Will Four Hours Be Enough?

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is going to open on May 31 at Disneyland Park. They will be using a reservation system until June 23 to allow guests to enter. Reservations are not yet open to the general public, only to those who will be staying at a Disneyland Resort Hotel. (Reservations are expected to open to the rest on May 2.) Disneyland has been sending out reservation times to those who qualify. I have seen screenshots of several of these emails; the guest is allowed four hours in the new land. That begs the question, will four hours be enough?

The short answer to that is that it will have to be. I’d rather spend four hours in Galaxy’s Edge than not visit (which is what is actually happening). Whether or not four hours will be a good amount of time will depend on how many people are given each time slot. If they keep the number of guests down, it should be enough time to get a general idea of what the new land is all about.

I’ve been to Disney After Hours at both Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and I was amazed by how much I could accomplish during three hours. Of course, for these special ticketed evenings the number of guests is extremely limited. Guest are also given wristbands so that no one who isn’t supposed to be there will be there. From what I’ve heard (this isn’t official), they’ll be using the honor system at Disneyland and trusting people to leave when their time is up. I have a feeling that a lot of people will not leave when they are supposed to.

Since only Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will be running on May 31 as far as rides are concerned, there will be three main schools of thought once a time frame opens up. Many people will hit the ride immediately, because that is the most important thing to experience. Some will head instead to Oga’s Cantina. Rumor there is that guests will be limited to an hour in the new watering hole. It also has a low guest capacity, which means that the third group of people will be those who explore first, and then stop by Oga’s. Their last stop will be Smugglers Run. They’ll probably get in line right before their four hours are up, which will mean that there will already be a line when it’s time for the next group.

There is a lot of speculation on whether or not a reservation system will be used at Walt Disney World when our version of Galaxy’s Edge opens on August 29. I honestly think that it could go either way. The crowds have been insane for the opening of both Pandora and Toy Story Land, and neither of those are Star Wars. I know that the movie Avatar was a huge financial hit, but it’s not generational the same way that Star Wars is. If Disney does decide to use a reservation system here in Florida, I doubt that it will be announced until after we know how things went in California.

Back to my original question; will four hours be enough? I think that it will be enough time to hit the highlights. For the first several months (or years) I think that hitting the highlights is all that we can hope for. The hype will die down a bit at some point, but it will never go away. After all, people have been dreaming about being part of a galaxy far, far away for over 40 years. If four hours will help with crowd control, I think that it is a fair amount of time.