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Star Tours – The Adventures Continue

• Replay Star Tours – The Adventures Continue

• 40in (102cm) or taller
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Explore a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Board your Starspeeder 1000 and prepare for take off! When a series of mishaps unwittingly causes your starship to launch too soon, protocol droid C-3PO takes the controls.

Suddenly, the ship is intercepted by Imperial—or First Order—forces searching for a Rebel spy. To avoid capture, you’ll embark on a thrilling, unpredictable flight that rockets you to the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Featuring a flight simulator, digital 3D video, Audio-Animatronics characters and “in-cockpit” special effects and music, this attraction immerses you in the Star Wars mythology for an unforgettable intergalactic adventure.

Will your starspeeder elude capture and make it back to the base? May the Force be with you—always.

Featuring Favorite Star Wars Characters

Always a new adventure.

Find yourself in a unique story again and again—including one inspired by Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Anytime you ride, you might fly into the middle of a furious battle on Crait, dodge blaster fire from TIE fighters on Jakku, swoop into the dreaded Death Star or dive deep under the oceans of Naboo. 

Plus, to celebrate Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , Star Tours now features an all-new destination from the movie—the ocean moon of Kef Bir.”

Because the many story twists are random, you never know where you’ll go or who you may encounter along the way! 

©Disney/Lucasfilm Ltd.

Know Before You Go

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Related Activities

Star wars : galaxy’s edge — new, even more magic – as you wish, more star wars, earn the achievement, get the pin, safety, accessibility and guest policies, times for star tours – the adventures continue.

Star Tours – The Adventures Continue

• Replay Star Tours – The Adventures Continue

• 40in (102cm) or taller
• Small Drops

Explore a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Board your Starspeeder 1000 and prepare for takeoff! When a series of mishaps unwittingly causes your starship to launch too soon, protocol droid C-3PO takes the controls.

Suddenly, the ship is intercepted by Imperial—or First Order—forces searching for a Rebel spy. To avoid capture, you’ll embark on a thrilling, unpredictable flight that rockets you to the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Featuring a flight simulator, digital 3D video, Audio-Animatronics characters and “in-cockpit” special effects and music, this attraction immerses you in the Star Wars mythology for an unforgettable intergalactic adventure.

Will your Starspeeder elude capture and make it back to the base? May the Force be with you—always.

Featuring Favorite Star Wars Characters

Always a new adventure.

Hold on tight as urgent transmissions from Ahsoka Tano, Cassian Andor, the Mandalorian and Grogu may soon be part of your next Starspeeder flight.

Starting April 5, 2024, embark on exciting new Star Wars adventures featuring characters and locations from some of your favorite Disney+ series. With these additions, you’ll have the opportunity to experience one of more than 250 storyline variations, including a visit to the planet Seatos from Ahsoka . Because the many story twists are random, you never know where you’ll go or who you may encounter along the way!

©Disney/Lucasfilm Ltd.

Know Before You Go

Play disney parks achievement available.

Related Activities

Star wars : galaxy’s edge, even more magic – as you wish, more star wars, earn the achievement, get the pin, safety, accessibility and guest policies, times for star tours – the adventures continue.

Complete Guide to Star Tours – The Adventures Continue at Hollywood Studios

May the force be with you on this thrilling 3D space flight to legendary destinations from the  Star Wars  saga.

You’ll take to the stars with C-3PO and R2-D2. But watch out for some familiar, less-than-friendly faces like Kylo Ren or Darth Vader!

In 2024, more stories and characters will be added to Star Tours at Hollywood Studios. Further details haven’t been announced just yet, but we will let you know about the changes as soon as we learn more.

Blast off with our complete guide to Star Tours – The Adventures Continue!

In this article

New Adventures Coming April 5, 2024

As announced at 2023 Destination D23, beginning April 5, Star Tours will include new locations and adventures from Ahsoka , Andor , and The Mandalorian .

Once added, the ride will have over 250 different adventure combinations for guest to experience.

Star Tours – The Adventures Continue Quick Facts

• Location:   Echo Lake , Hollywood Studios
• Height req : 40 inches
• Suitable for: Anybody 40″ or taller who can handle simulators and some rough movement.
• Attraction length: About 7 minutes
• Do we recommend? Yes, especially for Star Wars fans
• When to visit: 2nd hour
• Scheduled Refurbishments
• Tip(s): The exit area is a great Star Wars gift shop that has areas to build LEGO Star Wars characters and affordable light sabers. If this store seems too busy, you may have better luck at Once Upon a Toy store in Disney Springs where you can get the same items.
• Description: 3D flight simulator that takes guests through one of dozens of different Star Wars experiences including new characters and adventures from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker as well as Star Wars: The Last Jed i and Batuu, the home planet of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Star Tours – The Adventures Continue is located in Echo Lake near Backlot Express, a Quick Service restaurant.

Here is the location on the map:

• Download the PDF

How to Ride Star Tours – The Adventures Continue

Star Tours – The Adventures Continue has a Standby Line and a Lightning Lane. There is no  Single Rider Line .

Do I need to use Genie+ at Star Tours – The Adventures Continue?

Genie+ is available at Star Tours – The Adventures Continue however this wouldn’t be an early priority ride to grab those Genie+ reservations because availability rarely runs out.

This ride is also available for Early Entry to those who qualify.

Be sure to check out our  touring strategies for Hollywood Studios for more Genie+ advice.

Rider Switch/Child Swap

Since you must be 40″ to ride Star Tours – The Adventures Continue, this attraction does offer Rider Switch.

Rider Switch is Disney’s system that allows guests with small children to take turns riding bigger rides, while another person/people wait with the little one.

You can  learn more about Rider Switch  via our handy guide.

What to Expect when you Ride

The queue at Star Tours – The Adventures Continue is designed to resemble a spaceport terminal.

You’ll see posters advertising voyages to different planets with Star Tours and a large LCD screen informing riders of flight statuses and planetary weather forecasts.

You’ll also see some of your favorite characters like C-3PO and R2-D2, as well as Captain Rex from the original attraction. He occasionally has a power surge and delivers a line from the first Star Tours ride.

Two G2 droids process passengers’ “luggage” on a scanning system that reveals the contents to you as you wait in the queue.

You’ll then retrieve your 3-D “flight glasses” before you are directed by a flight agent to a gate where you’ll wait to board.

While you wait, you’ll be entertained by a pre-show on the screen above you. C-3PO has been assigned to maintenance on the StarSpeeder 1000 that you’re about to board and he gets trapped in the cockpit after the ship’s captain leaves!

Make sure you then pay attention to the safety instructions before you board.

Play Disney Parks  is available for Star Tours – The Adventures Continue. This free mobile app is only available for select attractions and allows guests to pass the time as they play games, trivia, and earn achievements along the way.

Ride Vehicles

The ride vehicles at Star Tours – The Adventures Continue are large 3D flight simulators.

When the door to your flight simulator opens, make your way inside to the last available seat. There are four rows in the simulator and each row contains 10 individual seats with armrests and a place to store your personal items below.

Make sure you buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

Accessibility Information

Guests who wish to ride Star Tours – The Adventures Continue must transfer from their ECV to a wheelchair and then to the ride vehicle.

Keep in mind, Disney has issued a warning that those who ride Star Tours – The Adventures Continue should be in good health and free from high blood pressure, heart, back, or neck problems. Expectant mothers should not ride.

Video and handheld captioning are available and those under 40″ are not allowed to ride.

Motion Sickness

Since Star Tours – The Adventures Continue is a 3D flight simulator, this ride is highly turbulent and includes sharp turns and sudden bumps which can aggravate motion sickness.

If you experience motion sickness in general, check out our  guide on motion sickness  for any Disney World attraction.

On the Ride

If you prefer to experience Star Tours – The Adventures Continue without spoilers, make sure you skip over this section!

Board your Starspeeder 1000 and prepare for takeoff! While you’re supposed to be heading off on a relaxing tour (hence Star Tours), a series of mishaps ends up launching you early, forcing C-3PO to take control.

But as soon as it appears that your trip is back on track, your ship is intercepted by Imperial — or First Order — forces searching for a Rebel spy. This spy is chosen from one of the guests on your ride vehicle— it could even be you!

To avoid capture and not give up your rebel passenger, you’ll be taken on the ride of a lifetime to the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Since the attraction features several different segments that are selected randomly, your ride will be different each time! You may end up facing off with First Order villain Kylo Ren, bounty hunter Boba Fett, Princess Leia, or Jedi Master Yoda.

Just a few of the scenes you may encounter is a narrow escape from a battle on the planet Crait, following Scout Troopers as they chase after Chewbacca and a Wookiee warrior on Kashyyk, or discovering the still-to-be-finished Death Star.

With so many story twists, you never know where you’ll go or who you may encounter on your Star Tour! 

May the Force be with you as you and your fellow passengers attempt to elude capture and make it back to the base on Star Tours – The Adventures Continue.

Is Star Tours – The Adventures Continue Kid-Friendly?

The height requirement for Star Tours – The Adventures Continue is 40″ and there can be some dark moments during the action so this ride is more for older kids, tweens, teens, and adults.

We have a list of things that may scare little ones at Disney World that you can check out, if you’d like.

Strollers are not allowed in most queues or theaters at Walt Disney World.

You’ll need to leave your stroller in the designated stroller parking area near the entrance to the queue at Star Tours – The Adventures Continue.

In 1986 Disney and George Lucas, the creator of  Star Wars , partnered on the Captain EO attraction, a 3-D musical film starring Michael Jackson at Disneyland. Since the partnership was so successful Disney then approached Lucas with the idea for Star Tours.

The original Star Tours ride opened on January 9, 1987 in California’s Disneyland. Two years later, Star Tours opened at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando, then known as Disney’s MGM Studios.

Set in the  Star Wars  universe, the motion simulator attraction sent guests on a tour to Endor, where they got caught in an altercation between the New Republic and an Imperial Remnant. The attraction featured Captain “Rex” RX-24 along with series regulars R2-D2 and C-3PO.

In 1998, Disney began planning to upgrade Star Tours as part of the release of the upcoming 1999 film  Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace , the first film of the new prequel trilogy.

This version would be in 3D and feature new flights. However, since more films for the franchise were in pre-production, officials chose to wait until 2003 when production began on  Revenge of the Sith  before remodeling Star Tours.

In April 2005, at  Star Wars  Celebration III, creator George Lucas confirmed that a revamp of Star Tours was in production. Then at the 2009 D23 Expo it was announced that Star Tours at Disneyland and Hollywood Studios would close in October 2010 for renovations.

The rides would reopen in May and June 2011 as Star Tours – The Adventures Continue.

On August 14, 2010, Hollywood Studios hosted the “Last Tour To Endor” event for Celebration V attendees. This extravaganza included an appearance by George Lucas, character appearances, Jedi Training Academy, Death Star Disco,  Raiders Of The Lost Jedi Temple of Doom: A Fan Film of Epic Proportions  live show, Hyperspace Hoopla, and  Symphony in the Stars  fireworks.

It also included the Star Tours shutdown ceremony which was a live show with C-3PO, R2-D2, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, as well as a few Stormtroopers, culminating in the official power-down of Star Tours.

The ride remained open until September 7, 2010, when the attraction held its “Final Flight to Endor” for D23 members.

In Orlando, Star Tours – The Adventures Continue began soft openings on May 14, 2011, with the official opening held at midnight on May 20, 2011.

Since its opening, the planet Jakku from  The Force Awakens  has been added to the attraction as well as the planet Crait from  The Last Jedi  and Batuu, from Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Finally, the ocean moon Kef Bir from  The Rise of Skywalker  was added on December 20, 2019, the film’s release date.

In 2023, Disney announced at Destination D23 that Ahoska would be added to Star Tours in spring 2024 .

Other Fun Details

• Star Tours – The Adventures Continue is inspired by all nine films of the Star Wars Skywalker saga: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Episode IV – A New Hope, Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, Empire VI – Return of the Jedi, Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, and Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker .
• There are Star Tours attractions at four different Disney Parks around the world: Disney World’s Hollywood Studios, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland in California.

• The exteriors of all four Star Tours attractions are different in their respective parks. The attraction in Florida is inspired by an Ewok village on the forest moon of Endor.
• Listen closely just before boarding your spaceship. You may hear a reference to THX1138. THX1138 was in all of the Star Wars movies because it was the name of George Lucas’ first movie, so he included it in all of the Star Wars films as a nod to his origin.
• Other boarding call announcements in the first area of the indoor wait queue gives names that are actually anagrams for people like  Star Wars  creator George Lucas (“Egroeg Sacul”) and Tom Morrow (“Mot Worrom”). When you reach the baggage check area, many different Disney attractions and franchises like Haunted Mansion ,  Toy Story, Aladdin, WALL-E, The Incredibles , and  Captain EO get cameos as G2-9T scans boarding IDs. 
• Paul Reubens, perhaps better known for his famous character, Pee Wee Herman, was actually the voice of Captain RX-24 (Rex) in the original Star Tours ride. He was the pilot talking as R2-D2 was being loaded. In the new version of the ride, you can see him in the droid maintenance section in the queue.

• Patrick Warburton, who is known for delivering the safety spiel before boarding Soarin’ at Epcot and for also voicing Kronk in Emperor’s New Groove , is the voice of security officer G2-4Ton Star Tours — The Adventures Continue. You can spot him as you pass through a series of security scanners.
• As part of the attraction, you’ll see scenes with archival footage of Princess Leia, played by Carrie Fisher. The dialogue, however, is re-recorded. Carrie Fisher collaborated with Imagineers to re-record her dialogue so that it fits the attraction seamlessly.
• While the original Star Tours ride didn’t open until 1989, Imagineers originally had an idea for a simulator ride themed to another Disney movie. The 1979 live-action film  The Black Hole  followed astronauts investigating a mysterious spaceship inside a black hole, but it was a commercial flop. This, combined with the high costs for the planned ride, led to the concept being scrapped. It wasn’t until Disney partnered with George Lucas and Lucasfilm in 1986, that the simulator idea was revisited, this time with Star Wars in mind.

Other Attractions in Echo Lake

• For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration
• Indiana Jones™ Epic Stunt Spectacular!
• Mickey Shorts Theater
• Star Tours – The Adventure Continues

Every New Star Wars Location And Character Added To Disney's Star Tours Ride

D isney's theme parks launched new experiences for their original "Star Wars" ride this week. Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is the second iteration of the attraction that originally opened at Disneyland Park in 1987. The first version of the ride was a consistent experience that put audiences inside a motion-simulated ship piloted by a droid voiced by Paul Reubens . The ride took park-goers right into the middle of a Death Star attack and was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. An ever-popular attraction, it was updated in May of 2011 to its current iteration. Instead of a single movie ride, new technology allowed Lucasfilm and Disney Imagineers to randomize the process. Now, with the updated system, your voyages could be randomized and it was easy for new updates to be made. 

As new movies in the Skywalker Saga were subsequently released, new locations were added to the ride. "The Force Awakens" brought Jakku to Star Tours, with "The Last Jedi" bringing Crait, and "The Rise of Skywalker" similarly adding Exegol and Kef Bir to the mix. However, there haven't been any new additions since the Skywalker Saga concluded in 2019 -- until now, that is.

Read more: The Best Star Wars Books Ever Written

Ahsoka And Her Crew

While Star Tours has always brought park-goers to many places, all of those destinations were previously taken directly from the nine films of the Skywalker Saga (and everything else came from the theatrically released "Star Wars" features only). With this most recent update, though, the world of "Star Wars" television and animation has finally come to life on Star Tours.

The only new location that's been added to Star Tours this time around is the planet Seatos, which was first seen in the "Ahsoka" television show. It's where Ahsoka was able to chase Morgan Elsbeth to a new galaxy with the help of the giant space whales known as the purrgil . As a passenger, it's thrilling to weave through the purrgil and get to see them up close, with Ahsoka on the screen calling out instructions to R2-D2 and C-3PO. In fact, the ride even includes a touching moment where Ahsoka tells Artoo it's nice to see him again, which got me a little choked up after 15 years of seeing them interact in the canon across various cartoons.

Seatos itself is a terrific addition and fits in completely with the aesthetic and adventure of the rest of the ride. Though it doesn't maintain the adherence to the Skywalker Saga as all of the previous additions did, let's hope this opens the door for locations from other movies like "Solo: A Star Wars Story," as well as "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."

But the new location isn't all that's been added.

New Holograms

One of the fun additions to Star Tours that came with this latest redesign is the ability to receive holographic messages from beloved characters across the "Star Wars" franchise. Princess Leia, Yoda, and Admiral Ackbar provided the first holographic messages for the ride, while Poe Dameron, BB-8, Maz Kanata, and Lando Calrissian were added later (with the original actors generally reprising their roles). This latest update expanded the holograms further into the realm of Disney+ shows, bringing us Cassian Andor, Din Djarin and Grogu, and Ahsoka Tano herself.

The holograms come at a point in the ride that allows the rider to catch their breath and engage them in the broader story. The holographic entities offer new coordinates for the riders of Star Tours to head to in order to help the Rebellion or Resistance in the fight against evil.

Each of the new additions has a different flavor. The Cassian Andor hologram (Diego Luna) has a grave urgency to it that feels very much in line with the tone of "Rogue One" and "Andor." I couldn't help but notice a tingle up my spine with the gravitas that Luna employed to deliver his holographic message for the ride.

Ahsoka was added as well, and she offers a ray of hope, along with cameos and a more lighthearted tone. In the background of Ahsoka's hologram, you can see Huyang -- David Tenant's character from "Ahsoka" and "The Clone Wars" -- as well as everyone's favorite murder droid, Chopper. He's such a fan favorite that when he appeared on the ride, the entire ship cheered in surprise and delight.

The last hologram that got added really pushed the 3D effects to their maximum and brought Din Djarin and Grogu to the ride. It's almost hard to remember what the Mandalorian was saying because your attention is fixed on Grogu, who levitates before eating a frog. In the end, he spat the frog out at the audience and it got everyone to flinch.

There was one more element added to the ride for this iteration, and it involves the very first scene. Ordinarily, Stormtroopers and either Darth Vader or Kylo Ren will appear to stop your transport. Sometimes, in the background, you'll see the Millennium Falcon taking off to make an escape, at which point Artoo guides the Starspeeder 1000 to chase it. The new intro replaces the Falcon with Ahsoka's T6 Jedi Shuttle from the "Ahsoka" television series. Seeing it in action was quite beautiful and it added one more immersive element to the ride.

The Future Of Star Tours

With this new batch of additions to Star Tours, it feels safe to assume we'll be getting more updates as more theatrical films are released. Might that include an older Rey from the New Jedi Order film? Or perhaps more of Din and Grogu to coincide with "Star Wars" returning to theaters with "The Mandalorian & Grogu" in 2026 ? It's easy to imagine the possibilities, all of which would serve to make Star Tours a fresh experience for as long as the ride itself is around.

The only complaint I might have is that the original intent of the first batch of Star Tours rides came with the conceit that the experiences could somehow be canon and that they all took place during a specific era of "Star Wars," placing them during the dark times chronicled in the first two "Star Wars" trilogies. That started to change a bit with the inclusion of the sequel movies, to the point where now some of the combined experiences just don't make sense. For example, I got a version of the ride that featured Ahsoka across its entirety, including her escaping, offering us a mission, and then finding her way to Seatos. It's simply unclear how it all fits together. The original release also sort of implied there would be locations from "The Mandalorian," "Andor," and "Ahsoka," as opposed to just "Ahsoka" (as thrilling as it is to visit Seatos).

Overall, though, those are minor quibbles. As a kid, Star Tours was the closest I thought I'd ever feel to taking a step into the "Star Wars" universe, and now I frequent it as often as I can to visit new corners of it.

Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is currently operating at Disneyland, Disney World's Hollywood Studios, and Disneyland Paris.

Read the original article on SlashFilm

All of the Star Tours – The Adventures Continue Combinations

Star Tours – The Adventures Continue at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the second incarnation of the park’s original Star Wars-based motion simulator and debuted in 2011. For this attraction, guests board a Starspeeder 1000 piloted by C-3PO and encounter a number of planets, characters, and scenes spanning the Skywalker Saga.

Part of the appeal of this attraction is that the planets, characters, and scenes you encounter on your ride are randomized! Where you go and who you’ll see could be completely different with each ride! But just what planets and characters from that galaxy far, far away can you expect to encounter during your flight?

Your ride begins as a passenger aboard a Starspeeder 1000 which takes off accidentally with C-3PO as the pilot even though he’s not the official pilot. The speeder is then stopped by one of the following villains looking for a Rebel Spy who happens to be a randomly selected guest!

Option #1: Darth Vader accompanied by Stormtroopers uses the Force to prevent your Starspeeder from escaping. Possible Option : Boba Fett may appear with Vader and the Stormtroopers.

Option #2: A probe droid latches on to your Starspeeder but is stopped by the Millennium Falcon. Possible Option : Either Han Solo or Rey will use the Falcon to help.

Option #3: Kylo Ren accompanied by First Order Stormtroopers attempts to prevent your Starspeeder’s escape.

Your Starspeeder 1000 exits hyperspace above one of the planets listed below and gets caught up in an action scene.

Option #1: Kashyyyk 

Your Starspeeder 1000 joins in on a speeder bike chase along with the Wookies. Chewbacca ends up hitting the speeder’s windshield!

Option #2: Hoth 

Your Starspeeder 1000 joins the attack on the AT-ATs from The Empire Strikes Back before skidding across the planet’s snowy surface and sliding down a mountain.

Option #3: Jakku

Your Starspeeder 1000 flies into the chase scene from The Force Awakens where First Order TIE Fighters are in pursuit of the Millennium Falcon. Either Finn or Rey makes an appearance on the inside screen. The speeder flies through the wreckage of a Star Destroyer and encounters scavengers.

Option #4: Kef Bir

The speeder flies past Endor to the watery moon of Kef Bir. Ocean waves push the speeder into the wreckage of the second Darth Star. A Dianoga makes an appearance!

Option #5: Tatooine

The Starspeeder 1000 joins a pod race!

Safely back in space, the action pauses for a moment and a Star Wars character appears in the form of a hologram.

Option #1 : BB-8 asks the Starspeeder 1000 for help in delivering a message.

Option #2 : Princess Leia says the Rebel Spy must be taken safely to a rendevous point and sends the coordinates to R2-D2.

Option #3 : Admiral Ackbar says the Rebel Spy must be taken safely to a rendevous point and sends the coordinates to R2-D2.

Option #4 : Yoda says the Rebel Spy must be taken safely to a rendevous point and sends the coordinates to R2-D2.

Option #5 : Poe Dameron asks the Starspeeder 1000 for help and transmits coordinates.

Option #6 : Maz Kanata appears and asks the Starspeeder 1000 to help the Resistance while caught in the middle of a combat situation.

Option #7 : Lando Calrissian is happy to see R2-D2 and C-3PO and asks the Starspeeder 1000 to help the Resistance.

After receiving the hologram, the speeder arrives at one of the following planets:

Option #1: Naboo

The speeder drops into a space battle over Naboo and then journeys to the planet’s surface for a dive into the ocean near Gungan city. While passing through the planet’s core, scary sea creatures from The Phantom Menace make an appearance. The speeder eventually ends up in a hangar. Possible Option : There are two ways the pit droids may react.

