NorthernCalMom
Compulsive Touring Planner
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2012
Thank you, Andrew, for clarifying.
My husband, my two daughters (11 & 13 yrs old), and I live in Northern California and make it to Anaheim once a year, usually in August. All of us have different preferences as to what to do in the parks, so a big part of our travel preparation is figuring out how to juggle these individual needs. SWGE seems to be one of the rare occasions of an attraction all of us are excited about. We don’t look at the land’s individual elements as “attractions” or “experiences” but consider the land itself both attraction and experience.
From what I gather from the trip reports here on the board, there is a good chance that this land will become one of our family favorites. We’ll see this summer, when we visit it, if it holds up to the hype.
Neither of us is into shopping or spending hundreds of dollars on building droids or a fancy light saber (in fact, we used instructions on the Internet and our creativity to make or own, truly one-of-a-kind lightsabers from PVC pipes and tape at home a while ago for an itty-bitty fraction of that).
All of us are, however, really excited about the theming and artistry of SWGE that we’ve seen on pictures, and we can’t wait to see the land for real!
For most of my youth (I was born 1966, so I was 11, when “A New Hope” came out) I didn’t care much about Star Wars but was more of a Trekkie. In the end, my husband’s passion for the original Star Wars trilogy proved contagious, and by now both girls have gotten into the movies, too. The little one was Leia a few Halloween’s ago, and one of the older one’s Halloween costumes in another year was Rey. They are both likely to enjoy the many different details the land has to offer and to appreciate the level of thought that went into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if SWGE—crowds or not—will make it onto our to-do list for many years to come.
I wouldn’t consider us crazy “super-fans,” but we appreciate the movies’ storytelling and imagination. Yes, there is dirt and grime, but there is also gritty determination, passionate hope, and the conviction that doing what’s right against all odds is a worthwhile endeavor. So, to me the Star Wars stories are not dystopian at all, the opposite actually.
To me, Disneyland has never been about thrill rides. The average Six Flags has far more of those. To me the real treasure is the level of artistry and craftsmanship that goes into each and every detail of anything in the parks. There is something amazing, a special kind of magic that happens when some of the most talented people on this planet come together to conceive and build something special, and neither greedy suits nor overwhelming crowds have so far managed to spoil my joy in watching this and being part of it. It seems to me that, under all the hype and the sounds of the cash registers singing their merry song, this new land, at least to a point, celebrates and embodies that.
We’ll keep dealing with the masses (and the heat) during future trips as we’ve done for more than a decade: by doing our research ahead of time to understand the crowd patterns, figuring those patterns into our planning, being willing to get up crazy early and to not get too hung up on our expectations. It works for us, and it (mostly) allows us to get a great deal done, while still enjoying the inimitable energy of a special place bursting at its seams with energy and people, many of whom are just as excited about being there as we are. This is true for the rest of the parks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true in the new land as well.
Since we always travel to Disneyland in the middle of summer, we are used to crazy crowds. I don’t trust any Disney executive, who claims that he or she wants to work towards thinning the crowds (or moving them through more efficiently). As long as people are willing to pay more and more for increasingly crowded parks, I don’t think streamlining those crowds and minimizing wait times is anywhere close to the top of those execs’ lists of priorities. If people complain about it and then still come back for more, as you and I do, putting too many resources into fixing this unfortunately wouldn’t make much good business sense. People cope, and plenty of money is being made... Ka-Ching!!
I would of course love it, if those working on the direction the parks will take prove the cynical part of me that thinks that way wrong, but I won’t hold my breath... To me, that level of corporate greed takes nothing away, though, from the amazing level of creativity and tenaciousness on the drawing board, during construction, and in the cast members’ finally working hard to make this place come to life!
My husband, my two daughters (11 & 13 yrs old), and I live in Northern California and make it to Anaheim once a year, usually in August. All of us have different preferences as to what to do in the parks, so a big part of our travel preparation is figuring out how to juggle these individual needs. SWGE seems to be one of the rare occasions of an attraction all of us are excited about. We don’t look at the land’s individual elements as “attractions” or “experiences” but consider the land itself both attraction and experience.
From what I gather from the trip reports here on the board, there is a good chance that this land will become one of our family favorites. We’ll see this summer, when we visit it, if it holds up to the hype.
Neither of us is into shopping or spending hundreds of dollars on building droids or a fancy light saber (in fact, we used instructions on the Internet and our creativity to make or own, truly one-of-a-kind lightsabers from PVC pipes and tape at home a while ago for an itty-bitty fraction of that).
All of us are, however, really excited about the theming and artistry of SWGE that we’ve seen on pictures, and we can’t wait to see the land for real!
For most of my youth (I was born 1966, so I was 11, when “A New Hope” came out) I didn’t care much about Star Wars but was more of a Trekkie. In the end, my husband’s passion for the original Star Wars trilogy proved contagious, and by now both girls have gotten into the movies, too. The little one was Leia a few Halloween’s ago, and one of the older one’s Halloween costumes in another year was Rey. They are both likely to enjoy the many different details the land has to offer and to appreciate the level of thought that went into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if SWGE—crowds or not—will make it onto our to-do list for many years to come.
I wouldn’t consider us crazy “super-fans,” but we appreciate the movies’ storytelling and imagination. Yes, there is dirt and grime, but there is also gritty determination, passionate hope, and the conviction that doing what’s right against all odds is a worthwhile endeavor. So, to me the Star Wars stories are not dystopian at all, the opposite actually.
To me, Disneyland has never been about thrill rides. The average Six Flags has far more of those. To me the real treasure is the level of artistry and craftsmanship that goes into each and every detail of anything in the parks. There is something amazing, a special kind of magic that happens when some of the most talented people on this planet come together to conceive and build something special, and neither greedy suits nor overwhelming crowds have so far managed to spoil my joy in watching this and being part of it. It seems to me that, under all the hype and the sounds of the cash registers singing their merry song, this new land, at least to a point, celebrates and embodies that.
We’ll keep dealing with the masses (and the heat) during future trips as we’ve done for more than a decade: by doing our research ahead of time to understand the crowd patterns, figuring those patterns into our planning, being willing to get up crazy early and to not get too hung up on our expectations. It works for us, and it (mostly) allows us to get a great deal done, while still enjoying the inimitable energy of a special place bursting at its seams with energy and people, many of whom are just as excited about being there as we are. This is true for the rest of the parks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true in the new land as well.
Since we always travel to Disneyland in the middle of summer, we are used to crazy crowds. I don’t trust any Disney executive, who claims that he or she wants to work towards thinning the crowds (or moving them through more efficiently). As long as people are willing to pay more and more for increasingly crowded parks, I don’t think streamlining those crowds and minimizing wait times is anywhere close to the top of those execs’ lists of priorities. If people complain about it and then still come back for more, as you and I do, putting too many resources into fixing this unfortunately wouldn’t make much good business sense. People cope, and plenty of money is being made... Ka-Ching!!
I would of course love it, if those working on the direction the parks will take prove the cynical part of me that thinks that way wrong, but I won’t hold my breath... To me, that level of corporate greed takes nothing away, though, from the amazing level of creativity and tenaciousness on the drawing board, during construction, and in the cast members’ finally working hard to make this place come to life!
