Top 5 Reasons to Visit Star Wars Land Before it Opens
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is right around the corner. It’ll open soon at Disneyland and then debut at Walt Disney World on August 29th. You may feel compelled to vacation at Walt Disney World after that time so you can say you’re one of the first ever to wander through the new themed land. And that’s a perfectly good idea. You could go a different way, though. Here are five reasons to visit Walt Disney World before Star Wars Land opens.
Cheaper Prices
The entire Walt Disney World ecosystem employs surge pricing now. During more crowded times on the Disney calendar, you’ll pay more for theme park admission, resort stays, and even parking. Once Star Wars Land opens, the parks will claim unprecedented attendance.
Disney will increase the rates to the highest tier of surge pricing as a byproduct of this fact. It’s reasonable to expect prices to stay at this level for the body of 2019, meaning that everything gets more expensive on August 29th.
Guests who visit sooner will save quite a bit of money. You can pick a day that is in the Value category, the cheapest of the three tiers. Disney’s official site indicates that the least expensive months are May and August. Clearly, they mean before August 29th. When you plan a vacation during one of these sweet spots on the schedule, you’ll stretch your vacation dollars.
You Love Hollywood Studios
Many people think of Disney’s Hollywood Studios as a half-day park. They feel that the number of attractions in operation right now isn’t enough to justify a lot of time spent there. Then, there are the rest of us, devoted fans of this park who love its attractions an unhealthy amount.
We treasure every drop on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, every ride down the highway on Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, and every…tour on Star Tours. Something else that we love about the park is that it IS perceived as a half-day park. Once the amateurs leave for the afternoon, we get the run of the place, enjoying short waits for some of Disney’s finest E-ticket attractions.
Even after the opening of Toy Story Land, Hollywood Studios has maintained its status as the go-to place for small lines. This situation will change, dramatically and permanently, once Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens. From that point forward, Hollywood Studios will be every bit as crowded as Magic Kingdom.
To those of us who love the park as the hidden gem of Walt Disney World, the next five months represent the last opportunity to take advantage of those short lines. Ah well, we all had a good run.
Smaller Crowds
I’m fascinated by park traffic reports and predictions. I follow multiple sites and even listen to interviews with experts in this field. One of them said something recently that stuck with me. They grade anticipated Disney park attendance on a 10-point scale. A score of 10 indicates the highest possible amount of guests on a given day.
This person believes that what was a 10 before Star Wars Land will be viewed as a 6 from now on. They expect that Galaxy’s Edge drives traffic in a way that’s only been seen at one theme park ever before. I’m speaking of Universal Studios when The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened. At the time, social media was inundated with crazy images of massive crowds waiting to enter that park.
Harry Potter Land is something of a baseline for Star Wars Land. The former is undoubtedly a beloved intellectual property, but the latter is at least as popular if not more so. Plus, Disney dwarfs Universal in theme park attendance. So, it’s reasonable to expect Galaxy’s Edge to receive an unprecedented influx of traffic.
While you’re missing out on Star Wars Land by doing so, you’ll avoid these enormous crowds by visiting Walt Disney World soon. While most vacationers plot their trips to the park specifically to experience Galaxy’s Edge, you can sidestep them by going earlier. The question you must decide is whether you’re willing to skip the new themed land entirely in exchange for getting shorter lines everywhere else at the parks. It’s a tough call.
Star Wars Apathy
Okay, please don’t shoot the messenger here. Some people don’t love Star Wars. I’m not talking about defensive Star Trek fans, either. I mean that some folks never fell in love with the Jedi saga.
Let’s say that you’re one of them. While you may have some curiosity about Galaxy’s Edge due to its unprecedented immersive elements, you’re not traveling to Walt Disney World for Star Wars. So, why would you vacation there at a time when Star Wars crowds will cause park overflows? You’ll have longer waits for every ride at Walt Disney World, and transportation to and from these parks will be similarly congested.
Guests who don’t love Star Wars absolutely should visit Walt Disney World before Galaxy’s Edge opens. You’re saving yourself a lot of unnecessary aggravation if you don’t care about The Force.
Less Intensity
Remember how I mentioned those unprecedented crowds for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter? Ask anyone who visited the parks during that time. They’ll tell you in one breath that they had the time of their lives. In the next breath, they’ll recount any number of stressful incidents that don’t sound like the kind of thing someone would experience while having the time of their life.
I’m confident that you’ve been to a sold-out concert or sporting event or the like. You know that odd incongruity about such life experiences. You’re in the middle of the action, and it gets your adrenaline going. You’re so dialed up because you have that feeling that something could go wrong. It rarely does, but the stress is an organic part of the emotional spectrum.
When you visit Star Wars Land right after it opens, you’re effectively going to Mall of America on Black Friday. You’re going to fight the crowds like you never have before and never will again. Sure, it’s exciting, but do you want that much excitement on vacation? If the answer is no, you should visit Walt Disney World now. It’s a calmer, more controlled environment, albeit one where you don’t get to drive the Millennium Falcon.