A counter-arguement to SWGE will be crowded for years...

Liquidice

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 10, 2019
Thought this was a really interesting article talking about how SWGE won't be super crowded as soon as a few months after opening ...

https://attractionsmagazine.com/star-wars-galaxys-edge-crowds/

It supports the argument with photos of Wizarding World, Diagon Alley and Pandora months after opening and with size comparisons between SWGE, Wizarding World, Diagon Alley and Pandora ... essentially, if you subtract ride area, SWGE's walkable space is almost larger than Wizarding world, Diagon Alley and Pandora combined. It is pretty cool to see the size comparisons!

I for one will be going to WDW in January 2020 specifically for SWGE so I'm hoping the crowds die down a bit by then. Hopefully Fastpass+'s will be available by then too (and hopefully still free!).
 
I hope you are right because we are going in January 2020 as well.
 
I hope to be going in early December of this year, I'm hoping it's not horrible. I'm assuming it will depend on if the second half of SWGE is open or not.
 
I hope to be going in early December of this year, I'm hoping it's not horrible. I'm assuming it will depend on if the second half of SWGE is open or not.
The whole land will open August 29th. Just Rise of the Resistance will be closed.
 


January 2020 for us too. I'm glad we're not going this Fall. I can't wait to read reports from people going in the first few months.
 
We went to Universal Orlando for the first time about 6 months after Diagon Alley opened in March 2015. Hogsmeade and Forbidden Journey weren’t terrible. Diagon Alley and Gringotts were worse. However, I don’t think you can compare Diagon Alley to SWGE, because Hogsmeade had already been open for about 4 years when Diagon Alley opened. Hogsmeade opening is a better comparison. But there are a lot more Star Wars fans than Harry Potter due to the number of generations exposed to Star Wars vs Harry Potter. I think there are at least 4 generations that have grown up with Star Wars. Harry Potter mostly started with the Millenials but may have hit the very tail end of Gen X.
 
It will definitely be interesting to see if SW ends up being different than the other recents like Pandora and Harry Potter. I am hoping that despite the demand, that time of year may play a role and hoping January will be a lower volume month, but who knows!

I think the one thing that SW has going for it is that Galaxy's Edge is a much bigger land than Pandora, Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley are. So even with the extra popularity, the land itself has more square footage to hold more people. I don't doubt that the lines for the rides will be extremely long, another reason I am hoping for FP+ to be available by the time we go in January. Either that or hoping that EMH will allow for slightly shorter lines in the morning or evening.

Depending on when RoTR opens in WDW, it could also play a major factor in crowds. "Later this year" could be December 31st, 2019 :)
 


I’m going roughly a month after SWGE opens and while I’m expecting it to be more crowded than usual I don’t think it will be shoulder to shoulder. Smugglers Run is gonna be a long wait but that’s expected
 
I’m going roughly a month after SWGE opens and while I’m expecting it to be more crowded than usual I don’t think it will be shoulder to shoulder. Smugglers Run is gonna be a long wait but that’s expected

Would love to hear back after your trip how crowded it is!
 
While the land itself might thin out after a few months and actually no longer be shoulder to shoulder, my main reason to visit would be for the attractions. And here's a key quote from the article posted:

"Yes, the wait times continue to average around two to three and a half hours for the Avatar Flight of Passage attraction."

This is nearly 2 years after Pandora opened......

Simply put, I'm not waiting 2-3.5 hours for an attraction. Times 2 attractions and that could be upwards of your entire day at the park in line.

I won't go until I can feasibly get on the attractions in an hour or less. Be it through Fast Passes (that are actually possible to get) or if/when the attractions lower down to those kinds of wait times.
 
While the land itself might thin out after a few months and actually no longer be shoulder to shoulder, my main reason to visit would be for the attractions. And here's a key quote from the article posted:

"Yes, the wait times continue to average around two to three and a half hours for the Avatar Flight of Passage attraction."

This is nearly 2 years after Pandora opened......

Simply put, I'm not waiting 2-3.5 hours for an attraction. Times 2 attractions and that could be upwards of your entire day at the park in line.

