Here's a construction update photo of Star Wars land from my hotel window in Swan.



An impressively large mountain range.

Some more photos from Star Wars land construction from inside Toy Story land. Buildings are starting to come together and art work on some of them is in place.

I got to experience the new Toy Story Land, which is wonderfully themed but I felt doesn't offer nearly as much as I would have expected.

With just three attractions, of which only two are new, one cafe and two Meet and Greet spots, it's a little disappointing that Disney didn't offer more from the vast catalog of Toy Story attractions they have created across the world. This meant that queues were typically 60 minutes for Toy Story Mania and Alien Swirling Saucers, with Slinky Dog Dash sitting around 90-120 minutes. You really want fast pass for these attractions, as none of the queues are that interesting and mostly cattle pens, and are predominantly outside. In the 33c and 70-80% humidity I had last week, standing in these queues was a non-starter, but I was lucky to get an on-the-day fast pass for Toy Story Mania.

Toy Story Mania, whilst entertaining, didn't feel that special. Maus au Chocolat at Phantasialand I feel does a far better job, with themed rooms between the screens, which Toy Story Mania lacks, and feels like a longer ride too. It was also disappointing there is no on ride photo. I got a generic 'voicemail' from Buzz and Woody a day later linked to my account, but I don't know if it came from Toy Story Mania or Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin over at Magic Kingdom.

Slinky Dog Dash, looks and sounds fantastic. This is very much a next generation of child/family targeted roller coasters, being a very toned down version of similar bigger launch coasters. The trains look brilliant and it makes sounds throughout the ride.



One thing that really impressed me is how Disney have gone away and said, we want this to have a large and impressive looking track, but to make it family friendly the train must go as slow as possible. The launch speed is not much more than the absolute minimum to get it over the highest points, with it always looking like it is about to stall. It's the perfect design decision for this ride, but I suspect it was a harder design to realise than those that are designed to happily go as fast as possible through each element.



Overall Toy Story land felt well presented, with a better layout than those at Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong, but really felt it lacked attractions. It also suffers from having very little shade and cooling off areas, which doesn't make sense for a new area with an even higher concentration of family groups with small children.

Disney have today announced the opening dates for Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at both Walt Disney World (August 29th) and Disneyland (May 31st). However, the Rise of the Resistance attractions are not due to open with the areas, and are instead being classified as a 'phase two' that will open later in the year...

Yes, people are excited to experience these new developments, but opening these highly-anticipated areas with only one of their two attractions seems likely to be a nightmare.

The attraction they're opening is the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, where concerns already exist over the interaction required on it.

I have a bad feeling about this.

We have the brand new logo reveal and well, it’s... um... it’s certainly minimalist?





Also, just something I've noticed. Is it really the wisest move to remind us of the huge lack of character representation, and therefore attractions this park has to offer? Excluding the single attractions based on The Muppets, Aerosmith and Twilight Zone those shown in the logo are pretty much it as far as this park goes for characters and attractions! 

Here’s a look at the cast member uniforms and ride vehicles for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway with photos provided by The DIS on Twitter.





I have to admit... this is slowly becoming the main attraction I’m looking forward to experiencing next year at the Disney parks!

More details Sunday.

The last description I saw of Rise of the Resistance, it made me think DBGT. Large concept, set pieces, poor throughput. Really want it to work, as on paper it sounds amazing. But on paper DBGT also sounds amazing.

The attraction utilises a similar system to Ghost Train as part of its pre-show. The main experience however is anticipated to be fairly high capacity, at least high enough!

I’ve also heard the delay has been in part due to imagineers not designing a locking mechanism for the ride vehicles in the drop section of the ride, meaning vehicles were slightly moving during the free fall.

I have to say. It’s oversights like these that make me question Disney’s ability in creating modern attractions.

Worryingly, oversights like that are a little more common than they should be, throughout this and other similar industries.

Personally I’ve always seen this ride as Disney trying to ‘compare sizes’ to Universal in terms of technology and how much they can stuff into one ride.

Not that it’s a bad thing, but like you say it does raise the question of if it’ll be an attraction that everyone can enjoy as presumably the rest is a classic simulator feeling. I guess people will just have to read the information board

That being said, Tower of Terror is in the same park and that has a much larger drop, along with Flight of a Passage also being fairly intense in some portions.