Crowds at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge smaller than expected

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge — aka Star Wars Land — recently opened at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, and by all accounts it is a splendid time. You get to ride in the Millennium Falcon, throw back a drink at Oga’s Cantina, build your own lightsaber…what’s not to like?

Be that as it may, there are reports coming from multiple sources that Disneyland has been emptier than usual despite it being peak theme park season, and that crowds at Galaxy’s Edge are smaller than anticipated since it was opened to the public on June 24. Disneyland’s virtual queue, which the park created to manage high demand, has only been used a handful of times. Wait times for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, the only ride in the park as of now, have been around 30 to 90 minutes, which is long but much shorter than anticipated.

And his paucity of people isn’t limited to Galaxy’s Edge. Disneyland’s empty streets are being documented by the most reliable sources on the planet: random people on Twitter.

If you’re a park-goer, this is good news for you; who wants to wait in endless lines for rides, right? If you’re Disney, you might be a little more panicked, but there are reasons beyond “People suddenly decided they hate theme parks” to explain the relative lack of visitors.

To start, Disneyland is blocking a big chunk of annual passholders from entering the park for much of the summer months. I’m not 100% clear on the reasoning, but it sounds like the reason Disney initially started its annual pass program — to tempt locals to come to the park on low-traffic days, ensuring it would feel more alive — backfired on them when annual passholders became a big portion of Disneyland visitors. Now Disney has to control potentially huge crowds, and may have overcorrected a bit. When the ban is lifted on August 19, we might see some epic crowds.

Also, Disney has made efforts of late to increase efficiency in its parks, widening walkways and such. Plus, with Galaxy’s Edge expanding the surface area of Disneyland, there’s just more park for people to spread out in. Basically, there might not actually be fewer visitors (Disney is stingy with specific attendance numbers), but rather it just looks that way because of the quality-of-life improvements Disney has made.

And remember when I said that Smuggler’s Run was the only ride in Galaxy’s Edge? That won’t be true forever, but it is now, so maybe people are waiting until Rise of the Resistance is fully operational later this year.

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And really, do you need a reason not to go to Disneyland when regular tickets are $129 per day, not to mention travel and whatnot? Sorry, that’s me being grumpy about money. In any case, I don’t think it’s time for Disney to panic just yet. We’ll see what happens as the summer wears on, and when a second Galaxy’s Edge park opens at Disney World in Florida on August 29.

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h/t FOX News, The Orange County Register, AZ Central, FanSided