We just got back from our first Battu visit and just in case anyone is still interested in other people's reviews/impressions ...
I am a really big Star Wars fan ... not massive enough to know everything in cannon, but a vested fan and really looking forward to seeing this land.
And unfortunately, I was underwhelmed.
Perhaps I had built it up too much, but there was just something off or missing that I can't quite put my finger on.
We started with a ride on the Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run. I had purposely avoided details about the ride itself, but knew about the queue and how we would be assigned jobs, etc. Our group of 3 was paired with a mom and two littles (maybe 4 or 5) and none of us had done the ride before. We got in, it asked us to test a button and then Hondo came on the screen and started to talking about how the Falcon was broken, he talked to Chewie about it, they argued a bit, they told us it still was not working properly and to wait. A few second later, a CM popped in and "wasn't that great? Do you want to ride again?"
I was so confused. Was this the ride? Was that it? None of us had ridden before, so none of us knew.
I told him I didn't think anything had happened and he just repeated "Do you want to ride again?" He hustled us out into a hallway with three other teams, who were just as confused. Then they moved us all back into the ship's bridge/waiting area with other teams. We were given new color team cards and waited to be called again.
This time it worked as expected and we did our run. I see what people mean about hitting the engineer button and watching out the front. It is not easy to do both and not a great experience. My son was a pilot and he said took him a minute to figure it out because he had to pull the lever down to make the ship go up and vice versa. I feel like you need to ride this one a couple times to get a full quality experience. Our first - and only - time was just a ball of confusion.
Speaking of confusion, we had our Oga's reservation and entered the cantina about on time. The hostess led us to the bar, where were we stacked two deep with a group still in front of us at the bar. She told us we could move up to the bar when they finished. Well, they ordered a second drink, so we were just standing between the bar and a table not sure what to do. The bartender asked us what we wanted, and we ordered, then he said there was some space farther down, so we headed over there. Turns out, though, that group had just moved from the bar to a standing table when another group left the standing table (like you would do in a normal bar) but then the hostess came over and told them they couldn't move like that and had to go back to bar so we all squished in. My husband and 11 year old son (who I didn't think could be at the bar itself) were more than ready to go - uncomfortable and didn't like their drinks. I was trying to make the best of it, but agree it was not ideal.
The shops were cute, the Ronto roaster was tasty ... but overall, I'm not dying to go back. And I really like Star Wars.
It was fun and I liked the theming ... the land itself looks great and feels very "in the SW universe" but there was just something missing and I cannot figure out what it is.
Not a popular opinion, I know, but that's my honest review.
