These past few days have been an exciting time at the Disneyland Resort. Following Thursday’s debut of The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure at Disney California Adventure, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue made its grand debut at Disneyland Park yesterday.
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is a completely revamped experience from the original Star Tours attraction, which opened at Disneyland Park in 1987. The 3-D simulator ride, which features over 50 different story combinations, gives guests the chance to visit such destinations from the Star Wars saga as Hoth, Tatooine, and Naboo. With so many different elements to discover, guests can ride Star Tours again and again and have a slightly different experience each time.
About the attraction, chairman of Disney Parks & Resorts Tom Staggs remarked:
“Star Tours has been totally reimagined. We partnered with Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic to create this. And we all share a passion for story-telling.”
While the attraction’s grand opening in Disneyland did not have quite the same fanfare as its debut at Walt Disney World’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios Park on May 20, which featured George Lucas and Disney CEO Bob Iger, it was still welcomed into the park with a special opening ceremony. In a short skit, a lightsaber battle between Jedi Knights, Stormtroopers, and Darth Vader himself broke out, only to be stopped by a hooded Jedi Knight that defeated the Dark Side. This hooded figure was revealed to be Tom Staggs, who opened the attraction by cutting a ribbon with his lightsaber. Once the attraction opened, wait times for the attraction quickly climbed to four hours, as thousands of eager guests swarmed the area, hoping to experience the attraction on its opening day.
