First and foremost, I've seen a lot of click bait articles and YouTube videos saying "Galaxy's Edge is empty and here's why" and in my experience, those articles are simply not true. It was a Sunday morning in Hollywood Studios and there was a steady stream of people walking towards Black Spire Outpost and it was constantly busy during the hours I was there. The only quiet time was at night, but let's start at the beginning.
If you've unfamiliar, here's a map of the area. We entered via the Grand Avenue side, which is where the Resistance area is located. You can see where the new ride will be as there were a few cast members "standing guard". There was also an X-wing and an A-wing. They were cool to see, but I found them to be cooler looking and sounding at night, but more on that later.
We walked past the market area on the left and stayed more towards the right so we passed between Ronto Roasters and then the Droid Depot and hung a left. (If you hang a right, you head towards Toy Story Land.) There is a little courtyard-ish area where there are the refreshers (bathrooms), and a little bit of a bottleneck of people, but right after that we found the Milk Stand.
Re: Blue milk, in a word, fantastic.
It was a little odd at first, but then it was super addicting. My wife and I shared one, and then later got another one. We didn't try the green, nor did we try either with alcohol. Something for next time.
Next to the Milk Stand is the First Order Cargo with the giant First Order ship. I don't know what it's called, but we saw some Storm Troopers who saw my wife's BB-8 ears (from Etsy), and they told her that her “allegiance may be questioned".
We passed Oga's Cantina and made our way to Smugglers Run. It was only a 55-minute wait, and it went surprisingly quick. When we finally got to Hondo, we made our way up near the front of the stagging area and scored jobs at Pilots. I controlled left and right; my wife controlled up and down. We made it back with 31% power back. I'm glad we didn't die/fail the mission. We were able to get one vial of coaxium.
Afterwards, we walked past Docking Bay 7 and went through the "market" area to check that our briefly. We had a FP for the Indiana Jones show, but we didn't make it in time, so I think we checked out Toy Story Land to potentially do Slinky Dog Dash before our 1 PM reservation at Oga's for "lunch".
Re: Oga's.
I feel like it's something you'll want to experience, but unfortunately it wasn't the best experience.
- There is a line of people waiting outside to get in. Even if you have a reservation, you are asked to stand in line to get "checked in". Once you get checked in, and your spot becomes available, a cast member yells your name as they walk down the line looking for you. They take you to the entrance/exit where there is only one way in and out as other cast members "guard" that spot.
- The bar area and entire experience is 95% standing, so there are no seats around the bar. The bigger alcoves and tables go to the larger groups, so if you're a group of two like my wife and I, you're mostly likely getting put at the bar.
- We got placed at the very end of the bar on the far-right side which was near an area where only cast members were allowed. It's a blind corner so throughout the entire "experience" cast members were constantly yelling “corner” to avoid a collision.
- We were greeted by an older gentleman who welcomed us and placed some coasters down and took our drink order. I guess this is on me, but I THOUGHT they served food at Oga's. They do NOT. They have some sort of snacky thing (Batuu Bits) and a meat/cheese plate thing that wasn't on the menu. I was kind of disappointed and annoyed as I was hungry. I later learned that even though they serve breakfast, they don't serve lunch or dinner.
- Located at the edge of the bar was a young man making drinks. 3 or more tickets would print, and he'd make the drinks. He wasn't our bartender, and spoke to us once, but was just kind of going through the motions. He got us our second round as the initial older bartender didn't check on us when our drinks were finished.
- Drink-wise, my wife got the Jedi Mind Trick and I got the Bespin Fizz. The Fizz had a cool presentation and tasted good. For our second drink, my wife got a Bespin Fizz, and then I got a Yub Nub. You can get it without paying for the mug, which costs $15 which they still make it in the Ewok mug. I did later decide to purchase the Ewok mug ($30), which they give you a clean one in a box when you leave/pay. Four drinks (plus mug) and the snack was over $100 without the tip.
- From where we were standing, we could NOT see DJ Rex. We did hear him talking and playing music the whole time, which was okay. The original cantina song did play which was nice I guess. I didn't really know what to expect music wise.
- Before leaving, we wanted to walk around to see the entire bar to realize how tiny it was. Also, the opposite side of the bar was a mirror image of the other.
- Lastly, we were initially told that the experience was 45 minutes which I think is about the time we stayed. No one forced us out and I had a feeling that if we kept ordering drinks that we would have been able to stay.
We headed to Toy Story Land to get some lunch quick. We did mobile ordering somewhere and just split a sandwich. I was kind of in a bad mood after Oga's and my wife wanted to go to Magic Kingdom, so we did that.
We came back to Batuu at night, which I alluded to earlier. You can really hear the ambient sounds of the forest/jungle area at night, and the sounds of the ships and the droids were lit up.
Since I missed Dok's earlier, we made it a point to check that out after riding Smugglers Run again. This time it was only a 20 minute wait and we were both gunners. We only had one engineer. If you don't have a sixth person, that vacant job gets put on "auto pilot” per the cast member. We did slightly better with 39% power left on the Falcon and we got 2 vials of coaxium.
Re: Disney Play app.
Earlier in the day, during Smugglers Run, I was able to enhance my experience with the app while waiting in line. As I mentioned earlier, the line kind of moved fast, so I didn't have a lot of time to “play”, but what I did get to experience was cool. I scanned a container that held a droid arm that was going to Lothal.
I was also able to hack a communications tower near the refreshers and got some information about a Wookiee (not Chewy) that was shot or something. I think I needed to hack the other towers to get the whole story.
Overall:
Even though I spent ~6 hours total in the land (~4.5 hours during the day and ~1.5 hours at night), I didn't really feel immersed in the world. It was a neat experience to be sure, but I would want to go back and spend more time there, but at the same time I want to have fun (and ride rides), so spending $100+ on a park ticket just to experience a subset of the entirety of Hollywood Studios seems like a waste of money and of my time.
Side notes:
- The Void at Disney Springs – highly recommended the Star Wars “Secrets of the Empire” experience. It’s definitely worth the cost, and probably best with four friends.
- Star Tours – was fun and I’m glad we did it before going into Batuu. I’m looking forward to them adding TROS stuff to it later this December.
- Pandora’s Flight of Passage – was probably the highlight of the trip as I think on it. It hits 4 of your 5 senses. The wait time of 90 minutes sucked, but the 4.5 minute ride was fantastic.
