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A. had set her alarm for 6, but then did not want to get up. I said fine reset for 7. She was up in ten minutes. We were down to breakfast before it opened, so I got tea, juice, filled water. bottles. I got mickey waffles made before anyone else, and we left before anyone else was done. Woot! We walked (and were passed) by many to security, where the line was not too bad. T. found us when we were halfway through the Disneyland line, to tell me that he did not have a valid ticket. The story came out slow. I tried to buy a ticket through the app. It would only show me SoCal resident offers. So I went on the website, bought a 3 day parkhopper with maxpass, and got it done in time to enter the park when we got front of line. Whew.
We waited for line drop. We paused briefly where we had excellent cell service at 7:59 to wait for the longest minute of my recent life to hit the button. We got boarding group 56. We got in line for Smugglers Run. We waited most of an hour, but rode it together. My daughter was a gunner; my son and I were engineers. We got 8730, Pirate status. We got pics of all three of us sitting at the holo chess board.
We separated. A. and I waffled a lot on what to do next. We did Fortune Red. We tried to get on the train. We got popcorn. We tried for the train again and she had a meltdown. We decided to leave. We got R. to pick us up. There was filming on Main Street and Esmerelda was not working. I do not know if those were connected. We bought fudge at the Candy Palace. R. took us to Coco’s for lunch. I had the asian salad. It was really pretty good, better than I had expected. A. got a plain chicken breast and fries. While we were eating lunch, our boarding group number approached, so we got back to the park. We went to the bathroom in the fresher, then met T. at the ride and boarded together.
You can find detailed reviews of the ride elsewhere. It had been a tough day for my daughter, and my son was pretty confused by getting onto the transport, off the transport, and then being sent to the detention center by Stormtroopers. He did not want to leave, but he did not care for that part of the story. My daughter was really into it (kept saying, This Is Legit!), but then was really disappointed when it ended, and felt like the ending was weak.
The queue theming is okay; I did score a bunch of items with the datapad.
Using a shaky-shaky for the transport as part of the extended pre-show was pretty cool. Basically the Gringott’s or Haunted Mansion elevator idea taken to a whole new level. The cast members processing us into detention are super into it, which is awesome. Honestly, probably the very best role for a cast member permanently frustrated by misbehavior in queues. Finally, you get to tell the guest what to do and make it stick.
Once you are in the cargo pod piloted by the droid, you are essentially running through more SF corridors and rooms, on an Ellen’s Energy Adventure pod (but somewhat smaller). Eventually, you slot into something that makes the pod part of what is basically a Star Tours experience: you are now in the escape pod (have not left the cargo pod and still have the droid), getting back to crashland on Batuu.
We went back to the hotel to rest after (T. stayed in the park).
Dinner was at Ballast Point. We took an Uber. A college friend of R. joined us. They stayed late while the rest of us went to The Void and did Star Wars.
We waited for line drop. We paused briefly where we had excellent cell service at 7:59 to wait for the longest minute of my recent life to hit the button. We got boarding group 56. We got in line for Smugglers Run. We waited most of an hour, but rode it together. My daughter was a gunner; my son and I were engineers. We got 8730, Pirate status. We got pics of all three of us sitting at the holo chess board.
We separated. A. and I waffled a lot on what to do next. We did Fortune Red. We tried to get on the train. We got popcorn. We tried for the train again and she had a meltdown. We decided to leave. We got R. to pick us up. There was filming on Main Street and Esmerelda was not working. I do not know if those were connected. We bought fudge at the Candy Palace. R. took us to Coco’s for lunch. I had the asian salad. It was really pretty good, better than I had expected. A. got a plain chicken breast and fries. While we were eating lunch, our boarding group number approached, so we got back to the park. We went to the bathroom in the fresher, then met T. at the ride and boarded together.
You can find detailed reviews of the ride elsewhere. It had been a tough day for my daughter, and my son was pretty confused by getting onto the transport, off the transport, and then being sent to the detention center by Stormtroopers. He did not want to leave, but he did not care for that part of the story. My daughter was really into it (kept saying, This Is Legit!), but then was really disappointed when it ended, and felt like the ending was weak.
The queue theming is okay; I did score a bunch of items with the datapad.
Using a shaky-shaky for the transport as part of the extended pre-show was pretty cool. Basically the Gringott’s or Haunted Mansion elevator idea taken to a whole new level. The cast members processing us into detention are super into it, which is awesome. Honestly, probably the very best role for a cast member permanently frustrated by misbehavior in queues. Finally, you get to tell the guest what to do and make it stick.
Once you are in the cargo pod piloted by the droid, you are essentially running through more SF corridors and rooms, on an Ellen’s Energy Adventure pod (but somewhat smaller). Eventually, you slot into something that makes the pod part of what is basically a Star Tours experience: you are now in the escape pod (have not left the cargo pod and still have the droid), getting back to crashland on Batuu.
We went back to the hotel to rest after (T. stayed in the park).
Dinner was at Ballast Point. We took an Uber. A college friend of R. joined us. They stayed late while the rest of us went to The Void and did Star Wars.