Your First Look at Disneyland’s New Star Wars Land
The new Star Wars land at Disneyland is officially open.
Galaxy’s Edge is the first phase of the park’s five-hectare Star Wars-themed section that has been hotly anticipated since construction started almost three years ago.
The first guests – who were required to make a reservation months ago – were admitted on 31 May.
The "real" Galaxy’s Edge is set on the outer-rim planet Batuu, a place not yet seen in any of the films that's favoured by space smugglers.
The best part of this new adventure zone? A life-size Millennium Falcon simulator. Guests board through the starboard airlock and take on the role of gunner, driver or engineer and are responsible for controlling the iconic ship and its blasters. Depending on how well you perform, the end of the game will differ.
There’s also a workshop where you can construct your own lightsaber or droid, a marketplace selling all sorts of space junk and plenty of colourful characters strolling around, including Kylo Ren and his stormtroopers.
The food and drink is space-themed, too: you can taste blue milk, just like what Luke drank on Tatooine, and Ronto wraps made by smelter droids.
Eagle-eyed fans will recognise callbacks to film series in the 7000 props scattered throughout the land, such as podracer engines, a taxidermied wampa from ice planet Hoth and Jedi robes like the one Obi-wan and Anakin wear in Revenge of the Sith.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is also the first land at a Disney Park that integrates with the Play Disney Parks app to give guests a deeper level of interaction – translating the galactic languages etched onto walls or allowing them to take part in secret missions as they uncover different parts of the attraction.
It’s the biggest single-themed land expansion in Disney’s history. Only guests with a reservation are able to enter until 23 June; after that reservations will no longer be required.
Phase two – Rise of the Resistance – will open later this year. Few details of how it will come to life have been revealed, other than that the immersive attraction will involve a battle between the First Order and the Resistance.
An identical land with the same moniker will open at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida on 29 August.
Image credits: Richard Harbaugh/Joshua Sudock/David Roark/Disney Parks
This article was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated.
