Engineering Great Moments: Disneyland Trip: Day 2

We didn't hear our alarm at 5 am, but P3 woke us up around 5:15 am. We left the hotel about 6:20 and grabbed some milk and yogurt to go. We decided to use the ART shuttle instead of walking, and I am glad we did! It was worth the $17.

3 Mandalorians waiting for the shuttle:

The shuttle dropped us off at the entrance about 6:40 am. We went through security, and the security guard checking my bag recognized my hat and shirt. So we talked about Rebels, Clone Wars, and the Resistance series. The line through security was short and fast. There were a lot of people waiting in line for when the park opened at 7 am. But since we had a Galaxy's Edge reservation, we got to go through a different turnstile with no line! It was great! We entered Disneyland, and it was EMPTY! Well, comparatively empty. It was neat to walk down Main Street with only a handful of people. We made our way to the Star Wars Launch Bay in Tomorrowland where we got our special wristbands to let us into Galaxy's Edge. There was no wait; it was awesome!

We checked out the souvenirs and P3 loved the light sabers! Then we ate our yogurt and watched all the people start to enter Disneyland.

The line to wait for Galaxy's Edge was in Fantasyland. We got a place in line, and then I took the kids to ride the Carousal. It was the first ride of the day, and what did the kids do? Cried. They cried. P1 and P2 were too scared that I couldn't leave them to get another horse for P3. So I had to hold P3, and hold onto my 2 big kids that were terrified of the carousal. Needless to say, it was a bit discouraging. I told them if they couldn't ride the carousal, then they couldn't do any other rides in Disneyland. (Thankfully, they were much braver the rest of the day.)

We got back in the line, and Dad took P3 back to the carousal so he could have a turn. He was really excited at first, but once it started moving he wasn't sure what to think about it.

Our place in line:

The line behind us:

The line in front of us:

Just before 8 am, a cheer went up and the line started moving. We had to hold our wristbands up at certain points so they could check them, and at the entrance they scanned each one. And then we were in Galaxy's Edge!

We did buy the MaxPass so we could do FastPasses on our phones, and get the free photos everywhere. That was an extra $15 per ticket, but it was worth it!

Even though there were a lot of people in line for Galaxy's Edge, once we got inside it didn't feel crowded at all.

Our first stop was the Droid Depot. I'm glad we got there at the beginning, because the line got pretty long. We ended up building 2 droids. P2 wanted to build an R2-D2 with Dad, and P1 and I made our own droid. Each one was $99. They were out of several colors, but mostly of the BB series.

We tried to get P1 to pick an orange cone shape head for his droid, but he really wanted the R2 style. He chose a red head, and I told him to do a white body and white legs. Well, one of the workers came over and chatted with P1, and told him he could get any color of legs that he wanted! So he ended up picking red legs. I made him stick with the white body, and I wouldn't let him do a blue center leg. Mean mom, I know. But for $99, you want it to look decent!

We took our pieces over to the building station. It was very busy, and they only had 2 workers helping the 10 stations. The head and center leg popped on really easy, but the side legs wouldn't stay on. So then we noticed that they had screws. I looked around for a screwdriver, but couldn't find one. Finally, I realized that they were above our heads and you had to pull it down to use it.

We finally got the worker to come over and activate our droid. P1 named it R4D5. It was fun watching him come to life! Then we tried a test run, and the legs didn't work!!! Talk about disappointing! The worker tried for a few minutes, but we ended up having to go get a new set of legs. But we finally got him working!

Dad and P2 had an easier time. But the worker didn't even test out their droid! So Dad made sure to test it when they got outside and were waiting for us. We showed Dad R4D5, and he immediately noticed that his head was scuffed up. Droids are supposed to look beat up, right? Well, we did pay $99 for it, so we went back and asked for a new head. It took them a few minutes, but we did get one with no scuff marks!

This is the $25,000 R2D2 model that you can buy in the Droid Depot. Apparently, they have already sold a few of them...

Our next stop was the Milk Stand! We used the mobile ordering which was very convenient! We shared a blue milk and a green milk. Each one was $8. The blue was the favorite, but once that was gone, they liked the green one just fine. Both are non-dairy, and the blue milk has a fruity flavor whereas the green milk has a floral flavor.

It really wasn't too crowded. I never felt surrounded by people, and it was easy to walk around with a stroller.

The entrance to the new ride: Smuggler's Run. For most of the time we were there, the wait was only 15-20 minutes. They did have rider switch, so we got fast-passes from that to use later. Dad took P1 first, and they were both engineers. P1 enjoyed hitting all the buttons and getting a good score. I took P2, and we were also both engineers. And Dad took both kids one last time, and P1 was an engineer and P2 was a gunner with Dad. The buttons were hard to reach for P2, and honestly, the buttons are a bit distracting. You don't want to be looking at the buttons, you want to be looking out the window to really feel like you are flying the Millennium Falcon!

Photos of the queue for Smuggler's Run:

The Hondo animatronic was very life-like, they did a great job on that!

You had to be super quick to get a photo at the Dejarik board. Supposedly, you would have some time in this room to get pictures and look around. In reality, you had less than a minute before they called your team up.

We were not able to go Oga's Cantina. You had to get your name on the list first thing. We had checked right after doing the droids, but the list was already full. Oh well, we'll have to do that next time.

We stopped at Dok-Ondar's Den of Antiquities. There was a little bit of line to get in, but it was only 5-10 minutes. It is a very impressive shop, and fun to look around. This is where you can buy kyber crystals, legacy light sabers, holocrons. We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to look around.

We tried the popcorn at Kat Saka's kettle. It was a sweet and spicy mix. The boys loved it, and P2 hated it. I enjoyed it and Dad thought it was okay.

This is Ronto Roasters, and we tried some of the food there. The ronto wrap was really good. It was $13, and was pork, grilled sausage, peppercorn sauce, tangy slaw wrapped in pita. We also had the meiloorun juice which everyone enjoyed.

The shops in the Black Spire Outpost were small but fun to look at. I enjoyed the Toydarian Toymaker stall. I bought a Princess Leia and Ahsoka Tano plush there. The creature stall was also fun. The kids wanted to bring home a Porg, but we said 2 droids were enough.

P1 met Rey while P2 and I were on the ride. She came up and talked to him, and asked him if he had flown her ship. P1 talked her ear off, and it was one of the highlights of his day.

At 11 am, the next crowd entered Galaxy's Edge. So it got a bit crowded. We decided to check out the Resistance area on our way out. P2 was sad that she didn't get to meet Rey, but we got a glimpse of her and met Chewbacca. He came over and tousled her hair (well, I guess her hat...) She thought that was cool. The characters don't stay in one place; they move around and try to interact with people. Chewbacca had to go fix one of the X-wings, so we were able to watch that.