- A "Star Wars"-themed land is coming to both Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida and Disneyland in Anaheim, California in 2019.
- Construction is underway and if you head to both parks you can see it being worked on in real time.
- If you're visiting the new Toy Story Land in Disney World's Hollywood Studios, you can get a good look at "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge."
- Not only can you see it before entering the park, but you can see it while walking through the park.
- The main entrance appears to be in the North West area of the park by the Muppet Vision 3D ride.
- Other good looks at the park can be seen inside Toy Story Land. The best peek at "Galaxy's Edge" can be viewed from the new Slinky Dog Dash coaster.
- INSIDER found two other possible entrances that will link "Galaxy's Edge" to Toy Story Land and Pixar Place in Hollywood Studios.
Families may be heading to Disney World's Hollywood Studios right now for the newly opened Toy Story Land, but you'll also get a sneak peek at the new Star Wars land that's being built if you know where to look.
INSIDER was down at Disney World for the opening of Toy Story Land at the end of June and Disney isn't even trying to hide the construction of the massive 14-acre area.
It really can't.
At 2017's D23 Expo, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Bob Chapek said the addition of "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" in both California's Disneyland and Florida's Walt Disney World will be the largest single-themed expansion into the parks ever. (You can read more on the new park here and see exactly how it will look here.)
So where can you see the construction?
There are two main areas where you can see work on "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" taking place, before you enter Hollywood Studios and once you're inside in Toy Story Land. Don't expect to see anything crazy, but if you're lucky you may get a peek behind closed doors.
Before you enter Hollywood Studios, keep your eyes peeled.
If you're heading to the parks early in the morning to beat the rush, you may be compelled to get an extra bit of rest in before the long day ahead. Don't do that if you're a "Star Wars" fan heading to Hollywood Studios.
Before you even enter the park, you pass by construction of "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" during your drive in on your left. You can't miss it. You may even see some men at work.
On my first ride into Hollywood Studios on Toy Story Land opening day, I wasn't prepared to see the buildings out in the open. Granted, you can't see much. From the outside, the buildings just look like warehouses. But make sure to turn your head around in the vehicle you're in and you may be able to make out shapes of mountains and some towers for outposts.
If you're coming to the parks on a Disney shuttle or any other form of bus transportation, you'll want to situate yourself on the left side of the vehicle.
Head to Toy Story Land for your best look at "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge."
If you have to use the restroom or head toward the Alien Swirling Saucers' attraction, you're going to come face-to-face with "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" whether or not that was your intended plan. You're not going to miss it.
The land pops up as you're walking through Toy Story Land to the Alien-themed ride. You're eventually stopped by a fence with the words "Eggman Movers" along with images of Woody and Slinky Dog.
But before you get that close, you'll be able to see beyond it into a galaxy not so far away.
I was surprised at how much of the land you could see from just walking through Toy Story Land.
The closer you get to the sign, the less of the "Star Wars" area you can see. However, while waiting on line for food at Woody's Lunchbox, I heard that a worker opened up and came out of the closed fence from "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" and some fans got a bigger peek inside. Maybe it's not a terrible idea to wait around a bit on a sunny day to see what may happen.
If you want an even better look, go for a ride on the Slinky Dog Dash roller coaster.
If you thought that was your best look at "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge," guess again. If you're a "Star Wars" fan, you may want to take a ride on the Slinky Dog Dash coaster. (We recommend heading on the ride early in the morning or before the park closes for shorter lines.)
When the coaster hits its highest points, you'll get something closer to a bird's eye view of the 14 acres.
Unlike Universal Orlando and Six Flags, Disney doesn't have a policy on storing away phones and cameras before you go on rides. So I was able to capture some footage of the new park. (For the record, I do not recommend doing this. You could easily lose your phone and it's not worth it. I did this for the sole purpose of this story.)
Make sure you go on the ride when it's not too cloudy or overcast to see as much as possible. When the coaster hits its highest points, look out past the Alien Swirling Saucers towards the construction of "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge."
This is cool. But what am I looking at?
So you can see some construction of "Galaxy's Edge" in Toy Story Land. But what does it all mean? Why you should be excited by scaffolding and cranes?
INSIDER took a look at a miniature 3D model of the upcoming theme park area at Disney's 2017 D23 Expo. Here it is for reference.
After walking around Hollywood Studios, it looks like there will be three different entrances to "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge." One will reside in Toy Story Land past the Alien Saucers' ride.
A second will be at the far end of Pixar Place.
Neither of those will be the main opening to the park, though.
From what I could gather, the main entrance into "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" will be located to the North West region of Disney's Hollywood Studios from when you enter the park.
On a map that looks like this:
While walking through Hollywood Studios, you get stopped by a giant wall to the left of Hollywood Studio's Grand Avenue advertising "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge." That's past the "Star Tours" and "Muppet Vision 3D" attractions.
This is most likely where the entrance to the park will be. That would feed into the area just left of Toy Story Land.
To review, here's how those three potential entrances all look on the Disney World app's map:
Why Galaxy's Edge would have three entrances: It aligns with the model unveiled at Disney's D23 Expo.
You're going to have a lot of people funneling in and out of Toy Story Land and the adjacent Galaxy's Edge. What's better than one entrance? Three.
And in 2017, Disney Parks showed off three entrances to Galaxy's Edge on its giant model. In addition to the big splashy entry point, there were two smaller archways not that far apart near the right side of the park model.
You can see one of them in the photo of the giant model, which I've pointed out below. The other archway is farther down to the right, out of this photo. The entire 3D model was too big to really capture in one photo.
The good news? I took a lot of photos of the archways in 2017 while in Anaheim. Here are the two underpasses side by side with what you'll see in "Galaxy's Edge" once you walk through each one.
"Galaxy's Edge" Entrance 2:
"Galaxy's Edge" Entrance 3:
If you want a more dramatic effect, here's a brief video of one of the archways going into the park area complete with "Star Wars" music.
What is the construction we're looking at in Toy Story Land?
Great question. I went through a lot of photos to find exactly what parts of "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" you're most likely looking at from Toy Story Land.
I bet the arch farthest to the right leads out of Toy Story Land. It's the farthest entry point in Hollywood Studios from the main gate of "Galaxy's Edge."
If that's the case, everything you're looking at now when you see "Galaxy's Edge" from Toy Story Land is whatever is in the farthest right corner of the "Galaxy's Edge" model I saw. Be prepared to encounter the dark side of the Force. That area is shrouded with flags from the First Order and a TIE Fighter.
Here's the look at the rest of the "Star Wars" area from this end of the park.
Here are the images side by side:
The spire is a match for the one from the model on the right. The dome top looks like a fit for the building guests will see when exiting the underpass. In the distance of both photos, you can see a cavernous structure.
The perimeter that's seen around the outside of the model can also be seen from the Slinky Dog Dash coaster.
Familiarize yourself with these three areas of Hollywood Studios because you may be spending a lot of time there in the future to get into the "Star Wars" area of the park.
If you plan to head to Disney World next year for the opening of "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge," we recommend you arrive extremely early or you may wind up waiting in a lot of lines as I did during the opening weekend at Toy Story Land.
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