Hey everyone! Rising moons, and we hope you are ready to take a trip to Batuu with us. We had 3 visits to the amazing land opening weekend and captur
Hey everyone! Rising moons, and we hope you are ready to take a trip to Batuu with us. We had 3 visits to the amazing land opening weekend and captured it all to share with you. Let’s begin our journey, in not so sunny Orlando Florida.
Storms out of Orlando delayed a lot of flights and we ended up with a 4 hour layover in Houston. We do love the Houston airport and had some great Texas BBQ while we were waiting. Thankfully due to the time zone change this wouldn’t effect our first night at the Disneyland Resort.
And poof, with a little Pixie dust we have left our magical kingdom to a whole different land. See what I did there? No… Okay, moving on!
I think this was a very fitting 3 day pass! We are in for our first night at the Disneyland California resort. We ended up staying our first night at the Grand California hotel and spa and loved the quick walk into both parks!
I was really digging their monorail style. I haven’t visited the resort since 2009 so I was extremely excited to have 3 days to explore everything.
The happiest place on earth was extremely not crowded on all three days we visited! We took advantage of this and got on every ride and coaster at both Disneyland and DCA!
First ride of the visit is on the Astro Orbiter. I am a huge fan of ours in Florida and happy to ride the CA version as an adult! Great location for it and really shines under that sunny California sky.
As a huge Star Wars fan I was very excited about this overlay. It did not let me down and now my favorite of the Space Mountains!
Fast Pass for the Win ! The ride only had like a 20 minute wait.. but still 🙂
Although I prefer the ride to the Space Mountain in Florida, I do like the star tunnel entrance and station to our FL version better.
Disneyland was doing awesome getting trains sent super fast. (Seriously like Japan operation fast!) Me and Dan got a front row ride the following day, but I didn’t snap any photos on day two of the ride.
Me and Morgan went front row and it did not let us down! Great ride, and great overlay. I hope to see this implemented at our Disney someday.
So we did ride the rest of the main Disneyland attractions and headed into DCA for a night ride on Radiator Springs Racers; but sadly my phone died and I did not have my Sony camera with me on day one. We headed back to the room at midnight, had a quick Downtown Disney snack, and headed off to bed.
Day two we went into the park to ride a few rides with Dan and then headed into our 2pm time slot to Batuu. First thing first is checking in and getting wristbands to the land. You do this at the old inovations attraction and where Star Wars Launch Bay normally resides. Luckily all three of our visits we had very little to no wait time to check in; Disney cast members did an outstanding job keeping the line flowing fast and making sure everyone got checked in to their time slot. You can check into your Batuu time slot up to two hours before hand. We checked in almost as soon as we possibly could to avoid waiting and to get over to wait to get into the land.
Pro tip: arrive as early as you can to get your wristband and then go and camp out next to Hungry Bear. They will start to hold people back by Splash Mountain, but if you wait under the deck by the restrooms you can quickly jump onto the path to wait to get in. Once they clear people to start lining up you can easily walk down and get first up. We did this during one of our time slots and it allowed us to gain instant access to Savi’s Lightsaber workshop with NO reservation.
This is why you do that little trick…. We were right at the front and this was the crowd lined up behind us to get in. Even though this seemed like a very large crowd the land was very large and didn’t feel crowded one bit.
First thing first is getting on Smuggler’s Run! Seeing the Falcon in full scale is jaw dropping. If you are a movie fan this will be a moment you will never forget. But don’t worry, even if you have never seen a Star Wars film in your life you will still have an amazing and immersive experience on Batuu.
Think of how the imagineers did Pandora at Animal Kingdom; you didn’t have to fully understand or have seen the film to have fun in the land and get the rides storyline. The same applies to the Black Spire Outpost; they have standalone stories and plots that guests can pick up on just from being in the land.
We are in line for Smuggler’s Run!!! This is the view of the extremely detailed Millennium Falcon ship from the second level of the ride queue.
The detail inside Smuggler’s Run is incredible. Everywhere you look there is something to look at or interact with.
Check out our FULL POV of the Smuggler’s Run attraction with me and Dan as the pilots!
If you are curious to look around and see what it is like to be a gunner or engineer check out our low light 360 Smuggler’s Run POV!
Before you get aboard the Falcon you are met by an amazing animation of Hondo O’naka explaining your mission. While he is explaining the Falcon flys over head and lands in the window behind Hondo. You can feel the power of the ship as it passes over ( the park uses subwoofers in a very cool way for this effect ) and even get a transmission from Chewie.
You are handed these cards when grouped by a cast member. This is what the Pilot one looks like.
Pro tip: To make sure you get Pilot either have a pre determined group of 6 people at the grouping cast member, or make sure you are the first person the cast member hands the cards out to. Each time we road the cast member always handed out the cards in order; first two people in the group as Pilot, second two people in the group as Gunners, and the third two people as engineers.
The Gunner card. This role can be really fun if you have a crew of good pilots. If you just want to sit back and enjoy the ride you can set your guns to auto lock and a droid will do all the shooting for you.
