There was a time years ago in which I would go to Disneyland two or more times in a month and often for no reason at all. Often, just the act of getting out of the house was incentive enough to trek from The Valley down to Anaheim for the day. I was never one of those people who would drive for two hours just to have lunch, but I was there a lot.
In 2007, I moved out of Los Angeles County to Humboldt County 700 miles away. Since then, I haven't had an Annual Pass and I've only been to Disneyland once in that time. Three years ago. Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure have made a lot of restorations in that time! The new Main Street in DCA is beautiful, their trolley cars are adorable, the "World of Color" show is fantastic and Cars Land is pretty damn awesome.
Despite all this, there was one specific thing I couldn't wait to see: the new Star Tours. Before it had even been announced that Disney was going to acquire Lucas Films, I was working on a Star Wars skirt to wear to Disneyland with my R2 in love shirt and my Yoda training backpack. All I wanted to do was show my excitement for the renovations to an already great ride. What this outfit allowed was for Disneyland cast members to strike up conversations with me about the acquisition and what this will mean for the future of Star Wars. Even Minnie Mouse wanted to chat about this! ...after we spun around a few times to make our skirts spin.
Star Tours used to be one of the rides in the park that you went on when you were tired of waiting in lines and you just wanted to walk onto something. For the most part, the only reason people go deep into the heart of Tomorrowland (if they don't have kids who like Autopia) is to ride Space Mountain. I was at Disneyland on a Monday in November and there was a twenty minute wait for Star Tours. No, this isn't a particularly long wait if you consider that It's A Small World usually has at least an hour wait. However, considering that no one has waited in line for Star Tours in years, this is significant.
The newly renovated Star Tours opened during the summer of 2011. The new version features eight distinctly different adventures, C3P0 as the pilot, a new queue entertainment sequence and 3D effects. If I had my way, the park would have been open until midnight while I was visiting and I would have gotten to see all eight adventures and 3D effects would not have nauseated us. But the reality is that the 3D effects, while making the ride much more realistic, did nothing to help with the motion sickness. On our journey, C3P0 accidentally took our crew to the ice planet of Hoth where we crashed around snow dunes, fell into deep caverns and narrowly avoided being stomped upon by AT-ATs! And then zoom! Off to face off with Darth Vader and thousands of Storm Troopers inside the Death Star! Oh it was so exciting!
While I will always miss the old Star Tours and long for the pre-3D days, I am very pleased with the way they renovated the ride. I'm now very curious to know how long the Disney/Lucas deal has been in negotiations and if the unannounced merger had anything to do with the decision to to give the ride a facelift. You know, it could just be a total coincidence but I like to think the two are related.
So if you're at Disneyland and wondering if it is worth the wait, I'll tell you that it absolutely is. Go see what new adventures Star Tours will take you on and then come tell me about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment