Disney Parks

Our friends at Jedi News revealed the latest Droid Factory figure: TC-14. Due to drop on Star Wars Day at Disney Stores and Disney Parks. Head over to Jedi News for more details!

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The 2023 Droid Factory Holiday droid is now available. Click through to order R8-H23. 

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shopDisney has added a new reissued 5-pack of droids in a Droid Depot set, featuring R1-J1, B-R72, L4-R6, C2-B9 and EG-01. These are in-stock and available to order for $59.99.

Update: As mentioned in the comments, this is a reissue to a previously released set. 

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The latest Droid Factory is now available at shopDisney. Click here to order C1-MNST4.

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Jabba’s bartender R2-S4M is now available at shopDisney through their Droid Factory line.

And yet another colossal failure for the house of mouse… earlier today Disney announced that they will close the Star Wars hotel. Permanently. The last “voyage” will be in September. Click through for the full story!

How Disney once envisioned their hotel… the reality was much less crowded

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Click through to check out shopDisney’s latest round of Pride droids. Thanks to JTA reader Glenn for the alert.

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ShopDisney has added several new droids and a new Halloween set. The Halloween set features past Halloween releases R2-BOO, R3B0017, R40018, and R5-B0019. Also up is this year’s Halloween release, R7-NNG and B2EMO from Andor. Click below for product pages.

We stopped by the Disney Parks booth to check out their latest offerings. Click through for a gallery from our visit to their booth!

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Our friends at Jedi News have posted details about the new Droid Factory exclusive SK-620, available in 3 sizes and exclusive to Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Click through for their full report.

The Galactic Starcruiser officially opens its gates for visitors on March 1st. But in the week before that Disney invited various news outlets, YouTubers and other influencers to a stay at the Star Wars hotel, so the shill access quality media can post their (glowing?) reviews in time. One of those outlets invited was local Floridian news site Click Orlando and they posted videos and images from the Starcruiser ahead of the Disney Embargo which ends this Friday. Of course Disney had the videos / article taken down within a few hours, but you know the saying, once something is out on the internet, it’s here to stay and you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. So you can find one of the videos leaked by Click Orlando on Reddit now. Click through for more!

UPDATE: video tour of the Starcruiser cabin and restroom added!

The leaked video shows you Gaia performing her song

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Website AllEars.net has uploaded the welcome message Disney sends out to people who booked a stay at the Galactic Starcruiser on Twitter. The video is two minutes long and features a female employee of the fictional cruise line telling customers what to expect onboard the space ship. Click here or on the screenshot below to watch the video on Twitter! Then click through for a short discussion!

Click to watch the 2-minute video on Twitter

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Entertainment Weekly posted an ad article about Disney’s upcoming Star Wars Hotel on their website yesterday and for the first time you get to see the captain of the Galactic Starcruiser! Meet Captain Keevan, the one who will command the imaginary space ship in the Star Wars galaxy and keep you safe from the First Order! Click through for more.

Captain Keevan. She has a hat. Source: Entertainment Weekly

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One could say the Star Wars ship is not exactly sailing in smooth waters at the moment. While many fans are certainly eagerly anticipating the Book of Boba Fett show by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, other things either seriously annoy fans or get ridiculed. The current Star Wars HasLab is not exactly going as planned, it may or may not limp over the finish line, maybe barely getting funded. This project seriously angered collectors and Hasbro / Lucasfilm were basically forced to make a late addition to the campaign to somehow salvage it. The Star Wars Haslab got some really negative PR. And then there’s the fact that Star Wars lost yet another director – and basically canceled yet another movie – not too long ago. But that is nothing compared to what is concurrently happening elsewhere in the Disney Star Wars galaxy. As you may remember the brand new Star Wars Hotel, the “Galactic Starcruiser” will open in March 2022. For a mere $6,000 (for a family of four) you can spend 2 nights and 2 days (only count to 2, not 1, not 3) at the hotel. Since the world we live in is what it is, it’s already booked out in advance for a few months (there are more than 20 million millionaires in the US after all, Disney’s new target demographic apparently). So what is going wrong here? Well, Disney released a “first look” video for the Star Wars Hotel on YouTube earlier this week and the reaction was less than favorable. Actually, the reaction was savage. Apart from the usual access media (think IGN & co) virtually ALL major and even minor Star Wars YouTube channels roasted Disney for the video which was the textbook definition of “cringe”. So what did Disney do as a reaction? Well, what do you think? Click through for more!

Still image from the Starcruiser first look video

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ShopDisney has the latest Galaxy’s Edge The Black Series set up for pre-order. Click below for each pre-order page. Thanks to JTA reader Matt for the alert! Use SHIPMAGIC for free shipping on orders over $75.

• Droid Depot (K-7R1, CB-23, Pit Droid, Babu Frik, Battle Droid)
• The First Order (First Order AT-AT Driver, R5 Astromech Droid, Mouse Droid, General Hux)
• Galactic Creatures (Mynock, Porgs, Bogling, Kowakian Monkey Lizards)

JTA reader Aaron H sends us an image of the latest Disney Droid Factory Halloween Droid: R6-W1CH found at his local Disney Park.