Option #2: Crait

The Starspeeder 1000 joins the battle on Crait from The Last Jedi , is pursued by Tie Fighters, and takes on All-Terrain MegaCaliber Sixes before jumping to hyperspace.

Option #3: Coruscant

The speeder contends with Buzz droids over the skies of Coruscant before encountering the planet’s traffic. Upon reaching a landing platform, either the Millennium Falcon or Starspeeders will be there.

Option #4: Exegol

Above the planet of Exegol, the Starspeeder tries to avoid being hit during the battle between the Resistance and the Final Order from The Rise of Skywalker . The speeder successfully helps take down a Star Destroyer.

Option #5: Geonosis

Upon arriving in the Geonosis asteroid belt, the speeder is pursued by Boba Fett’s Slave I ship. The speeder then is chased by Darth Vader and TIE pilots through the unfinished second Death Star. After another run-in with Boba Fett, the speeder jumps to hyperspace.

After jumping to hyperspace, the Starspeeder 1000 lands at one of two locations.

The Starspeeder 1000 arrives on Batuu and lands in Black Spire Outpost which guests can see in person at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Option #2: Spaceport THX1138 

The Starspeeder 1000 has a chaotic landing and startles several pit droids while the actual speeder pilot’s AC-38 approaches angrily.

Those are the possible scenes you could experience while riding Star Tours – The Adventures Continue!

Which of the following scenes are your favorites? Have you ever been chosen as the Rebel Spy? Let us know in the comments!

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Savannah Sanders

Savannah has been visiting Disney World since she was a year old and has gone back almost every year since. In the real world, she teaches high school history and government and enjoys writing about all things Disney. Savannah can be reached on Twitter @DisneyParkSavvy.

9 thoughts on “ All of the Star Tours – The Adventures Continue Combinations ”

I remember when STAR TOURS went thru its first refurb, and my son and I did an early EXTRA MAGIC HOURS at Hollywood studios, and our chief goal was to document how many different combinations we could see. We ran around from the exit back into the next show continuously for maybe 2-3 hours with effectively NO LINE until our stomachs couldn’t take it any more. One thing we did notice at the time was that when the rebel leader would come on, and say that the spy needed to be “safely escorted to (wherever)”, that some of those times the leader would distinctly specify the SEX of the spy (Like “SHE needs to be safely escorted to…”). We realized that TECHNICALLY, this somewhat DOUBLES the so-called ‘combinations of possible experiences’. My son and I both started paying attention to which leaders had this more specific text, and at exactly what point the cast members were pressing either the secret “SPY is MALE” or SPY is FEMALE” buttons.

Anyway, we soon learned that when YODA was the rebel leader who appeared inside the cabin on the screen. Then the spy was ALWAYS a female. Yoda always said “Accompanied SHE must be…”

I ALWAYS get the episode 1 ending and it PISSES me off! I want to see something else!

I’ve been on it twice and got the exact same each time. Still good.

I’ve also seen three more endings. Land with the Falcon, land with the Falcon with chewie outside it (both in 2018) and land on the rebel cruiser and be welcomed by a host of people clapping your efforts. One was dressed a bit like Mon mothma (March 2022).

Haven’t ridden star tours in years – do they really mix and match scenes across timeframes? Could you get Darth Vader in “The Escape” followed by the wreckage of the death star on planet #1? That would allow the 1000+ combos, but would make zero sense.

I wrote an exam question about this last summer for my probability and stats class!

For some of the options, there’s 2 different alternatives, so that brings it to 2100 unique combinations. That said, only Disney knows whether or not they’re keeping everything in the mix.

Am I doing the math right that, based on the above, there are 1,750 possible combinations? I figured stats-heavy Touring Plans would note that in the article and save me (and my poor math skills) the trouble! LOL

Which story you get definitely can color your rating. We rode last Jan and whatever story we got I was like meh. We rode again in Oct and it was Darth Vader and I enjoyed it a lot more. It was a completely different experience. At the very least way to go Disney for making it so unique each trip.

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Star Tours: Inside the Secret History of Disney’s Classic ‘Star Wars’ Ride

The Disney Parks attraction’s origin and evolution is an adventure all its own

Earlier in January, Star Tours turned 35.

The groundbreaking attraction has been a favorite of Disney Parks visitors the world over, and it would prove an influential part of the “Star Wars” mythology, even today. In Jon Favreau’s “The Book of Boba Fett” (streaming now on Disney+) a familiar-looking droid has been dealing cards in the cantina/casino hideout The Sanctuary in the Tatooine village of Mos Espa. The droid looks like Rex, the inexperienced pilot of the original version of Star Tours. Predictably, fans went nuts.

In fact, the influence of Star Tours has been felt strongly in the current era of “Star Wars” on both the big and small screen. Rex previously appeared in an episode of animated series “Star Wars: Rebels,” and the Star Tours spaceship the Starspeeder made blink-and-you’ll-miss-it background appearances in J.J. Abrams two sequel trilogy installments, while Rian Johnson admitted a looser influence over his installment, “The Last Jedi.” The sequence where the Millennium Falcon is careening through the crystalline caverns of Crait was inspired by the original ride film’s trip through a craggy comet.

But the story of how Star Tours was developed – how it came to be, what technology was employed, and the profound implications for both the Disney Parks and George Lucas’ Lucasfilm – might be even more thrilling and complex than the actual ride, which was heavily retrofitted in 2010 now goes by the name Star Tours: The Adventures Continue.

So, without further ado, lightspeed to Endor !

A Long Time Ago …

Long before there was any kind of official partnership, Lucasfilm and Disney Parks were linked, thanks mostly to some fortuitous timing. George Lucas’ “Star Wars” hit theaters on May 25, 1977, intoxicating audiences with its depiction of bold heroes, dastardly villains, fussy droids and otherworldly creatures. Those that saw it went back again and again but itched for something more . Thankfully for Southern California audiences, Space Mountain, an adaptation of an attraction that opened at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom two years earlier, opened at Disneyland two days after “Star Wars.” Folks would go see “Star Wars” and then book it to Disneyland for a chance to ride Space Mountain, nestled in the far corner of Tomorrowland. The line for the attraction snaked from that distant part of Tomorrowland all the way up Main Street, U.S.A. Even if their pairing was still a decade away, Lucasfilm and Disney Parks were already strongly bound by the Force.

But if the actual Lucasfilm/Disney enterprise had a point of origin (something that we are painfully aware that George Lucas just loves ), it was when Michael Eisner, then the head of Paramount, decided to green light “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” As Brian Jay Jones recounts in his biography “George Lucas: A Life,” Lucas’ financial terms for the movie were aggressive and mirrored those of the “Star Wars” sequels. Lucas would fund the movie himself and the studio would “distribute the completed film in exchange for profits.” While many of the studios passed right away, Warner Bros., who had clumsily distributed Lucas’ first film “THX-1138,” initially wanted to make it, but they were ultimately usurped by Paramount and Eisner.  “George came over to my house,” Eisner later said, “and he said, ‘Let’s make the best deal they’ve ever made in Hollywood.’”

On November 7, 1979, Paramount announced an agreement with Lucasfilm – they’d agreed to Lucas’ demands and would be making “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Eisner believed in George Lucas, even when other studios didn’t. This is baffling, after the astronomical success of “Star Wars” just two years earlier, but true. “Eisner was no dummy,” Jones says now. “Professionally, they spoke the same language. They got the cultural sensibilities.”

Eisner’s decision to help Lucas out on “Raiders of the Lost Ark” would have far reaching ramifications; for one, it would lead to Paramount releasing one of the most successful franchises (after Lucas’ own “Star Wars”) of all time. It would also ultimately assist in the rehabilitation of one of Hollywood’s most celebrated brands, which by the early 1980s had fallen into disrepair and disinterest.

Rebellion Reborn

In 1984, after greenmail attempts by corporate raiders, the Walt Disney Company got a fresh transfusion of new executive talent in the form of Michael Eisner, Frank Wells and (a few months later) Jeffrey Katzenberg. As CEO and Chairman of the Board, Eisner set his sights on strengthening the company’s bottom line and refreshing the brand, which in the nearly 20 years since Walt Disney had died, became a creaky dinosaur, badly out of step with modern audiences and accompanying cultural shifts. (The year before Eisner became CEO, the top grossing Disney movie was “Never Cry Wolf,” with a whopping $29.6 million .)

Similarly, the Disney Parks had been badly neglected despite accounting for nearly 70% of the company’s annual revenue, in part because of the wobbly, extremely over-budget opening of EPCOT Center in Florida, but more pressingly because Disney wasn’t producing anything that could be adapted into rides, shows, or attractions at the parks. While Katzenberg looked to return the studio’s feature animation unit to its former glory (it existed, in the early 1980s, as a partially mothballed group that was in constant danger of shuttering completely), Eisner looked to the parks. “You couldn’t walk through the theme parks and not recognize that they lacked contemporary development. But when Frank and I walked down Main Street for the first time, Frank turned to me and said, ‘There’s so much here. There’s so much potential,’” Eisner recounted in “The Imagineering Story” documentary on Disney+.

Imagineering had reached out to Lucas before Eisner had been installed. Marty Sklar had set up a meeting between Ron Miller, who was president and CEO of Disney before Eisner (he was also Walt’s son-in-law), and Imagineer Tony Baxter. Baxter was, and remains, a superstar of Walt Disney Imagineering, the kind of persona that Disney fanatics dress up as at Disney fan conventions. (Seriously.) At the time, Baxter wasn’t even 40 and had already contributed to the Disney portfolio in meaningful, some would argue profound, ways. He was behind the Journey into Imagination pavilion at EPCOT Center, which featured some truly next-level technological breakthroughs alongside a whimsical story about the power of creativity; and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland, a runaway train thrill ride that would become instantly beloved and replicated at Disney parks the world over. Miller was still stinging from the failure of “The Black Hole,” Disney’s bid to challenge “Star Wars,” but agreed with Baxter that “Disneyland did need an infusion of new IP for younger generations of visitors” (according to Baxter). Miller suggested that they meet with Lucas at Miller’s Silverado Ranch. In addition to Sklar and Miller, Imagineers Rick Rothschild and Gary Krisel were also at the meeting. “There was no lag time between those initial agreements at the Silverado Vineyard, the subsequent leaving of Ron Miller, and Michael and Frank’s arrival in September 1984,” Baxter said. (Another former Imagineer had told me that after that initial meeting, “those discussions went nowhere.”)

Interestingly, before Eisner was hired, Disney board members had originally turned to Lucas to run the entire company in the early 1980s. “It wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life,” said Howard Roffman, who was the chief operating officer of Lucasfilm, in The Cinema of George Lucas by Marcus Hearn. Instead, the board offered the job to Eisner, the man who had the guts and the creative ambition to back “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Now Eisner quietly reached out to Lucas about projects with the Disney Parks. Lucas had been a lifelong Disneyland fan (his family had first visited the park on July 19, 1955, two days after it had opened), making annual treks to the resort. And just as Eisner had gotten behind a lucrative deal (in Lucas’ favor) for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” he offered Lucas an equally eye-popping arrangement for his services: for every Lucas-originated project, the filmmaker would get $1 million per attraction per park per year. Lucas happily agreed. This arrangement even applied to later attractions Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril (a fairly off-the-shelf rollercoaster with the Indiana Jones name) located in Disneyland Paris, and Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull (essentially a clone of the Disneyland attraction) at Tokyo Disney Sea.

