This past summer, I had the pleasure of visiting Disneyland for the first time ever. I went to Walt Disney World in Orlando as a child but after falling in love with Universal Studios Hollywood after moving to Southern California last year, I was super excited to experience a Disney theme park as an adult. Although most of Disneyland fell pretty flat for me thanks to the outdated rides that are still stuck in the 1960s, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is an incredible theme park land.
Galaxy’s Edge stands head and shoulders above the rest of Disneyland (at least for an adult visitor) and that’s coming from someone who isn’t even a Star Wars fan! I begrudgingly watch the Disney+ shows and newer movies because I like the LEGO® sets and my friends love Star Wars, but I’ve never felt any real love for the franchise. That’s why it was so shocking to me that after just a few hours in Galaxy’s Edge, I was ready to call myself a Star Wars fan.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge businesses
The overall vibe in Galaxy’s Edge is impeccable. It truly feels like you’ve stepped into a slice of Star Wars, with the little shopping stalls and dusty, scrappy architecture we’ve seen from the Skywalker Saga films to The Mandalorian and beyond. The main town structure was wonderful, but it was even cooler to have little slices of the First Order and the Resistance on opposite sides of the town, like both groups have set up little camps in areas loyal to their causes.
Before visiting, I saw a number of complaints about how small Galaxy’s Edge is compared to other theme park lands. I definitely didn’t feel that – in fact, the land felt like the perfect size to me. There was plenty to do and many different shops to visit, and the little marketplace area was one of the coolest spots to explore. Each shop had a different theme and carried unique items, which really helps immerse you in the world. If only those Sith robes were cheaper…
The main shop, Dok Ondar’s Den of Antiquities, has a unique circular design with a huge lightsaber counter as its focal point. You can try out different character lightsabers and get a closer look and feel for their detailed hilts. There’s a First Order shop with Dark Side-related items, but disappointingly no similar Resistance-themed store. There are just a couple of kiosks outside Rise of the Resistance.
There’s one main restaurant at Galaxy’s Edge, Docking Bay 7, and the Ronto Roasters snack stand. Docking Bay 7 was decent and definitely had the better food. I was not impressed with my overpriced pita wrap from Ronto Roasters but liked my meal from Docking Bay 7 well enough. Overall, I found the food at Disney to be more expensive and much lower quality than the food at Universal Studios Hollywood.
There’s a cantina in Galaxy’s Edge, but to get in you need to make reservations months ahead. We made our reservations for Oga’s Cantina 60 days in advance and just wanted to pop in to enjoy a drink. The blue milk tasted a bit strange, but the cookie accompanying it was delicious. What wasn’t great about the experience was being shoved into a small booth with two other groups, which makes your time in the cantina quite squished and uncomfortable. The design of the bar was awesome but stuffing eight people into a six-person booth made it difficult to relax and enjoy our limited time in the space.
Savi’s Workshop
Of course, one of the biggest highlights of a trip to Galaxy’s Edge is building your own custom lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop. My friend was really on the fence about building a lightsaber because this 15-minute experience costs a whopping $250 USD! She’s a huge Star Wars fan and wanted the experience of constructing a saber, while I love collecting prop replicas and really wanted a lightsaber in my collection. I didn’t think the Savi’s Workshop experience would be worth the price and was leaning towards not doing it, but my friend and I decided to split the cost, with her constructing the saber according to my preferred design and me keeping it.
As someone who doesn’t love Star Wars, the experience was a huge letdown. Lightsabers are constructed from four different design themes with ten unique parts each, with your final saber consisting of two sleeves, a switch, an emitter, and a pommel. You can select the theme of your saber before constructing it, but there’s no opportunity to play around with different combinations before you get in the room. And once you get in the room, you only have about five minutes to build the actual lightsaber!
That led to the entire experience feeling extremely rushed and unsatisfying. The employee guiding the workshop was speaking incredibly quickly the entire time, and at one point was even cut off by the pre-recorded voice of Yoda coming in over the speakers. The whole thing just felt like a way for Disney to milk Star Wars fans out of as much money as possible in a short time period.