The engineer cards. Sorry for the blurry photo but we got called in to the rides second preshow. This is probably the worst role in my opinion. You have very little roles in the ride and also have the furthest view from the screen. If you get motion sickness this is the worst seat for you because you don’t get as much view of the screen and feel all of the motion of the simulator.
The hallway before you get into the iconic tunnels of the ship. Not sure what the X and O meant but I think it was a cats member control board. Not to sure.
The ride has a second smaller preshow that explains more in depth of your mission and how to control the ride. Think Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom. Hondo explains you need to get Co-Axium for him and warns you if you damage the Falcon you will lose part of your cut at the end.
Details are everywhere on Smuggler’s Run.
The ride was amazing, we did it a total of 4 times during our three time slots. The wait was normally very reasonable at around 20 minutes, and only spiked twice to over 90 minutes during our stay. On to explore more of the land!
We had to try the Blue and Green “Milk” options! They actually contain no dairy and are vegan friendly so everyone can enjoy this cold treat. I preferred the blue over the green milk, but mixing them together turned out to be the best option. I was a little let down with these.. the flavor wasn’t all that special and wouldn’t be something I buy on an every visit basis.
( Compared to butter beer which I buy every visit to the Wizzarding World.)
But nonetheless the milk was a great drink options and I am sure a lot of guests will really enjoy it. Let’s head into Olga’s Cantina to try some funky drinks from out of this world.
The bar was full of detail everywhere you looked. The drink options were outstanding and worth the price. The bar offers small snacks that are tasty as well as very not of this world looking. I recommend trying the Fuzzy drink, it actually numbs your mouth and contains quite a bit of Alcohol for a very fun effect.
Check out all of the action inside Olga’s in our full tour video above!
If you fancy being able to view the place as you really are there check out our 360 walkthrough video above. We were blown away with how much detail they crammed into the space. They did alternate songs between the classic Cantina song played in the film.
The use of SFX lightning and theming over the drink taps made for a really cool effect. You really felt as if you were on an alien planet in the galaxy sampling some other worldly concoctions.
Taking a break from experiences and attractions just to walk around and take in the land. This is the sections outside the bathrooms that contain many points to hack and interact with.
You can hack these panels via the Disney Play app on your phone. Hacking them gains you points within the land as well as actually making the hack point do something. When you hack these smaller panels normally the just beep and light up as a response but some hack points do much larger effects. ( The hack point on the Falcon makes mist shoot out of the bottom )
The resistance side of Black Spire Outpost features this ship stage, a shop, and a few hack points for the app. Not to much but still a nice filler for the exit area of the land.
Crowds were really dense lining up to get into the Cantina. Let’s go check out the marketplace.
Walking into the Market place brings you right by the Ronto Roasters food stand. Ronto Roasters are smoked sausages in a wrap form. They are a huge hit and a very good dining option in the land. They also serve specialty non alcoholic drinks and fountain beverages.
The rocket boosted hung over the metal plate to roast alien creatures was super detailed and really gave a nice touch to the outpost.
Walking out of Ronto Roasters into the main street of the Market place area of Batuu.
This area contains a second set of bathrooms, the creature shop, the popcorn shop, and two other merchants.
You can adopt your very own creature from the Planet Of Batuu during your visit to Galaxy’s Edge.
The theme of this area is spot on to the movies. It really feels as if you are on an outpost planet rummaging around the scrap market. Merchants everywhere, metal panels keeping the suns away, and sound effects of space craft flying over head.
Another view of some of the creatures for sale at Black Spire Out Post.
Well our visit sadly came to an end for Day 1, we will be back for two more time slots during our Stay. But don’t worry we have a HUGE day 1 recap video below: check it out!
We are back in Batuu for a night visit. yes just like Pandora this land does a complete 180 from nigh to day. We much preferred the land at night, the lights and light sabers really popped with a black sky.
Speaking of lightsabers, let’s go inside Savi’s workshop to build one of our very own!
If you are a fan of the films this will be one of the best moments of your life. The $200.00 light saber was 100% worth it just for the experience alone, but the actual saber is made extremely well and is pretty heavy duty. Let’s just say It feels like it is worth 200 bucks. Oh and also you can bring them through TSA and on board your flight so that is a huge plus for guests flying to visit California or Florida.
Grabbing some dinner in the land’s sitdown restaurant. We were so luckily to have gotten to eat with the sporks, it made the meal very authentic.
Seating was limited inside but guests were very quick to eat and allow others to sit.
The food was very good and all tasted very foreign. Disney did a great job taking everyday food items and turning them into other worldly treats.
Look at this view!! Hands down the best view at any US Disney Park ( Don’t worry Tokyo Disney Sea we still love you most )
What a better way to end the night and our final day in Batuu with the Disneyland fireworks. Galaxy’s edge provided a stunning backdrop to have to view with the firework show. We highly recommend camping out on the Falcon over look to get the best views of the show.
Thank you guys for coming to a Galaxy far far away with us for two very special days. We will have a ton more content from Galaxy’s Edge coming out over the next few weeks so be sure to stay tuned and follow all of our channels for the best theme park news and POVs… in HD!
COMMENTS