If you haven’t heard, whether you couldn’t care less or you just don’t pay attention to Disney news, Disney opened a new area in their Hollywood Studios park. This new area is called Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge (Galaxy’s Edge for short). As of the time this review was written, there is only one ride at Galaxy’s Edge. That ride is called Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run (Millennium Falcon for short).

On a scale of one to ten, with one being absolutely terrible and ten being the best ever, I personally give Galaxy’s Edge somewhere between 4.5 and 5.5. The biggest reason for such a mediocre rating is because the only thing for you to do is the Millennium Falcon ride, or pay over $100 after tax to build your own droid and somewhere north of $200 to construct your own lightsaber. The redeeming factor for Galaxy’s Edge is how intricately detailed Galaxy’s Edge is. Aside from the fact that the outpost Galaxy’s Edge is based upon is only in one movie, and at the very end of the movie at that, Galaxy’s Edge is very intricately detailed. So much so, that you feel like you are at the outpost that Galaxy’s Edge is based upon.
Now for my biggest critique of Galaxy’s Edge. The biggest issue I have with Galaxy’s Edge is that Disney only focuses on the new movies, specifically The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Disney did absolutely nothing with any of the other movies. With the exception of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which is the movie that the outpost Galaxy’s Edge is based upon. Another issue I have is that the Millenium Falcon, while it is cool for what it is, it is not as good as the Flight of Passage ride in the Pandora area of Animal Kingdom.
Flight of Passage is significantly older than Millenium Falcon. By significantly, I mean older by about 3 or 4 years. In my opinion, there is no reason for Disney to make the Millenium Falcon ride worse than Flight of Passage.
There is absolutely no reason in my opinion that Disney should have let Millenium Falcon be any less than Flight of Passage. The only reason that I have found that Disney would end up with is less than that is the fact that it seemed rushed. While it was good, it was rushed for Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary. I also know that I am not the only person who believes that Flight of Passage is superior to Millenium Falcon.
You may be asking how I know that other people think that Flight of Passage is superior to Millenium Falcon. Even though I haven’t seen any reviews on the area, there is one very tell-tale sign that a ride is not up to the standards it should be. That sign is the stand-by wait time. The stand-by wait time is the standard wait time a normal person will wait to get on the ride, give or take about five or 10 minutes. During the entire time I was down there, even during the Hollywood Studios’ busy day of the week, the stand-by time for Millenium Falcon never rose above 35 minutes. Now, if you do not want to wait in line for a long time, that is not a bad thing, right? Well, here’s the thing. Most of that 35 minutes is walking up to the area where you get on the ride. By comparison, Flight of Passage never dipped below 90 minutes. Again, Flight of Passage is somewhere in the neighborhood of three years older than Millenium Falcon. The stand-by time shows that people are not willing to wait in line for Millenium Falcon, but they are willing to wait in a rather lengthy line for Flight of Passage. Another tell-tale sign of how popular a ride is how far in advance you must Fastpass.
Fastpass is Disney’s moneymaker. Basically, Fastpass is where you can bypass the stand-by line. However, for some of the more popular rides such as Flight of Passage, it is imperative that the Fastpass is booked in advance. For example, we booked our Flight of Passage Fastpass a few months in advance.
My point about this is that people Fastpass one of two types of rides. The two types of rides are rides that they love and want to Fastpass, or rides that are so popular that they almost have to be Fastpassed. Millenium Falcon doesn’t need to have a Fastpass. On the other hand, the Flight of Passage stand-by time is so long, that a Fastpass is almost required.
Basically, Galaxy’s Edge is good, but nowhere near as good, and definitely great, as Pandora in Animal Kingdom