Days in the Park - A Fan Blog About Disney, Gaming, and Everything In-Between: Star Tours: The Adventure Continues

Greatest. Signage. Ever.

We refuse to hide our infatuation for Star Wars and our excitement for the opening of Star Tours* any longer! Okay, if you read our blog at all you should know by now there are two things we always refuse to hide our enthusiasm for: The Park and Star Wars. Put the two together and we're as giddy as a couple of school-girls picking out our Prom dresses! Have we said too much?

Fortunately for us (and our bucket list!), we were blessed (yes, we said blessed!) to have been invited out to The Park to ride the new iteration of this classic Disney attraction last Monday by some wonderful Cast Member friends of ours. We'd never had the opportunity to do anything like that before so we were truly thankful to be given the opportunity to say that we were among the first to be able to check out one of the most highly anticipated attraction openings we've ever had.

Even though the attraction has already opened up at "The World" and everyone and their brother knows pretty much everything there is to know about the attraction at this point, we refuse to post spoilers! What follows are our first impressions of the attraction, spoiler-free (we hope!), so that anyone looking for a "quick-view" of the attraction and our own personal thoughts on it can get them without having anything spoiled for them. As a blog, we have refused to watch any video or listen to any audio from the attraction so as not to "spoil" it for ourselves on future rides, and we certainly don't want to spoil it for anyone else, either. If you're looking for a "blow-by-blow" recount of everything here, this unfortunately isn't the place for it. However, if you're interested in our personal thoughts on it, then read on intrepid space-travelers!

Even though the machines were covered up at the time we rode it, Fastpass distribution is definitely going to be your friend on this one in the early stages of its opening. The lines seemed to move fairly quickly, and did this weekend during soft openings, but they were regularly anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours, and fluctuating all in-between. Definitely one you might want to pick up a Pass for, wait in line to ride, and then hope right back on again.

Salvation!

C-3PO and R2-D2 aside, who reside in their regular places alongside the ever-present Star Tours speeder, what we've dubbed the "outer-queue" is absolutely amazing we think. The "Departures and Arrivals" Screen is still where it always has been, but has been amped up substantially and is now in HD, constantly cycling through all kinds of movie and destination footage. Definitely worth keeping your eyes on while you're waiting in line and moving through the queue.
We won't give away much information about the "inner-queue" either (the area right before you get your glasses and move into the Loading Bay) other than to say that we think the Imagineers did an awesome job in here as well. There's loads to look at and keep you occupied (keep your eyes peeled for RX-24, also known as "Rex" in here, as promised to us by the powers that be!) in this part of the queue and it will probably take you several trips through to begin to see everything. We kind of just stood around staring with our tongues lolling out of our mouths. Definitely a good excuse to continue riding again and again and again.
We'll get back to the 3D glasses in a moment...
The Loading Bay is awesome! We can't even begin to put into words the amount of excitement we felt standing there waiting for the doors to open. There's an awesome updated "pre-flight video" of course, which we won't talk about too much and spoil, other than to say keep your eyes peeled for a cameo or two. If you're not squirming around like a kid on Christmas morning at this point, what the heck are you doing in line for this attraction?!
On to the part you've all been waiting for! A complete description of the attraction and the flight itself! No. Weren't you listening to us earlier? This is spoiler-free, amigos! But we can say that the wait has been well-worth it all around. Having ridden it only once, we've only just begun to scratch the surface of all there is to see, but we will tell you that on our first voyage out we traveled to both Kashyyyk and Geonosis, and it was sick!!! Sick as in good and ridiculously cool. Believe us, when the attraction overhaul was first announced, being the purists that we are and huge fans of the classic, we were "cautiously excited" about the entire thing, knowing it would either immediately attain "classic" status itself, or be a disappointment to us. We can safely say that, at least in our opinion, it's attained "classic" status already, and it's not even officially open at our Park yet. That's how good we think it is. Others might disagree, but that's our line and we're sticking to it. And honestly, judging from the general response we've seen all over the web and other blogs, most others would agree with us.
... back to the glasses and the 3D-HD aspect of the show. Ah-maze-ing. This is not your "Captain EO standard" 3D experience, and not by a long-shot. The 3D and HD quality of the flight itself was just unbelievable and totally blew our minds. So much detail in everything; it was just amazing. Can't praise it highly enough. And with so many different possibilities and variations possible in the ride, we have a feeling we'll be riding this for years to come and seeing it a new way, and a new light, for a long, long time. And the glasses themselves? They just looked cool. Definitely not big and bulky like the other ones floating around The Parks; this is one state-of-the-art enhanced attraction here, and it shows!
Our only caution and word to the wise, which apparently has already helped a few of our friends; this attraction is still the same turbulent (in some cases) attraction it has always been, especially when you're jumping into Lightspeed. If this ride has given you issues in the past, it is certainly apt to do so now. Us? We'd be content to ride it and throw up all over the place (though our flight-mates might not appreciate that very much), but we know that many people just can't do it. We throw this out there only as a precaution. Even Chad felt a little nausea when we rode it. Nothing severe, but it was definitely there and he's usually able to handle quite a bit. It's not meant to dissuade anyone from riding based on the attraction itself, but we'd hate for our readers to do something they might not physically be fit to do. Proceed with caution if you fall into this category.

Finally! A place to park our strollers AND our landspeeders!

Have we convinced you that we like it yet? Have you had a chance to ride the new Star Tours attraction yet, either at Disneyland or Disney World? Let us know what you thought, but keep it spoiler-free for our readers at least. We'd love to hear from you and hear our reader's opinions. Is it as great as we think it is? We guess we'll just have to ride it at least 53 more times to find out. May The Force and the dramamine be with us.

*Star Tours: The Adventure Continues is currently open at Walt Disney World and officially opens at the Disneyland Resort on June 3rd.

We're back! Our self-imposed vacation is officially over and we're ready to get back in the saddle and continue writing about our days in The Park, or talking about them if you'd prefer, since we decided for our first day back we'd post the latest episode of our podcast: Days In The Parkcast.

Show Notes:
Originally recorded: 4/17/2011
Final editing done: 4/18/2011
Hosted by: Chad Elliott & Mark Treiger

Intro featuring music by George Thorogood and the Destroyers “Any Town USA” – (music from music.mevio.com; Music Alley)
Recent Trip Recap
- In trouble before we even leave
- Shopping at Greetings From California and Engine-Ears Toys
- Mission Tortilla Factory
- Silly Symphony Swings
- Disney Animation Building "Animation Loop"
- River Belle Terrace
- Pooh Corner
- Fantasmic!
- Closing the night in Frontierland, Sleeping Beauty Castle & Main Street U.S.A.

Star Tours: The Adventure Continues Updates

- Destinations Announced!

- AP Preview Sweepstakes

Trivia
- Hidden Mickey Segment
- New Orleans Square Train Station

Hungry Bear Restaurant
- Listener request
- New Menu
- Fantasmic!
- Restrooms
- Pooh Corner

Outro featuring music by Bowling For Soup “Friends Chicks Guitars” – (music from music.mevio.com; Music Alley)

Feel free to listen to our "Parkcast" here or download the mp3 directly to listen. Alternately, you can subscribe to our podcast's RSS feed or listen and subscribe to us through iTunes. If you do listen to us through iTunes we'd love to have you leave us a rating and some feedback - we'd really appreciate it.

Hope you enjoy!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

"Almost" Wordless Wednesday: Park Randomness

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

DitP "Ultra-Generic" Perspective: Star Tours 2.0

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Star Tours: The Adventure Continues Disneyland Commerical

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Days In The ParkCast - Episode 3