A Partial Galaxy Far Away? Opening Dates for Disney’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

Last week Disney shared official opening dates for the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge areas coming to Disneyland and Disney World this year. The announcement was expected, of course, but the timing of it was most certainly not. You may even call it surprising which is a difficult (impossible?) feat for Disney given its millions of enthusiastic fans. According to Disney, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge will open in two phases. The first phase will open on May 31 at Disneyland and August 29 at Disney World. The second opens “later this year.”

Today’s post shares more confirmed details (and fun speculation!) on Disney’s upcoming Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Confirmed Details

Let’s start with the confirmed details of the official announcement. If you haven’t seen it, you can read it for yourself here. I’ve organized its contents in the chart below.

So, first it’s important to note that most of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge will open with Phase One on May 31 at Disneyland and August 29 at Disney World. Each park will receive the new Millennium Falcon simulation ride along with five food vendors, nine or so retail venues and various yet-unspecified character interactions. The only thing NOT scheduled to open during Phase One is the Rise of the Resistance trackless ride.

Second, there are a few differences in how the lands will operate at the two theme parks. Disneyland will require a separate “free” reservation to enter Star Wars in addition to a park ticket between May 31 and June 23. The space will also be excluded from Extra Magic Hours (additional time within the parks for guests of Disney resorts). Disney World will NOT require an additional reservation and the land WILL be included in Extra Magic Hours.

Neither park will offer MaxPass or FastPass+ for the Millennium Falcon attraction during Phase One. MaxPass and FastPass+ are appointment times Disney offers for popular rides to allow guests to skip the longer “stand-by” lines.

Although the recent memo doesn’t mention it, Disney World’s site also states that none of the food venues at the Disney World Star Wars will be included on the Disney Dining Plans.

Clear as a Tattoine dust storm? Let’s keep going.

Why open Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge early and in phases?

Ah, these are the bigger questions aren’t they? Disney sited “high guest interest” as the official reason for opening the new lands early. Initially Galaxy’s Edge was to open in “Summer” at Disneyland and “Late Fall” at Disney World. This explanation seems like an understatement to me, particularly for a company well-known (and loved!) for hyperbole.

I suppose it is true though. Guest interest is WAY high. Galactically high even.

I can’t even imagine the number of Star Wars opening day inquiries Disney associates have had to handle over the last two years. Can you? Were you one of them?

Still, it’s doubtful that guest interest was the ONLY reason to pull the dates forward or to open Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in phases.

So for fun, let’s entertain a few other reasons that may be contributing factors. These are all speculation, of course, and written by someone who has never worked for Disney, so please don’t book your dream vacation based on it, okay? Promise?

Here we go, in no particular order:

(1) Opening early and with fewer attractions could smooth out demand overall. Die hard fans will want to experience Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on day one. Others will want to wait until everything is open. Combined, it could mean fans self select different months in which to visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Disney succeeds in spreading out the massive pent-up demand over a longer and hopefully manageable time frame.

(2) Opening early, without FastPass or MaxPass, could minimize guest frustration with queues. Securing FastPasses for top attractions at Disney World is already difficult, even 60+ days in advance.  Removing this obstacle, at least in the short run, could potentially minimize guest disappointment and offer a perceived “fairer” approach to line management. It could also provide a chance for Disney to measure true demand for the attraction rather than trying to predict the number of FastPasses required beforehand. Of course, this decision may lead to crazy mob sprints at park opening too, but that’s another issue.

(3) The decision lets Disney meet its promise of opening Star Wars in 2019, just in case Rise of the Resistance isn’t ready this year. The company has clearly stated that Rise of the Resistance will open later this year. How much later is the question. If it’s months away, or at risk for pushing into 2020, why not open everything that is ready this year? It certainly takes some of the pressure off the Imagineers working on the technologically-advanced attraction. Perhaps it will provide the opportunity to better prepare for the unavoidable hiccups in both attractions after opening too.

(4) Guest bookings for 2019 aren’t where they need to be. Earlier this year I was surprised by the number of resort accommodations and hard-to-get dining reservations that were still widely available at Disney World in July. While hardly scientific, it suggested to me that bookings were down. Disney’s decision to offer its popular Free Dining promotion and other discounts for the same time period further encouraged this idea. Pulling Star Wars forward will obviously drive more demand in the parks in 2019, both by attracting totally new guests to the space as well as encouraging those guests that were intentionally delaying their visit to 2020 to reconsider 2019 instead. For comparison sake, annual attendance jumped 15% at Animal Kingdom when Pandora opened in 2017, and the new space was only open for half of the year.

(5) A phased opening provides time to learn. When Disney opened Pandora it had to manage a whole new space at Animal Kingdom. When Disney opens Star Wars at Hollywood Studios it will need to manage a whole new space, as well as a new Mickey Mouse themed attraction nearby, a new gondola transportation system bringing guests to the park and the ongoing construction of a new Star Wars Themed hotel near the entrance. That’s a lot for one park to handle at the same time. Perhaps the delayed and phased opening provides more opportunities to make adjustments should the transition require it.

(6) We’re Disney we can do whatever we want. Yep. Pretty self explanatory, don’t you think? The company’s wild success is no accident. Great minds and all that. We’ll have to see how this one plays out, but clearly the company is highly motivated to make Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge awesome and will spend the time and money to do so.

Closing comments

And that’s it. The details on the opening dates for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge as well as some commentary on what it could really mean. Do you agree or think I’m crazy? Was this the park expansion you were looking for or does it cause you to have a bad feeling about this? (so sorry)

Please let me know in the comments below. And yes, bad Star Wars puns are welcome.

Until next time, add a little (Star Wars) magic to your world!