According to Baxter, during their first week at Disney, Eisner and Wells asked several Imagineers to come in on a Saturday and pitch “everything we had in conceptual design.” For Baxter, that meant he showed off the “Star Wars” project and what would later be known as Splash Mountain. (This is the infamous meeting where Eisner brought along his son Breck. Eisner told Baxter that Breck “loved theme parks” and Michael knew little about theme parks.) Both Star Tours and Splash Mountain were “given the green light” during Baxter’s presentation but according to Baxter executives were “disturbed” by the proposed 3-year production time designated for Star Tours. Famously, Eisner willed the teen-oriented dance club Videopolis into existence at Disneyland in a mere 100 days, partially due to architect Chris Carradine salvaging structural elements from the 1984 Olympics. He wanted things in the parks and he wanted them now .

With Lucas onboard for a Disney Parks “Star Wars” attraction, Imagineering began spit-balling ideas. At a National Fantasy Fan Club meeting in July 1988 legendary Imagineer David Mumford, whose notable work includes the Land pavilion at EPCOT Center and the Mermaid Lagoon section of Tokyo DisneySea, spoke of a cutting-edge “Star Wars” rollercoaster that was originally proposed. In this attraction, guests in the ride vehicle would vote on whether they would follow Yoda and become a Jedi or instead choose the path illuminated by the Emperor, embracing the dark side of the Force. Depending on that decision, you would rocket past show scenes featuring animatronics of your favorite characters (Boba Fett, Darth Vader and Jabba the Hutt on one path or Leia, Luke and Han Solo on the other). It was a wonderful idea, utilizing interactivity and good old-fashioned Imagineering magic, but Mumford said that it would take at least five years just to design the complex mechanism that would allow the ride to work. They needed something sooner.

Enter Mark Eades. Eades was a young Imagineer who had moved over from the Walt Disney Studios to work on EPCOT Center. In the days after EPCOT Center’s opening, when Imagineering’s ranks shrank and viable new projects became scarce, Eades was tasked with researching motion simulator technology. He visited army bases and tested out rudimentary versions designed for entertainment purposes (including “one where they basically stuck a camera on a rollercoaster”). At the end of his exploratory journey, he wrote a memo outlining the potential uses of the technology in the parks (he notes that, contrary to much reporting, the technology was never looked at for a “Black Hole” attraction, but rather “The Black Hole” was thought of as a potential overlay for the aging Mission to Mars). “We either a) treat it as a Tomorrowland attraction where we talk about how the pilots of tomorrow are being trained and you get to go train with them,” Eades said of the simulator technology. “Or there could be other stories if we’re willing to not admit that it’s a simulator. One of them could be in the ‘Star Wars’ universe.” At the end of the memo, he even suggested a possible narrative, should the ‘Star Wars’ idea actually be chosen: “Take a ride on the Millennium Falcon and when we get off we can go over to the Mos Eisley cantina.” This exact idea would be recirculated, 30 years later, at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

At the urging of Imagineer Randy Bright, Baxter went to Retifusion London, a test facility, to see if the flight simulator technology could successfully be used “for entertainment purposes.” (According to Baxter, Bright had stopped at the facility following an Abbey Road recording session for some new orchestral elements for EPCOT.) “I took several leaders from Disneyland operations & maintenance along on the trip to validate the practicality,” Baxter said. Imagineers might design the attractions, but operations and maintenance keep it running. Baxter and the small group seem to have watched the same “rollercoaster” ride film that Eades had also seen. “The simulator was limited in what it could mimic, but we were impressed enough to begin the project in earnest,” Baxter said. Disney made a deal to buy one of the simulators. It was housed in a custom-designed building in the parking lot of Imagineering’s Glendale headquarters.  

In Spite of ‘Captain EO’

While work progressed on Star Tours, Michael Jackson had approached the company about joining forces for a new project. Jackson loved Disneyland and Walt Disney World (later he would fashion a Disneyland-style theme park at his home, Neverland Ranch). Eisner and Katzenberg were both dazzled by big name stars and made the Jackson project a priority. At the same meeting where Splash Mountain and Star Tours were greenlit, the executives first brought up the possibility of a Jackson project (according to Baxter). “Imagineering was challenged to give Michael Jackson three concepts to choose,” Baxter said. In his memoir, Eisner describes the concept: “Our notion was to put him in an extended 3D music video.”

One pitch had the entertainer at Disneyland after dark, when various attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean would spring to life. (It was deemed too similar to his beloved “Thriller” music video.) Another version had Jackson inhabiting the role of a Peter Pan-type character who battled an ice queen, eventually melting her heart. And yet another, dubbed the “intergalactic ‘Music Man’” had him visiting a cold, distant planet and bringing music to the people, literally transforming them. Jackson liked the space idea but had a list of demands, including hiring either George Lucas or Steven Spielberg to help oversee what would ultimately become a cumbersome, costly, 17-minute 3D film (a “miracle of a movie” according to Whoopi Goldberg in the “Captain EO: Backstage” episode of “The Disney SundayMovie”). Spielberg was busy with “The Color Purple.” But Lucas had just signed on with Disney and was happy to oblige. At the very least, it would mean another $1 million per year per park.

Instead of helming the project himself, Lucas would install Francis Ford Coppola, one of his oldest friends, in the director’s chair. And Jones pointed out, not only would Lucas be spared the drudgery of daily production (“Return of the Jedi” had nearly killed him), handing Coppola the Disney project meant that he’d be “giving his mentor a much-needed job” (this after the middling response to Coppola’s costly “The Cotton Club”). Since it was technically a film, the production for what was now known as “Captain EO” (named by Coppola after Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn) was handled mostly by the film studio and therefore overseen by Katzenberg. Initially, at least, Imagineering was consulted (they’d be brought back later to design the in-theater effects and motion). “I’d talked to them about it. I’d done an estimate and said it was going to cost $17 million,” Eades said. “The studio people said it would cost $10 million. I said, ‘Make that movie.’ They spent a lot more than $10 million and they spent a lot more than I said it would cost.”

As it turns out, considerably more than what Eades had quoted. The production of “Captain EO” was long and difficult, with original actress Shelley Long dropping out of the role as the evil queen because of the extensive prosthetics (Anjelica Houston replaced her) and Coppola struggling with the complicated requirements of shooting in 3D. (Coppola would lean on Lucas for guidance when it came to the visual effects and creatures.) Behind schedule, the production went over-budget and had to cut corners. On an episode of the “I Was There Too” podcast, comedian Doug Benson talked about his time as an extra on the movie; the production was so over-budget that they couldn’t afford to pay actual dancers anymore. Benson had to stand in the background and gyrate. While most cite the $17 million budget as the final cost, Eades told TheWrap that the actual figure was more than $22.7 million – “and that was in real money in those days.” At the time, per minute, it was the most expensive movie ever produced. Imagineers, still hard at work on Star Tours, printed out custom memo templates that read Star Tours – In Spite of EO .

The Star Tours team was assembled, involving some of Imagineering’s key talents, led by Baxter, and including Eades. Bruce Gordon was the original producer on the project and had, according to Baxter, “as to what you could and could not do in programming events to physically simulate an experience.” “You cannot just write a story and then film it. It’s impossible for many kinetic options to dovetail into one another, due to the limitations of the hydraulic system,” Baxter said. “After we matched the capability of the simulator to a list of ‘Star Wars’ ‘stunts,’ their running order became a dictate of what capabilities were available after the completion of the preceding stunt. The most notable example was being caught in a tractor beam . This motionless backward tilt was the only capability that could be achieved after exhausting the hydraulics in the preceding ice cave sequence.” They had worked out the runtime of the ride: 4 minutes and 35 seconds. “This was the maximum time before an increasing nausea curve would begin ticking upwards,” Baxter said. The Imagineers also learned that they had to put in story pauses every 45 seconds or so, “to let riders regain their bearings.” He also notes that this fact was ignored when developing Body Wars, a sort of “Fantastic Voyage”-type experience that would open with the Wonders of Life Pavilion at EPCOT Center in 1989. Guests got so sick that several seconds of the ride film were removed after Body Wars opened.

For Star Tours, Imagineering had some key collaborators in the form of the wizards at Industrial Light & Magic, the groundbreaking effects house that Lucas had started for the first “Star Wars,” although getting them to grasp the concept of the project (which Eisner wanted to call Star Ride) was difficult. There was a meeting beween Imagineering and ILM, where George Lucas, ILM artists Dennis Muran and Dave Carson (who would serve as the “directors” for ILM), and Imagineering personnel like Tom Fitzgerald, Randy Bright, Marty Sklar and Eades, discussed the project. Eades remembered the scene: “Dennis starts talking to George, ‘We could cut to this angle, cut to that angle.’ And I’m a neophyte at the time. I’m not even 31 years old. I’m the new kid on the block and I’m listening to this and thinking, They’re wrong . I stopped at one point and actually said, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. You guys don’t understand. This isn’t a movie. This is a window like in a jet. We can’t cut.’ And I’m looking right at Dennis. ‘However long this is, it’s a continuous take.’ He sat back and looked at me and said, ‘Gee, George. He’s right.’”

The concept of the attraction, where Star Tours was one of several “commercial companies have started business to take people across the galaxy” following the events of “Return of the Jedi,” coalesced quickly and stayed mostly in place. “That way we can give people a ride going through a ‘Star Wars’ movie without giving them a ‘Star Wars’ movie,” Eades explained. Other things remained in flux. The voice of Captain RX-24 (“Rex”), originally described by Lucas as a frazzled Clone Wars veteran named “Crazy Harry,” remained elusive, until Eades (also working as the casting director for the project) saw “Flight of the Navigator.” “Flight of the Navigator” (released by Disney) featured a UFO voiced by Paul Reubens, who had yet to gain fame as Pee-Wee Herman. Eades knew that Reubens was the perfect voice and urged Tom Fitzgerald to see “Flight of the Navigator.” After watching the film, Fitzgerald agreed. Reubens was in production on the first season of what would become the fabled television series “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.” “We got ahold of [Reubens] on set and he agreed in principle, and we sent a recording to George and he said, ‘That’s it,’” Eades said.

At one point, Baxter and Muren went to Las Vegas to watch a demo of HD digital technology. They came back “pushing for the use of HD media rather than 70mm film.” “That decision was predicated on Sony being a sole source supplier of equipment. A safer decision was made to go with 70mm film rather than Sony HD, but it would set the variability of the ride experience back for 20 years,” Baxter said.

The troubled production of “Captain EO” actually gave the Star Tours team some cover. “They were so focused on ‘Captain EO’ and we were doing this thing and working with ILM and we were kind of ignored. Which was great for the team,” Eades said. “We had a budget and we stuck to the budget. We figured out how to get the most bang for our buck.” Somewhat amazingly, Eades explained: “We actually had Star Tours done first but they wanted to open ‘Captain EO’ and open Star Tours the next year. It was great because it gave the simulators some time to get some run time on them.”

After an equally arduous post-production, which saw Disney executives shocked at the number of crotch-thrusts Jackson squeezed into the choreographed dance numbers (amongst other woes), “Captain EO,” the tale of a singing, dancing space fighter (Jackson) and his band of puppet-y confederates, opened on Sept. 12, 1986 at EPCOT Center (then in desperate need of a starry attraction) and Sept. 18, 1986 at Disneyland. It had two new songs by the King of Pop that you could only hear in the movie (one of the songs would be reworked for “Bad”). An hour-long television special dedicated to its opening and featuring a laundry list of celebrities, including such 80s staples as Judge Reinhold (“I want to know how to dance leaving that theater”) and, um, OJ Simpson (with Nicole on his arm), aired nationally. Disneyland stayed open for 60 hours and ran the 3D film continuously just to meet demand. Disneyland was not only popular again; it was also hip .

Before Star Tours officially opened, Eades was joined by a clean-shaven Lucas, Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom (who told me that he came up with the famous Star Tours “chime”), and many of the Imagineers who had worked on the project, for a soft opening. Eades had a good feeling about it but an attraction like Star Tours was the first of its kind. Nobody knew how guests were going to react. “The first group came off and I heard this guy say, ‘Can you imagine how many miles of track Disneyland had to build under the park for this ride?’” Eades remembered. The guest thought that he was actually moving through space. Eades and the rest of the team knew they had a hit.