I won't go until I can feasibly get on the attractions in an hour or less. Be it through Fast Passes (that are actually possible to get) or if/when the attractions lower down to those kinds of wait times.

Well, if FP+ is available that would considerably lower the wait time if you can get one (and your chances should be better if you're staying at a Disney resort). When I was last in Disney World in May 2018, we got FP+ for both FoP and the Navi River ride (on separate days). There is also Extra Magic Hours which should have reduced times. I know when we went for Extra Magic Hours to Animal Kingdom in May 2018, the line time was less than an hour for FoP (at first) and Navi River Ride was a walk on with less than a 5 minute wait time (we rode it twice back to back during Extra Magic Hours with no waits both times). Disney confirmed EMH would be available for Hollywood Studios and SWGE would be part of EMH.

For January 2020 when we'll be there next - my thought is if FP+ isn't available, we would get to HS early on an EMH day and first thing, hit up one of the rides. Then if hopefully EMH is available another day, we'd do the same for the other ride. If the entire area isn't super busy, then I could walk around, try some of the food / drinks - and maybe get into the build your own lightsaber store.
 
Well, if FP+ is available that would considerably lower the wait time if you can get one (and your chances should be better if you're staying at a Disney resort). When I was last in Disney World in May 2018, we got FP+ for both FoP and the Navi River ride (on separate days). There is also Extra Magic Hours which should have reduced times. I know when we went for Extra Magic Hours to Animal Kingdom in May 2018, the line time was less than an hour for FoP (at first) and Navi River Ride was a walk on with less than a 5 minute wait time (we rode it twice back to back during Extra Magic Hours with no waits both times). Disney confirmed EMH would be available for Hollywood Studios and SWGE would be part of EMH.

For January 2020 when we'll be there next - my thought is if FP+ isn't available, we would get to HS early on an EMH day and first thing, hit up one of the rides. Then if hopefully EMH is available another day, we'd do the same for the other ride. If the entire area isn't super busy, then I could walk around, try some of the food / drinks - and maybe get into the build your own lightsaber store.

That's still a lot of "Ifs" to see how it plays out. I'll probably wait at least a half year to a year to see how things go before I consider going.
 
It will be interesting to see how it all works at DL. While Disney is dong some things differently in DL then WDW, a lot of the crowd control appears to be similar. Just no "reservations" at WDW for the first month. I wonder as we get closer to SWGE opening at WDW, if that will change.
 
We have had our October 1st trip booked for over a year now and when we found out that this new land would open up only 5 weeks before our trip - I'm not even going to lie - we were like "ughhhhh". We had planned to skip WDW entirely next year due to the SWGE crowds and now, we're going to be right smack in the middle of it! But hey, any day at Disney is better than a day anywhere else!! :darth::chewy:
 
We have had our October 1st trip booked for over a year now and when we found out that this new land would open up only 5 weeks before our trip - I'm not even going to lie - we were like "ughhhhh". We had planned to skip WDW entirely next year due to the SWGE crowds and now, we're going to be right smack in the middle of it! But hey, any day at Disney is better than a day anywhere else!! :darth::chewy:

Our thoughts exactly. We are going toward the end of the month and were happy to be there before it opened and miss the mobs. If we were lucky, maybe get in on a DVC or AP sneak peak.
We're still going and will just be expecting larger crowds, but it still will be fun.
 
Well look at it this way. The crowds will probably be a bit lighter but still heavy but you will have this site to show what areas are worth and what areas are not worth your time. We stay for about 12 days a trip and the girls are telling me to schedule 3 days at HS with one full day at Star Wars.
 
I won't go until I can feasibly get on the attractions in an hour or less. Be it through Fast Passes (that are actually possible to get) or if/when the attractions lower down to those kinds of wait times.

When that time you speak of above comes, and I'm sure it will within the next decade, it will be at the expense of foregoing riding other newer attractions that will be all the rage at that time.
 
When that time you speak of above comes, and I'm sure it will within the next decade, it will be at the expense of foregoing riding other newer attractions that will be all the rage at that time.

Not if Disney institutes a paid fast pass system like other parks have.
 

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