That being said, I was just watching my friend build a lightsaber. She got the full experience of building the saber and getting to pick her kyber crystal, and she thought it was expensive but didn’t regret paying for it. I think the experience could be really special if you were actually given time to play around with lightsaber combinations in a time slot that lasted at least 30 minutes instead of being shuffled through the room as quickly as humanly possible.
The quality of the lightsabers should also be much better considering the price. We received a saber blade that was visibly scratched with what looked like brown dirt, which they swapped out for another one that was scratched. That one was also swapped out for a blade that was finally in good condition. One of the sleeves wasn’t locking into place, which they also swapped out for us. I purchased some extra scrap metal parts for $25 each so I could play around with more combinations at home, and noticed that several of the pieces don’t line up with each other after they’re screwed onto the base.
Overall, the Savi’s Workshop experience definitely isn’t worth the high price tag, despite being a cool idea. If you’re a diehard Star Wars fan you might think it’s worth the cost, but while getting a custom lightsaber is cool, the experience itself and the quality of the saber are severely lacking.
Rides: Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run & Rise of the Resistance
Finally, we arrive at the most important part of any theme park land, the rides. Galaxy’s Edge has two rides: Millennium Falcon – Smuggler’s Run and Rise of the Resistance.
Smuggler’s Run was an okay ride, but heavily dependent on the position you take in the six-seater cockpit. You can be a pilot, a gunner, or an engineer, but the pilot position is really the only enjoyable one. There’s little instruction provided before starting the ride, which makes the more technical gunner and engineer positions less fun. You’re basically just mashing buttons and hoping for some kind of onscreen result.
I went on the ride twice as a gunner and pilot, and our team ended up with the same exact score each time (not a very good one). It honestly felt demoralizing and didn’t make me want to try the ride again because it was confusing, and even two attempts didn’t help me or my friend understand how to perform better in the game. That being said, it’s great to feel like you’re flying around in the Millennium Falcon and the interior of the ride is designed very well. The life-sized Falcon replica outside the ride entrance is definitely the crown jewel of Galaxy’s Edge.
On the other hand, Rise of the Resistance may be the best theme park ride I’ve ever experienced. My coworkers were hyping it up for days before I went to Disneyland, but I still had no idea what to expect. We managed to walk on the ride at around 7 PM after it opened from a temporary closure. The beginning of the ride, featuring a space transport that’s captured by the First Order, was cool but not super exciting. I was very surprised when we exited the ship onto a Star Destroyer complete with dozens of Stormtroopers and actors dressed as First Order officers!
The immersion in Rise of the Resistance is simply insane. The Star Destroyer interior was absolutely incredible, and I truly felt like I was in a Star Wars movie. The rest of the ride was even more impressive, especially since I wasn’t familiar with trackless theme park rides. Zooming all over the interior of the Star Destroyer, complete with life-sized AT-ATs and Kylo Ren hunting you down, is an unforgettable experience. The ride feels chaotic in an amazing way and takes you in so many different directions that it’s impossible not to enjoy it.
The animatronics for Kylo Ren were particularly impressive. His movements were so fluid that it really felt like the character was Force-pulling your transports over to him. The zero-gravity escape pod technology was also a highlight, since it actually felt like you’re dropping into space.
Galaxy’s Edge and Rise of the Resistance in particular are what made me enjoy my Disneyland experience. While the rest of the park fell flat, the level of detail and incredible immersion in Galaxy’s Edge really satisfied me. You’ll see characters like Rey and Kylo Ren walking around and interacting with visitors so genuinely that you can’t help but smile.
One of the Rey actors even made it a point to come speak with us, even though we were just pointing her out to each other. It felt like she was going above and beyond to engage with fans of all ages, which was in stark contrast to the characters in Avengers Campus who are constantly walking through the land to get away from people as quickly as possible.
Final thoughts on my first visit to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
I’d definitely recommend visiting Galaxy’s Edge if you love Star Wars. It’s one of the best theme park lands I’ve ever been to. Given how much I loved it even though I’m not a huge fan, I can only imagine how much fun and appreciation a longtime fan of the franchise would have there!
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