A few months after “Captain EO,” on Jan. 9, 1987, Star Tours would open at Disneyland. Lucas and Eisner were on hand, with Mickey and Minnie in their iconic silver space suits (with the rainbow on the chest), joined by C-3PO. Instead of a pair of oversized scissors, they used a lightsaber to cut the ceremonial ribbon. Just like “Captain EO,” they left the park open for 60 hours straight to meet demand. It was a smash out of the gate. But the success of Star Tours ultimately derailed an aspect of the attraction Eades had designed for the project: that every three years, the ride film would change. (That’s right, he said at some point you were actually supposed to get to Endor.)

In the early 1980s, Disneyland management and Imagineering had noticed an uptick in guests visiting multiple times a year, so Eades and his team had a refresh built into their proposal so that Star Tours would never get stale. “But because the damn ride was so popular, the parks said, ‘Why do you want to spend money, because you don’t need it,’” Eades said. ”And they were right.” Undoubtedly the decision to go with 70mm film also set the multiple-planets conceit back, as Baxter previously alluded to. It would be much trickier to switch out the ride film or the projection system. And he was right: it would be decades before that idea would be revisited.

Galactic Expansion

With two successful Lucas-led projects, both Disney and the filmmaker were emboldened. This was especially heartening for Eisner, who was about to open a risky new theme park in Florida dedicated to the behind-the-scenes aspects of the entertainment business.

Disney-MGM Studios, as it was then known, was designed to be many things: a working, world class film and television production facility (complete with a satellite animation studio designed with animators in mind), a theme park, and giant middle-finger to Universal Studios, which was planning to open its own multiday resort in Orlando. (Eisner, while still at Paramount, was supposedly in the meeting where Universal executives revealed the Florida project and by 1985, just a year after he assumed power at Disney, Eisner had begun work on what would eventually be Disney-MGM Studios.) The debut of Disney-MGM Studios would also serve as the opening salvo for an ambitious, 10-year effort to rejuvenate the Disney Parks brand and expand that brand worldwide. Eisner would later publicly refer to this initiative as the Disney Decade.

By the end of 1989, Star Tours would be open at Tokyo Disneyland and Disney-MGM Studios in slightly modified configurations. Instead of the Disneyland version, which took over a pre-existing attraction (Adventure Thru Innerspace) and was converted under the supervision of legendary Imagineer Tom Morris, the Disney World version was a blank slate. This new Star Tours was just around the corner from the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, also based on a Lucas property, which also opened in 1989. A more intricate façade was developed with a full-sized AT-AT walker (that at the time shot water from its moving turrets) and forested Ewok village and a show building that still maintained the “backlot” look of the rest of the park. It’s just an illusion, this new show building said, but what an illusion.

The Japanese version of Star Tours was even more ornate. As Kevin Rafferty recalls in his memoir “Magic Journeys,” he was tasked with Astrozone, a “unique-to-Tokyo Disneyland part of the Star Tours complex.” This new area was to include an “enclosed skyway bridge that connected Star Tours and a new two-level dine-in restaurant,” hosted by an adorable animatronic alien and eventually dubbed the Pan Galactic Pizza Port. In 1992, Star Tours would open, with a full-sized X-Wing, at the Euro Disney theme park (now known as Disneyland Paris). Fun needs no translation.

But the biggest change for the attraction would happen in late summer 2010, when both the Disneyland and Walt Disney World versions of Star Tours would shut down completely. Years of rumors persisted that the attraction would be shuttered and reopened, this time themed around the pod-racing sequence from 1999’s prequel film “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.” As it turned out, the plans were much more ambitious.

Instead of a single new theme, the ride would be re-conceived, with the idea that Eades, Baxter and the other Imagineers had concocted during the blue-sky phase of the attraction’s development. You wouldn’t just be going to one planet, you would be going to all of your favorite “Star Wars” planets, including Tatooine (hello pod-race!), the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, underneath the opulent planet of Naboo, and on the snowy planet of Hoth, made famous by the opening battle sequence from “The Empire Strikes Back.” Incredibly, you don’t visit Endor, the Ewok-filled planet that you were attempting to visit in the first iteration of the ride, despite the fact that early marketing materials suggested the forest moon would be part of the new version of the attraction.

This new Star Tours, now dubbed Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, allowed guests, thanks to a cutting-edge randomization feature, to visit many planets in the course of a single trip aboard your new Starspeeder. The new version of the ride featured additional in-theater effects and C-3PO as your new in-cabin pilot, as well, and the digital projection of the ride film could be enjoyed in 3D.

In 2011, Star Tours – The Adventures Continue opened at Disneyland and Walt Disney World (it would reach Tokyo Disneyland in 2013 and Disneyland Paris in 2017). Further randomization was added when planets and characters from the new “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, including Jakku and Kef Bir, were included. And in a full circle moment, there was a sequence now devoted to Crait from “The Last Jedi,” the planet that was inspired by the original version of Star Tours.

On Friday, May 20, 2011, there was an opening celebration at Walt Disney World for the new Star Tours – The Adventures Continue. The park that was once Disney-MGM Studios was now called Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but Star Tours was just as important to the park. Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger, who had succeeded Eisner, was there to inaugurate the new version of the attraction, as was Lucas. Darth Vader was on stage too, as was the creator of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” Dave Filoni, who would go on to shepherd “The Mandalorian.”

“Star Tours is a timeless adventure,” Iger said at the event. “Guests will be immersed in the Star Wars galaxy like never before.” He touted the “over 50” combinations that this new attraction would deliver, plus the fact that the Disneyland version would be open the following month. Lucas called the new attraction “amazing.” “It turned out better than we could ever imagine,” Lucas said. Lucas also cited the original plan to switch out the original ride film every few years. “This time we figured when we did it, we would give you all the reprogramming in one event,” Lucas said. He also referred to “secret cookies,” which were further randomizations (in one version you narrowly miss Jar Jar Binks who is seen swimming underneath Naboo, in another version you hit him dead on). These weren’t turned on until the “Force Awakens” additions in 2015.

After the event in Florida, Lucas and Iger convened to have lunch at the park’s Brown Derby restaurant. According to Iger, this is where he first floated an intriguing idea to Lucas – what if Disney bought Lucasfilm? Lucas listened. A few years later, he agreed. This conversation would lead to, amongst other things, the production of the sequel trilogy and the design and construction of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, a 14-acre land that would feature the Millennium Falcon simulator attraction Eades had dreamed up all those years ago, along with Rise of the Resistance, one of the most technologically innovative and immersive attractions in the history of Walt Disney Imagineering. There’s even a “Star Wars”-y cantina, which, just as Eades had imagined it, is a few steps from the Millennium Falcon.

That cantina’s DJ might seem familiar. It’s Rex from Star Tours, once again voiced by Paul Reubens. Wonder if he ever made it to Endor.   

Based on the Star Wars films, Star Tours is one of the most fun rides in Disneyland. The technology allows for 54 different story sequences, enough to keep riders coming back again and again.

The basic tale is simple: A bumbling droid pilot accidentally takes a bunch of space tourists down the wrong tunnel at takeoff, jumps to light speed and careens through the universe before getting things under control again. You'll run into characters from many of the Star Wars films and travel through more than a few of its locales, all in quick succession. It all passes so quickly that even a devoted fan might have to ride a dozen times to catch it all.

What You Need to Know About the Star Tours Ride at Disneyland

For most visitors, Star Tours is a must-do ride — or at least ride it if you have time.

• Location:  Star Tours is in Tomorrowland
• Rating:  ★★★★★
• Restrictions:  40 inches (102 cm). Regardless of height, children under age seven years must be accompanied by a person aged 14 years or older.
• Ride Time:  4.5 minutes
• Recommended for:  Families with teens and anyone who loves the Star Wars movies
• Fun Factor:  High. Star Tours is  one of the best rides at Disneyland . 
• Wait Factor:  High. Use a  Fastpass to shorten your time in line . The Fastpass ticket machines are across from the Star Tours entrance, near Buzz Lightyear
• Fear Factor:  Medium. Some scenes are exciting, but not too scary.
• Herky-Jerky Factor:  Medium to high. This star-chasing ride is smoother than when it first opened, but Disney still says it's not for anyone a neck or back trouble, heart problems or for expectant mothers. The motion simulator moves smoothly but simulates drops and rolls that will shake you around.
• Nausea Factor:  Medium to high. Take precautions or be prepared to spend part of the ride with your eyes closed. You can also ask a Cast Member to seat you in the middle, where there is less motion.
• Seating:  This ride is a small motion simulator room. It has several rows, and every seat has a seatbelt.
• Accessibility:  Contact a Cast Member at the entrance for boarding information. Guests have to transfer to the ride vehicle by themselves or with help from their companions. Some of the pre-show monitors display guest-activated captioning. Cast Members can help you with this, too. Service animals can't go on Star Tours.  More about visiting Disneyland in a wheelchair or ECV

How to Have More Fun

• There's  lots of simulated danger  on Star Tours, and  it can be noisy .
• If you wear prescription glasses , you can slip the 3D glasses over all but the largest frames.
• The 3D glasses come in one size only  and are too big for a small child’s face. A simple solution is just don't wear them. Most kids don’t seem to mind that things get a little blurry without them - and they won’t be startled or scared by things that come flying toward them in the 3-D effect. Or try perching the glasses on the child’s nose, tilt them forward and rest the earpieces on top of their head. 
• Rider swap is available. It's for two adults with a kid or kids who don't ride. They can wait just once and get on as soon as the first adult returns. Tell the Cast Member in the loading area if you want to use that option.

You can  see all the Disneyland rides at a glance on the Disneyland ride sheet .

While you're thinking about rides, you should also  download the essential Disneyland apps (they're all free!) and  get some proven tips to minimize your Disneyland wait time .

When you wait in line for Star Tours, you may hear an overhead speaker paging Egroeg Sacul, which is George Lucas spelled backward.

You may also hear an announcement to move landspeeder THX 1138, another reference to George Lucas: It was the name of his first film, the license plate number in "American Graffiti", and the call sign of a stormtrooper in "Star Wars: A New Hope."

The flight simulator used to create this ride is the same one used to train airplane pilots.

For a more in-depth look into Star Wars, check out Star Wars Launch Bay in Tomorrowland .

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Disneyland Season of the Force 2024 Review: New Star Tours Scene and More

Disneyland kicks off Season of the Force with a new Star Tours scene based off Ahsoka, a new Star Wars fireworks show, fun merch, food, and more.

• Star Tours adds a new scene set on the planet Seatos from the Ahsoka Disney+ series.
• Season of the Force introduces new and temporary food offerings across Disneyland, including the Wookiee Parfait and Bantha Burger.
• Fire of the Rising Moons fireworks show at Star Wars Galaxy's Edge offers a stunning visual experience and classic Star Wars music.

Speaking to media during a preview of Disneyland 's Season of the Force offerings, Disney Live Entertainment’s Executive Creative Director Michael Serna talked about Walt Disney’s desire to make Disneyland an evolving destination. While Disney couldn’t make any changes to his films once they were shipped off for printing, he could ensure that Disneyland stayed relevant as time went on. Season of the Force is yet another example of how Disneyland stays relevant for Star Wars fans, while also expanding its offerings to entice fans of all ages.

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Game Rant was able to experience a lot of what is available during Season of the Force, from the new Star Tours scene to the new food. The Season of the Force event ends June 2nd and while some of the components will go away then, others will become key elements of their lands/rides for the theme park’s future. For Star Wars fans, there is no doubt that what Disneyland has added is exciting, but even for regular guests there is a lot to enjoy as well.

