your chair moves and shakes you.
Visitors typically spend an entire day in these parks, ending with fireworks.
Tickets
Ticket prices vary by season and day of the week. Many options are available: one or several days, one Disney park or multiple parks, and so on.
My one-day ticket for Disney’s Hollywood Studios alone cost $130 plus six per cent sales tax.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge was the newest and largest area in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It had opened only that summer and was not yet complete; Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance was due to open in December.
Entering the area transports you into a remarkably detailed Star Wars world. The whole area is styled like a classic Star Wars planet, complete with a market, cantina and spacecraft.
Immediately inside stands a full-size X-wing at the edge of a desert settlement. A group of stormtroopers or Chewbacca occasionally walks past.
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They are joined by crowds of fans—children and adults alike—in Jedi costumes and carrying lightsabers.
The market
The market is full of shops selling every kind of Star Wars souvenir imaginable.
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Lightsabers and clothing are naturally the most popular, but products range from small Jedi cubes for $5 to stormtrooper armour for $5,500. Even familiar everyday objects have unique versions sold nowhere else, such as Coca-Cola bottles shaped like thermal detonators.
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Shops are everywhere. The entire park seems designed to make you buy as much as possible. Are ordinary $40 lightsabers not enough? Limited editions cost more than $200. Are $80 posters not sufficiently unique? An original painting is available for $395.
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Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
The main attraction is a full-size Millennium Falcon and the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run motion simulator, accompanied by an enormous queue. Waiting more than an hour for popular rides is completely normal.
The queue begins outside the Falcon. A staff member marks its end and displays the estimated waiting time. Mine was 80 minutes, although I am certain I spent longer there. The line eventually enters a hangar.
At last, you reach an animatronic smuggler who explains the mission before sending you on your way.
Each group of six is divided into two pilots, two gunners and two engineers before entering the Millennium Falcon cockpit. Every role has a task: pilots fly, gunners shoot and engineers do something I never quite understood.
I was one of the pilots and controlled the ship’s vertical movement. The other pilot moved it left and right. It is impossible to control the Falcon properly this way, but fortunately accurate flying is not really the point; the controls simply add interactivity.
The ride is very well made without being particularly wild, and that interactivity noticeably improves the experience.
Droid Depot
At Droid Depot, you can assemble your own droid for $99 from parts that literally arrive on a conveyor belt.
It is always extremely busy, so booking online in advance is recommended.
At checkout, staff verify that the droid and its remote control work properly.
You then encounter all kinds of droids throughout the park.
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Star Wars attractions outside Galaxy’s Edge
Several Star Wars attractions sit elsewhere in Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
An hourly Star Wars show runs on the main stage, but is not particularly worthwhile. All the characters who otherwise wander around the park appear on stage, and that is about it.
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is a much better experience. It is a 3D motion simulator in which you and several other passengers sit inside a small transport shuttle piloted by C-3PO.
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It is not a wild ride, but it is a very enjoyable one.
Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple
Next door is Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple, a show for young children. They receive brown robes and lightsabers, then confront the dark side alongside their instructors.
Meeting Darth Vader can be quite intense for a child, and occasionally someone bursts into tears.
Star Wars Launch Bay
On the opposite side of the park, Star Wars Launch Bay contains a short film about upcoming Star Wars projects and an opportunity to take a photograph with Darth Vader or Chewbacca.
As everywhere, you queue for the photographs and cannot even use your own camera. The characters remain in role and a staff member takes the pictures. They are associated with your park ticket, but obtaining them brings an unpleasant surprise.
You must create a Disney account, link your ticket and wait several hours for the day’s pictures to appear in your profile. To download them, you then need a $70 unlimited download pass. That is simply not worthwhile for a few photographs with Darth Vader.
The visit ends with several objects from Star Wars history and contemporary productions, presumably intended to inspire more purchases because, as usual, the exit leads directly into a souvenir shop.