Disney is always working on new tech to improve the experience of theme park visitors. One of these new technologies is an actual retractable, illuminated lightsaber that activates just like you know it from the movies at the push of a button. Guests who will book a stay at the Galactic Starcruiser hotel (scheduled opening is in 2022) will actually get a chance to wield these brand new lightsabers in something like a lightsaber dojo. It is not yet known if an actual toy will be made with that tech that can be bought anywhere or if this is something you’ll only see in parks for the time being. Click through to see a short clip of the new lightsaber in action and find out how it all works!

She is just happy to see you… before she’ll cut you down with her brand new, fully retractable lightsaber!

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One of my favorite Disneyland blogs, Endor Express, shared some wonderful photos of the new Galaxy’s Edge trading post in Downtown Disney, Anaheim.  Will you be going to the outpost any time soon? What exclusive items would you like to buy the most? Let us know in the comments!

Images courtesy of endorexpress.net

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Construction for the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience (aka the Star Wars hotel) is underway in Orlando, Florida. The Disney Food Blog released an article about the construction a short while ago and they feature photos taken on location by Jeff Vahle, the President of Walt Disney World Resort. Check out this one photo of the bunk beds posted on Vahle’s Instagram. Click through for one more photo of the room!

Photo: Jeff Vahle via his Instagram

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While Hong Kong is far away it may be of interest that Disney will have to close their Disneyland in Hong Kong once again. It had only re-opened about a month ago, but a surge of new Covid-19 cases in the city, 52 on Sunday, to be precise, resulted in renewed social distancing measures ordered by the local government. Disney will have to close the theme park on July 15th. Meanwhile, re-opening plans for Disneyland in Anaheim, which was meant to re-open in July (just like Disney World in Florida) were postponed indefinitely, actually, California announced a new lockdown on Monday. That leaves Disney World in Orlando for those mouse enthusiasts who like to live dangerously.
Disney depends a lot on revenue from their theme park division, it was 26 billion USD in 2019, which is almost 44% of total revenue. And without any meaningful revenue from movies or cruises, Disney doesn’t have too many sources of revenue left, licensing, merchandise, TV networks, and Disney+, although the streaming service won’t generate any profits for years to come.
It may actually be a long time before theme parks open again across the world or can operate at full capacity, which makes revenue based on merchandising and licensing all the more important, even though it’s only a modest source of revenue usually for Disney. Disney will release their numbers for the quarter in early August. Analysts believe net loss for the quarter may be about $1.4 billion USD. That’s a lot of Star Wars figures Hasbro would need to sell extra to make up for the missing theme park profits…

Mickey, Minnie and friends will have to wait for visitors

The Disney theme parks in the US will re-open in July, with several caveats however. Click through for more details!

A sight you will not see for some time

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We talked about the original plans for Galaxy’s Edge a few months ago. Back then it was reported that the Star Wars theme park was to be about the Original Trilogy, and that Bob Iger changed his mind when The Force Awakens was released, when he saw first footage. Now it turns out that this is not the whole story. Former Walt Disney World Vice President Dan Cockerell was a guest on the WDW Radio podcast and there he talked about how events unfolded. And it turns out that the reports from a few months back left out one important detail: a meeting Bob Iger had with Kathleen Kennedy. Click through for more!

Galaxy’s Edge with the Millennium Falcon

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The ongoing coronavirus crisis has now reached the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Today it was announced that the park will close its gates on March 14th and that it will not reopen for the remainder of the month. The hotels will be open until March 16th (Monday) to allow guests to plan for their departure. It is unknown if Disneyland Anaheim will actually reopen in April or not. Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida remains open for the time being. Nevertheless the coronavirus will certainly hit Disney’s theme parks division very hard and 2020 may turn out to be a horrible year for the company. Because not only theme parks are affected, but movies as well. Pixar’s latest movie “Onward” had the worst opening of a Pixar movie ever. Other studios postpone the release of their movies. Perhaps Marvel Studios will be affected too. Black Widow will be released in late April / early May, but if things have not improved by then its release may be postponed as well. Bob Chapek certainly has his hands full now managing the crisis. Let’s hope Disneyland will actually reopen in April and that things will improve. However, in all likelihood, the epidemic will get worse, we have not reached its peak yet according to several experts. Stay safe!

UPDATE: Disney World in Orlando and Disneyland Paris in France will also shut down now!

Disneyland will shut down on March 14th until the end of the month

It’s official (and not unexpected), there will be a special Disneyland After Dark: Star Wars Nite during this year’s Star Wars Celebration. It’s not clear if this will be reserved for Star Wars Celebration attendees, or open to the public. From what I can tell, this will be open to the public, but might possibly have a limited number of tickets reserved to purchase by Celebration attendees. Read all about it right here. Are you attending SW Celebration this year? And if so, do you plan on also buying a separate ticket to this event? Let us know in the comments!

Disney invited a few people to check out the brand new “Rise of the Resistance” ride at Galaxy’s Edge (Walt Disney World). YouTube Channel Ordinary Adventures captured their tour on video. And while not the whole ride could be filmed, the 20 minute video will show you most of the ride, including highlights from the part that is set on the First Order Star Destroyer. Click through for the video and a few more details!

Rise of the Resistance Star Destroyer Hangar Bay

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