Star Tours Gets Season of the Force Additions

Some of the additions for Season of the Force will be temporary, while others will become permanent fixtures of Disneyland from here on out. Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, for example, added a few new elements as part of Season of the Force, but those are here to stay.

The big addition for Star Tours is a new scene set on the planet Seatos, as seen in the Disney+ series Ahsoka . As one might expect, the Purrgil space whales are a key component of the scene, with the Star Tours vehicle helping Ahsoka fend off enemy ships while whipping between the Purrgil tentacles and avoiding being inhaled whole.

Seatos is a great addition to the Star Tours lineup that keeps the ride relevant as the live-action Star Wars library continues to expand. The twists, turns, and gimmicks are exhilarating without feeling like copies of existing Star Tours planets. There’s also a cool nod to Ahsoka’s T-6 1974 ship that I won’t spoil, but it’s a nice little button on the Seatos sequence.

Alongside the new Seatos scene, Star Tours added three new interstitial scenes featuring The Mandalorian and Grogu, Ahsoka, and Cassian Andor . Each Star Tours ride has a progression that starts with the ride escaping capture at the beginning, then visiting a classic Star Wars planet, having a Star Wars character appear to ask for help, jumping to another planet, and then landing/crashing at a final destination. Now Mando and Grogu, Ahsoka, and Cassian can show up as that character asking for help.

During our media preview day at Disneyland, we saw the Mandalorian and Grogu scene and the Ahsoka scene, and have since seen the Andor scene on a follow-up visit to the theme park. The Mandalorian scene is the real standout of the three, with Grogu stealing the show. It’s also features one of the best uses of 3D in all of Star Tours.

Disney says that the new content will gain priority for the foreseeable future, so guests can expect to see one of the interstitial scenes and visit Seatos during an upcoming visit to Disneyland. However, once the new components do fall into the rotation, Disney says that guests will now be able to experience 250 different combinations of scenes while riding Star Tours.

New Season of the Force Food

There are some new and returning food items scattered across Disneyland during Season of the Force that guests can try. Some are colorful and play on the bright palette of the alien worlds of Star Wars, while others, like the Wookiee Parfait, try to emulate the look of a popular character. There are also a few items that are Asian-inspired and have some slight Star Wars theming. The new and returning Season of the Force food items include:

• Fried Chicken Baos (Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo)
• Dewback Chili Noodles (Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo)
• Bantha Burger (Galactic Grill)
• Chorizo Loaded Fries (Galactic Grill)
• Wookiee Parfait (Galactic Grill)
• Watermelon Slush with Death Star Glow Cube (Galactic Grill)
• Granny Smith Apple Slush with Millennium Falcon Glow Cube
• Celto Slush (Kat Saka's Kettle)
• Toydaria Swirl (Milk Stand)
• Pasaana Punch (Ronto Roasters)
• Oga’s Obsession (Oga's Cantina)
• Fiery Mustafarian (Oga's Cantina)
• Silver Sea Martini (Oga's Cantina)
• Chandrilan Chalice (Oga's Cantina)
• Chandrilan Orb Glass (Oga's Cantina)

I tried the Bantha Burger during my media preview, compelled by the Pork Belly and the promise of Asian flavors. There’s a lot of interesting things in the Bantha Burger but the spicy slaw overpowers the rest of the dish. This is definitely one of the spiciest things I have ever tried at Disneyland, which is surprising for theme park food. The components elevate the burger above the level of a generic theme park burger, but that spice needs to be better managed to make sure the other elements come through.

New Fireworks Show at Star Wars Galaxy's Edge

It’s a well-kept secret that Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge offers a great view of the Disneyland fireworks, even if it doesn’t include some of the other accouterments like the Projections, Castle fireworks, and flying characters. Finally, Disneyland capitalizes on that alternate view, offering something different than just the same show at a new location. "Fire of the Rising Moons" is a new fireworks show that uses the same fireworks as the main Disneyland show (currently Wondrous Journeys).

With Black Spire Outpost as its foreground, Fire of the Rising Moons is a fireworks show set to the classic Star Wars music from throughout the IP’s many iterations. It’s not as synchronized as seeing the fireworks on Disneyland’s Main Street can be, but it’s a perfect show for those Star Wars die-hards. There’s something magical about hearing John Williams's iconic score and seeing a newly created lightsaber lift into the air, and Fire of the Rising Moons is going to help create a bunch of new fireworks memories for guests.

Sabine Wren Meet and Greet

Although Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge used to only offer meet and greets with characters that were alive within the Episode 7-9 timeline, Disneyland has bent its rules as of late, adding characters from some of the Disney+ shows like The Mandalorian and Grogu, Boba Fett , Fennec Shand, and Ahsoka. Sabine Wren is the latest to join the fold as a new meet and greet character during Season of the Force.

Disneyland once again nails it with Sabine’s design, giving her armor a lot of cool details and texture. Her bright purple hair ensures that she stands out in a crowd, and the Mandalorian helmet she carries offers a fun prop to snap photos of as well.

Galaxy’s Edge still gets the most attention for its rides, but the character meet and greets are another way that Batuu feels like a lived-in place. And with another fan-favorite character like Sabine wandering around, there is even more to see in the land.

Star Wars Jedi Fans Will Love the BDX Droids

The other cool meet and greet event that is rolling out with Season of the Force is an encounter with BDX Droids. Disney had been testing the BDX Droids last year at the park, but now they are making their official debut. Like a live version of BD-1 from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor , these little droids are another example of the power of Disney Imagineering as they waddle about in front of the Galaxy’s Edge crowds.

Disneyland has smartly included a BDX Droid trainer to help engage with guests and provide direction for the droids. Obviously, there is a Cast Member lurking with a remote control, but the BDX Droids are so cute and filled with personality that it’s easy to forget they aren’t actual robots.

Hyperspace Mountain is a Star Wars Makeover for the Classic Ride

Season of the Force also sees the return of Hyperspace Mountain, which is a Star Wars-themed overlay for Space Mountain. Basically, some of the space-y elements have been traded for zipping Tie Fighters and the music is classic Star Wars. Space Mountain is a thrill ride that works primarily because of its dark, star-filled background and music, so trading that for some Star Wars theming is a perfect marriage. Purists might prefer classic Space Mountain but Hyperspace Mountain is still a great time.

Season of the Force Seek and Find and New Merchandise

For those looking to get a little more out of the Season of the Force, there is a Seek and Find card available for free. Guests will explore various parts of the park looking for clues to decode a message and then earn a reward. According to a Cast Member, the reward will rotate out every two weeks, so frequent visitors should plan to play multiple times during the Season.

Season of the Force also brings some new merchandise with it, including two items that are simply incredible. The Jabba the Hutt popcorn bucket is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It includes a little Salacious Crumb to attach to the lanyard, and when you open it, the bucket triggers a Jabba laugh sound effect. On the first day of Season of the Force, lines for the bucket were consistently long, and let me just say it’s well worth it.

The other amazing piece of merch for Season of the Force is a Star Tours jacket that might seem hideous. But those who regularly visit the park and know the Star Tours cast member uniforms will be very tempted to pick this up. I know I was but the only sizes left were extra small by the time I got to the Star Traders store.

Season of the Force Final Thoughts

Overall, Season of the Force brings a packed slate of activities and additions to Disneyland that are sure to delight guests and Star Wars fans alike. A new scene in Star Tours is obviously the biggest talking point, but there is so much to see and do that you might need a full day just dedicated to the event to experience it all. And based on just my two days spent seeing it all, I can say that Season of the Force is another win for Disneyland.

Rosario Dawson stars as Ahsoka Tano in this Disney Plus Star Wars series that brings some of the franchise's most beloved characters from the animated world into live-action. The series, created by Dave Filoni, also stars Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla, and the late Ray Stevenson as Baylan Skoll. 

Will Disneyland get an Avatar land? It’s likely. Here’s what else may be in store

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With the city of Anaheim unanimously voting to pass DisneylandForward , the Disneyland Resort will be forever changed.

Twice in the last 69 years, Disneyland has been significantly transformed. Four years after the park opened in 1959, Disneyland added its monorail, the Matterhorn Bobsleds and a submarine ride and expanded Autopia. It was a message that would begin to fulfill Walt Disney’s promise that Disneyland would never be completed.

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More than that, however, it revealed that Disneyland would continue to look to the future. Disneyland in 1959 showed its guests possibilities — a transportation system in the monorail that could remake urban communities, a tease of the freeway system that would reshape travel and a glimpse at the sort of deep-sea excursions only a lucky few could witness. The Matterhorn, while inspired by the film “Third Man on the Mountain,” also was meant to be a transportive experience, to not only bring to Disneyland a new kind of thrill ride but give visitors a taste of international adventure.

Disneyland’s second reimagining came much later. In 2001 the Walt Disney Co. would open Disney California Adventure, the Grand Californian hotel and the Downtown Disney District. These additions would attempt to make Disneyland, the company’s original park, one that could, in theory, rival Florida’s Walt Disney World by becoming a resort that could demand multiday stays.

This expansion succeeded as well, but not overnight.

The original vision of Disney California Adventure proved to be lackluster, relying heavily on on-the-shelf rides and lacking emotion-driven experiences that take visitors out of their daily life. While the Grand Californian is a Craftsman-inspired triumph, Downtown Disney is in the midst of a transformation and is still attempting to outgrow its reputation as a home for chains and midtier eateries.

And now we’re entering a new era of possibilities, one that likely will look much different from the prior two. Modern Disney is centered on intellectual property — or IP, in corporate speak — rather than Walt-era idealism, and the most tantalizing prospects of DisneylandForward center on building around existing structures rather than erecting a new park.

With DisneylandForward, the company won the flexibility to redesign the resort. Zoning rules will be amended so that Disney can add new attractions alongside hotels on the west side of Disneyland Drive. These will, if they come to fruition, likely be extensions of Disneyland or Disney California Adventure rather than a third park. Additionally, a new shopping, dining and entertainment district can be created to the southeast on what is currently the Toy Story parking lot at Katella Avenue and Harbor Boulevard.

Company brass and the DisneylandForward materials have offered teases of what could be built. Most of these have centered on recent expansions at Disney’s international parks, such as the World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland or Zootopia at Shanghai Disney Resort. There’s been little ideological talk about the future of Disneyland, as the focus has centered squarely on popular properties and franchises rather than the resort’s status as a cultural hub and gathering space.

But DisneylandForward came with a pledge. The Walt Disney Co. has promised to spend a minimum of $1.9 billion on Disneyland attractions, lodging, entertainment, shopping and dining in the next 10 years. That money can go quickly, with modern attractions costing sometimes in the high six figures, but the Walt Disney Co. also is in the midst of doubling down on its theme parks. Disney has guaranteed to spend $60 billion over the next 10 years in its experiences division, with at least half of that total dedicated to parks and resorts, according to a recent SEC filing .

It’s safe to say that the next 10 years will shape Disneyland for decades to come. While there’s much to be revealed, there are, perhaps, some safe bets. Here are a few educated guesses as to what to expect with an expanded Disneyland in the near term.

Get ready for Pandora

DisneylandForward materials reference everything from “Tangled” to “Peter Pan” to “Tron” as possible experiences that could come to Anaheim. One word, however, is missing, and it’s one that’s been regularly referenced by Disney brass in recent weeks: “Avatar.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger mentioned it at a recent shareholder meeting, even sharing the “Avatar” concept art, which was referred to as “inspirational artwork.” Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Experiences, wrote in a blog post after the shareholder event that further news on Disneyland-related attractions such as the “Avatar” experience was tied to the approval of DisneylandForward.

“We are excited about the stories our guests could experience at Walt’s original theme park destination after approval of DisneylandForward — including the chance to experience all-new Avatar adventures with a visit to Pandora,” D’Amaro wrote . And last night in Anaheim, Disneyland Resort President Ken Potrock again teased “Avatar” at the DisneylandForward hearing and vote. Finally, one of Disney’s most respected theme park creatives even posted the “Avatar” concept art on Instagram , expressing the hope of sharing more on the project in the future.

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Consider a large-scale “Avatar”-inspired land all but a done deal, and the art shared for Disneyland isn’t an exact replica of Florida’s Pandora — The World of Avatar, which resides in that coast’s Animal Kingdom park. Now where to put it? Expect Pandora to be bound for Disney California Adventure. There’s been speculation that it could replace the area currently served by water ride Grizzly River Run or move into a largely vacant slot of Hollywood Land, but neither is ideal. The latter requires a rerouting of the monorail, and Grizzly River Run remains a popular attraction.

Here’s betting it’s positioned in one of the DCA expansion areas near the Pixar Place Hotel, as that would allow the company to give the James Cameron property a plethora of space, especially if Disney must hide a large show building behind an illusion of floating mountains.

Expect more hotel options

With Disneyland lacking the acreage of Florida’s Walt Disney World, hotel prices in Anaheim are at a premium. Rooms for the recently revamped Pixar Place Hotel — Anaheim’s “budget” option — can routinely top $500 per night. More hotel space is needed, and if Disneyland goes all-in on “Avatar,” expect lodging and more entertainment options to follow close behind. Disney has long touted development of the Toy Story Lot as prime space for hotel, dining and entertainment modeled after Florida’s Disney Springs district.

The DisneylandForward materials mention the land as “the perfect location to cater to locals, conventioneers, hotel and Disneyland Resort guests with restaurants, hotels, live music, shopping, ticketed shows and theme park experiences.” A new proposed parking structure to the north would solve the parking issue, and Disney has done extensive research on this already, as it was part of an earlier, pre-pandemic planned development known as the “Eastern Gateway.”

Walkways to and from the new parking structure would connect the current resort to the new entertainment area. And while fans may want Disney to rapidly fill the available space with theme park attractions, if the resort is planning to increase capacity it’s first going to need a spot for those guests to park. Additionally, Iger at a recent media event said the company likely would hold back some of its theme park funds so the organization could move on the popularity of new films or franchises.

“We actually have a fairly good idea in the near term of what’s being built, but we’re purposefully not going to allocate it all,” Iger said. “Because who knows? In five years we can end up with a giant hit movie — think ‘Frozen’ — that we may want to mine essentially as an attraction, or a hotel or restaurant in our parks. So you want to maintain some flexibility.”

What about ‘Frozen’s’ Arendelle? Or a ‘Coco’-themed experience?

Beyond “Avatar,” which seems a sure thing as it’s been mentioned by Iger on multiple occasions, any future aspects of DisneylandForward become pure speculation. But a couple of franchises may have higher priority than others.

Disney now has a “Frozen” attraction in Walt Disney World, a land in Hong Kong and experiences in the works for Disneyland Paris and Tokyo DisneySea. Walt Disney Imagineering, the company’s secretive arm devoted to theme park experiences, clearly has done the work on bringing “Frozen” to life in physical spaces, and it stands to reason that expansions to the original Disneyland Park, with its fairy-tale feel, would go more of a Fantasyland-inspired route.

What’s more, re-creating Arendelle in the expansion plots located near the Disneyland Hotel would give Disney the opportunity to construct a second castle, as any extensive changes to park centerpiece Sleeping Beauty Castle are prohibited due to structural limitations . The enduring popularity of “Frozen” seems relatively assured at this point, so bringing the franchise to Disneyland is far from a risk.

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But if the company opts to create something unique for Southern California rather than importing Hong Kong’s World of Frozen or Shanghai’s Zootopia, one franchise that seems to be routinely brought up by executives is “Coco.” When mentioning blue-sky concepts last year year at an investor event in Florida, D’Amaro teased “Coco” as a key film that has yet to be properly explored in the Disney parks.

Potrock again mentioned “Coco” in an op-ed in the Orange County Register touting the benefits of DisneylandForward, writing that the initiative could pave the way for “the chance to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos in a ‘Coco’-themed experience.” Disney California Adventure, of course, is home to a Dia de Los Muertos celebration that does center a short “Coco” show, and the property seems especially ripe for Southern California and our heavily Latino communities. That makes it an opportunity to give Disneyland an unique land not found in other parks while also tapping into the region’s diverse fan base. Walt’s original park deserves no less as it looks ahead to closing out its first century.

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The ONE Disney’s Hollywood Studios Ride Fans Say They’ll Never Ride Again

Disney’s Hollywood Studios is my favorite park — I can’t get enough!

It’s partly because of the fantastic rides , but also because I started writing scripts and making my own films when I was 14, so I love the Hollywood feel and tie-ins to tons of different films (I am a little sad I was too young to remember MGM though🥺). However, I totally understand it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and some of those rides can be ROUGH. We asked our readers on Facebook what Hollywood Studios ride they would never go on again, and I gotta say — I hear you!

The number one answer on our post was EASILY Star Tours because of one reason only — motion sickness !

This ride is no joke when it comes to motion sickness. Not only are you staring at a screen, which can be tough for sensitive folks, but you’re also moving up, down, left, and right to pretty serious degrees. 

I’ll say this, the ride does a great job at really making you feel you’re on a perilous space journey, but it proves to be too much for a lot of park goers. While I personally don’t struggle with motion sickness, if I’m seated on the end of one of these rows, I do find myself a little wobbly for a few seconds when I walk off! (Pro tip: Try and sit in the center middle as much as possible if you struggle with motion sickness — it’s the most stable!)

Did you know Star Tours recently changed? Check out what’s new!

Millennium falcon: smuggler’s run.

On that same note, motion sickness is very common for guests to experience after a ride on Smuggler’s Run . Again, while I haven’t experienced this myself, one of my travel partners on the trip I recently took proceeded to say (TMI incoming) “yeah that one made me feel like I wanted to vomit” immediately after getting off the ride.

Similar to Star Tours, you’re watching a screen as you travel through the galaxy and get a container of coaxium (or two if you’re really good). However, the difference here is that you may have a 7 year old piloting your ship (or me, my hand eye coordination isn’t great), and it might be an EXTRA bumpy ride. (Or maybe they’re really talented, that does happen!)

This ride definitely isn’t for the easily-queasy , so steer clear if that’s you. Or if you decide to give it a try anyway, be sure you have some non-drowsy dramamine with you!

Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster

Now HERE is why my personal experience comes in, and a lot of our readers agree with me apparently — Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster HURTS!

Listen I know they say you’re supposed to keep your head pressed back towards the seat as hard as you can to avoid it smacking around , and I don’t know about you guys, but my neck isn’t that strong. I don’t know how to strengthen it, but until I do, this ride is a no for me. (Which is a bummer, because that launch is awesome!)

Getting a headache after this ride isn’t fun for anyone , even if you immediately have Advil or Aleve on hand , but if you’re like me and have tons of health-anxiety, my brain starts to make me think it WASN’T the jerky rollercoaster that has me in pain but in fact I’m coming down sick with something, and then BAM anxiety attack. So yeah, I’ll be staying far away from this one even when it’s out of refurbishment.

Tower of Terror

Yet another one I completely can relate to — Tower of Terror isn’t for a lot of people. I’m not afraid of heights (if you are though, this is likely a BIG NO for you) , but that stomach drop feeling is, you guessed it, anxiety-inducing.

Is that kinda the point and part of the exhilaration of the ride? For sure, but if you’ve got an overactive nervous system (🙋‍♀️), your body may not understand that it’s a controlled drop and that you’re totally safe , no matter what your brain is saying.

A lot of our readers shared with us that this ride also makes them feel sick because of that constant up and down motion . There’s also now no way to predict how many times you’ll fall now that it’s truly randomized, so my advice? If you want to ride anyway, take that dramamine or your anxiety medication before!

Well now that we’ve talked about almost half the rides in the park (I wish I was kidding), know that the rest of Hollywood Studios may be much safer for my anxiety-filled or motion sickness prone peeps. We at AllEars are always here to help you plan your next trip, so stay tuned to our blog and YouTube Channel!

What ride would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments!

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Episode DXXXVI: Star Tours and Season of the Force Full Of Sith: Star Wars News, Discussions and Interviews

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Bryan and Holly each took a trip to Batuu to check out the new Star Tours offerings. In this episode they compare notes about the Season of the Force offerings at each US Disney Theme Park and the changes made to the iconic Star Tours ride.

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• Explore the beautiful city of St Petersburg, including the exquisite Church on Spilled Blood, Peter & Paul Fortress and Nevsky Prospekt
• Marvel at the dazzling array of art and exhibits in the world-famous Hermitage Museum, at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg
• Discover a lavish residence of the tsars on a day trip to Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo (winter: mid-October to April) or Peterhof Palace and gardens (summer: May to mid-October)
• Take in the highlights of the capital on a walking tour, visiting Moscow's famous Red Square, home to the historic GUM Department Store, Lenin’s Mausoleum and spectacular St Basil’s Cathedral
• Take a guided tour of the Moscow Kremlin, Russia’s political power house. Stroll around the grounds of this fortified complex, visit the Kremlin's cathedrals and see the mighty Tsar Bell

Route of the Romanovs - 10 days

• Learn about the last days of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg, visiting the sites where Tsar Nicolas II and his family were assassinated and buried
• Straddle two continents at the famous obelisk Europe/Asia border marker in Yekaterinburg
• Experience the Trans-Siberian railway on an overnight train journey from Moscow to Yekaterinburg

New Year's in Moscow - 9 days

• Visit Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo on Christmas Day and marvel at the incredible Amber Room
• Spend a night in Novgorod, an ancient city by the Volkhov River - explore the kremlin, cathedral and other sights and enjoy a traditional Russian banya (sauna)

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Back in the USSR - 7 days

Russian Revolution - 9 days

• Visit historic Novgorod, an ancient city which straddles the Volkhov River. Explore the attractive riverside kremlin and experience a traditional Russian banya (sauna)

The Snowball - 6 days

• Visit Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo and marvel at the incredible Amber Room

Mood for Moscow - 4 days

• Head underground to visit a Stalinist-era Soviet Bunker on an optional excursion
• Stroll to the vibrant Izmailovo Market, which lies behind the walls of an ancient Kremlin, and shop for an array of souvenirs

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Moscow reviews & ratings, capitals of the north.

some hotels could have been better

It was jam packed with every place I wanted to go and see. I especially love my photo of us setting out on the night time river cruise in St Petersburg and the Peter...

I really did not buy much and what I did buy was small gifts for others .

Johanna-Marie

Good hotels, some better than others. Interesting itinerary

Too rushed. Optional tour rather too short

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In Transit: Notes from the Underground

Jun 06 2018.

Spend some time in one of Moscow’s finest museums.

Subterranean commuting might not be anyone’s idea of a good time, but even in a city packing the war-games treasures and priceless bejeweled eggs of the Kremlin Armoury and the colossal Soviet pavilions of the VDNKh , the Metro holds up as one of Moscow’s finest museums. Just avoid rush hour.

The Metro is stunning and provides an unrivaled insight into the city’s psyche, past and present, but it also happens to be the best way to get around. Moscow has Uber, and the Russian version called Yandex Taxi , but also some nasty traffic. Metro trains come around every 90 seconds or so, at a more than 99 percent on-time rate. It’s also reasonably priced, with a single ride at 55 cents (and cheaper in bulk). From history to tickets to rules — official and not — here’s what you need to know to get started.

A Brief Introduction Buying Tickets Know Before You Go (Down) Rules An Easy Tour

A Brief Introduction

Moscow’s Metro was a long time coming. Plans for rapid transit to relieve the city’s beleaguered tram system date back to the Imperial era, but a couple of wars and a revolution held up its development. Stalin revived it as part of his grand plan to modernize the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s. The first lines and tunnels were constructed with help from engineers from the London Underground, although Stalin’s secret police decided that they had learned too much about Moscow’s layout and had them arrested on espionage charges and deported.

The beauty of its stations (if not its trains) is well-documented, and certainly no accident. In its illustrious first phases and particularly after the Second World War, the greatest architects of Soviet era were recruited to create gleaming temples celebrating the Revolution, the USSR, and the war triumph. No two stations are exactly alike, and each of the classic showpieces has a theme. There are world-famous shrines to Futurist architecture, a celebration of electricity, tributes to individuals and regions of the former Soviet Union. Each marble slab, mosaic tile, or light fixture was placed with intent, all in service to a station’s aesthetic; each element, f rom the smallest brass ear of corn to a large blood-spattered sword on a World War II mural, is an essential part of the whole.

The Metro is a monument to the Soviet propaganda project it was intended to be when it opened in 1935 with the slogan “Building a Palace for the People”. It brought the grand interiors of Imperial Russia to ordinary Muscovites, celebrated the Soviet Union’s past achievements while promising its citizens a bright Soviet future, and of course, it was a show-piece for the world to witness the might and sophistication of life in the Soviet Union.

It may be a museum, but it’s no relic. U p to nine million people use it daily, more than the London Underground and New York Subway combined. (Along with, at one time, about 20 stray dogs that learned to commute on the Metro.)

In its 80+ year history, the Metro has expanded in phases and fits and starts, in step with the fortunes of Moscow and Russia. Now, partly in preparation for the World Cup 2018, it’s also modernizing. New trains allow passengers to walk the entire length of the train without having to change carriages. The system is becoming more visitor-friendly. (There are helpful stickers on the floor marking out the best selfie spots .) But there’s a price to modernity: it’s phasing out one of its beloved institutions, the escalator attendants. Often they are middle-aged or elderly women—“ escalator grandmas ” in news accounts—who have held the post for decades, sitting in their tiny kiosks, scolding commuters for bad escalator etiquette or even bad posture, or telling jokes . They are slated to be replaced, when at all, by members of the escalator maintenance staff.

For all its achievements, the Metro lags behind Moscow’s above-ground growth, as Russia’s capital sprawls ever outwards, generating some of the world’s worst traffic jams . But since 2011, the Metro has been in the middle of an ambitious and long-overdue enlargement; 60 new stations are opening by 2020. If all goes to plan, the 2011-2020 period will have brought 125 miles of new tracks and over 100 new stations — a 40 percent increase — the fastest and largest expansion phase in any period in the Metro’s history.

Facts: 14 lines Opening hours: 5 a.m-1 a.m. Rush hour(s): 8-10 a.m, 4-8 p.m. Single ride: 55₽ (about 85 cents) Wi-Fi network-wide

Buying Tickets

• Ticket machines have a button to switch to English.
• You can buy specific numbers of rides: 1, 2, 5, 11, 20, or 60. Hold up fingers to show how many rides you want to buy.
• There is also a 90-minute ticket , which gets you 1 trip on the metro plus an unlimited number of transfers on other transport (bus, tram, etc) within 90 minutes.
• Or, you can buy day tickets with unlimited rides: one day (218₽/ US$4), three days (415₽/US$7) or seven days (830₽/US$15). Check the rates here to stay up-to-date.
• If you’re going to be using the Metro regularly over a few days, it’s worth getting a Troika card , a contactless, refillable card you can use on all public transport. Using the Metro is cheaper with one of these: a single ride is 36₽, not 55₽. Buy them and refill them in the Metro stations, and they’re valid for 5 years, so you can keep it for next time. Or, if you have a lot of cash left on it when you leave, you can get it refunded at the Metro Service Centers at Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 25 or at Staraya Basmannaya 20, Building 1.
• You can also buy silicone bracelets and keychains with built-in transport chips that you can use as a Troika card. (A Moscow Metro Fitbit!) So far, you can only get these at the Pushkinskaya metro station Live Helpdesk and souvenir shops in the Mayakovskaya and Trubnaya metro stations. The fare is the same as for the Troika card.
• You can also use Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Rules, spoken and unspoken

No smoking, no drinking, no filming, no littering. Photography is allowed, although it used to be banned.

Stand to the right on the escalator. Break this rule and you risk the wrath of the legendary escalator attendants. (No shenanigans on the escalators in general.)

Get out of the way. Find an empty corner to hide in when you get off a train and need to stare at your phone. Watch out getting out of the train in general; when your train doors open, people tend to appear from nowhere or from behind ornate marble columns, walking full-speed.

Always offer your seat to elderly ladies (what are you, a monster?).

An Easy Tour

This is no Metro Marathon ( 199 stations in 20 hours ). It’s an easy tour, taking in most—though not all—of the notable stations, the bulk of it going clockwise along the Circle line, with a couple of short detours. These stations are within minutes of one another, and the whole tour should take about 1-2 hours.

Start at Mayakovskaya Metro station , at the corner of Tverskaya and Garden Ring,  Triumfalnaya Square, Moskva, Russia, 125047.

1. Mayakovskaya.  Named for Russian Futurist Movement poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and an attempt to bring to life the future he imagined in his poems. (The Futurist Movement, natch, was all about a rejecting the past and celebrating all things speed, industry, modern machines, youth, modernity.) The result: an Art Deco masterpiece that won the National Grand Prix for architecture at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It’s all smooth, rounded shine and light, and gentle arches supported by columns of dark pink marble and stainless aircraft steel. Each of its 34 ceiling niches has a mosaic. During World War II, the station was used as an air-raid shelter and, at one point, a bunker for Stalin. He gave a subdued but rousing speech here in Nov. 6, 1941 as the Nazis bombed the city above.

Take the 3/Green line one station to:

2. Belorusskaya. Opened in 1952, named after the connected Belarussky Rail Terminal, which runs trains between Moscow and Belarus. This is a light marble affair with a white, cake-like ceiling, lined with Belorussian patterns and 12 Florentine ceiling mosaics depicting life in Belarussia when it was built.

Transfer onto the 1/Brown line. Then, one stop (clockwise) t o:

3. Novoslobodskaya.  This station was designed around the stained-glass panels, which were made in Latvia, because Alexey Dushkin, the Soviet starchitect who dreamed it up (and also designed Mayakovskaya station) couldn’t find the glass and craft locally. The stained glass is the same used for Riga’s Cathedral, and the panels feature plants, flowers, members of the Soviet intelligentsia (musician, artist, architect) and geometric shapes.

Go two stops east on the 1/Circle line to:

4. Komsomolskaya. Named after the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League, this might just be peak Stalin Metro style. Underneath the hub for three regional railways, it was intended to be a grand gateway to Moscow and is today its busiest station. It has chandeliers; a yellow ceiling with Baroque embellishments; and in the main hall, a colossal red star overlaid on golden, shimmering tiles. Designer Alexey Shchusev designed it as an homage to the speech Stalin gave at Red Square on Nov. 7, 1941, in which he invoked Russia’s illustrious military leaders as a pep talk to Soviet soldiers through the first catastrophic year of the war.   The station’s eight large mosaics are of the leaders referenced in the speech, such as Alexander Nevsky, a 13th-century prince and military commander who bested German and Swedish invading armies.

One more stop clockwise to Kurskaya station,  and change onto the 3/Blue  line, and go one stop to:

5. Baumanskaya.   Opened in 1944. Named for the Bolshevik Revolutionary Nikolai Bauman , whose monument and namesake district are aboveground here. Though he seemed like a nasty piece of work (he apparently once publicly mocked a woman he had impregnated, who later hung herself), he became a Revolutionary martyr when he was killed in 1905 in a skirmish with a monarchist, who hit him on the head with part of a steel pipe. The station is in Art Deco style with atmospherically dim lighting, and a series of bronze sculptures of soldiers and homefront heroes during the War. At one end, there is a large mosaic portrait of Lenin.

Stay on that train direction one more east to:

6. Elektrozavodskaya. As you may have guessed from the name, this station is the Metro’s tribute to all thing electrical, built in 1944 and named after a nearby lightbulb factory. It has marble bas-relief sculptures of important figures in electrical engineering, and others illustrating the Soviet Union’s war-time struggles at home. The ceiling’s recurring rows of circular lamps give the station’s main tunnel a comforting glow, and a pleasing visual effect.

Double back two stops to Kurskaya station , and change back to the 1/Circle line. Sit tight for six stations to:

7. Kiyevskaya. This was the last station on the Circle line to be built, in 1954, completed under Nikita Khrushchev’ s guidance, as a tribute to his homeland, Ukraine. Its three large station halls feature images celebrating Ukraine’s contributions to the Soviet Union and Russo-Ukrainian unity, depicting musicians, textile-working, soldiers, farmers. (One hall has frescoes, one mosaics, and the third murals.) Shortly after it was completed, Khrushchev condemned the architectural excesses and unnecessary luxury of the Stalin era, which ushered in an epoch of more austere Metro stations. According to the legend at least, he timed the policy in part to ensure no Metro station built after could outshine Kiyevskaya.

Change to the 3/Blue line and go one stop west.

8. Park Pobedy. This is the deepest station on the Metro, with one of the world’s longest escalators, at 413 feet. If you stand still, the escalator ride to the surface takes about three minutes .) Opened in 2003 at Victory Park, the station celebrates two of Russia’s great military victories. Each end has a mural by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, who also designed the “ Good Defeats Evil ” statue at the UN headquarters in New York. One mural depicts the Russian generals’ victory over the French in 1812 and the other, the German surrender of 1945. The latter is particularly striking; equal parts dramatic, triumphant, and gruesome. To the side, Red Army soldiers trample Nazi flags, and if you look closely there’s some blood spatter among the detail. Still, the biggest impressions here are the marble shine of the chessboard floor pattern and the pleasingly geometric effect if you view from one end to the other.

Keep going one more stop west to:

9. Slavyansky Bulvar.  One of the Metro’s youngest stations, it opened in 2008. With far higher ceilings than many other stations—which tend to have covered central tunnels on the platforms—it has an “open-air” feel (or as close to it as you can get, one hundred feet under). It’s an homage to French architect Hector Guimard, he of the Art Nouveau entrances for the Paris M é tro, and that’s precisely what this looks like: A Moscow homage to the Paris M é tro, with an additional forest theme. A Cyrillic twist on Guimard’s Metro-style lettering over the benches, furnished with t rees and branch motifs, including creeping vines as towering lamp-posts.

Stay on the 3/Blue line and double back four stations to:

10. Arbatskaya. Its first iteration, Arbatskaya-Smolenskaya station, was damaged by German bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1953, and designed to double as a bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war, although unusually for stations built in the post-war phase, this one doesn’t have a war theme. It may also be one of the system’s most elegant: Baroque, but toned down a little, with red marble floors and white ceilings with gilded bronze c handeliers.

Jump back on the 3/Blue line  in the same direction and take it one more stop:

11. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). Opened in 1938, and serving Red Square and the Kremlin . Its renowned central hall has marble columns flanked by 76 bronze statues of Soviet heroes: soldiers, students, farmers, athletes, writers, parents. Some of these statues’ appendages have a yellow sheen from decades of Moscow’s commuters rubbing them for good luck. Among the most popular for a superstitious walk-by rub: the snout of a frontier guard’s dog, a soldier’s gun (where the touch of millions of human hands have tapered the gun barrel into a fine, pointy blade), a baby’s foot, and a woman’s knee. (A brass rooster also sports the telltale gold sheen, though I am told that rubbing the rooster is thought to bring bad luck. )

Now take the escalator up, and get some fresh air.

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