The next time you board the Millennium Falcon in either Disneyland or Disney World, you’re going on a new mission. And, the time after that, you’ll probably go on another one. And the one after that, too. That’s because, starting Friday, May 22, Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run is getting an all-new and improved makeover themed to The Mandalorian and Grogu, which just so happens to debut in theaters on the same date. It goes to four brand new locations, and we’ve flown through all of them. A lot.
This week, io9 took part in an event hosted by Disneyland, which provided us with a free pass to the park, a food gift card, and, most importantly, free rein to ride the new Smuggler’s Run as much as we wanted. We did it six times in total, twice through each of the three new locations, and in multiple different seats. Here’s everything we learned about the new ride, what we experienced, and a bunch of fun bits of trivia and Easter eggs along the way.
First announced back in 2024, the new Smuggler’s Run takes riders to four iconic Star Wars locations: Tatooine, Bespin (specifically Cloud City), Endor, and Coruscant. But you only get two at a time.
Every ride first takes you from Batuu to Tatooine. The Mandalorian and Grogu have teamed up with Hondo Ohnaka (who played a similar role on the original Solo-themed ride) to bring in three bounties: two Imperial officers and one pirate. In exchange for their location—Tatooine—the Mandalorian is letting the Falcon tag along to help him capture the bad guys and retrieve some cargo for Hondo.
And so, just like the original ride, up to six people can enter the cockpit: two pilots, two gunners, and two engineers. Their jobs are to fly, shoot, and fix the ship. However, in the past, while people would fight to be the pilot, this time you’re more likely to fight to be the engineer because the engineers hold all the power.
After blasting from Batuu to Tatooine, you follow Mando’s Razor Crest (the new one, which sets this after the events of the movie) with a few practice maneuvers before coming upon the three ships in question. You try to be stealthy, but Grogu screws it up, and you are forced to track only one of the bounties. The engineer then has five seconds (literally—there’s a countdown) to choose: Cloud City, Endor, or Coruscant. And then off you go. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering, if there’s only one engineer, that one chooses. If there are two engineers, it’s random which one chooses. And if you fly with no engineers, the system will randomly pick.)
The decision to go to these places in particular wasn’t something that was decided lightly. “This is really in the weeds nerdy, but I think you’ll appreciate it,” Matt Martin, a senior creative executive at Lucasfilm, told io9. “I made a really elaborate spreadsheet of all of the different key locations from all the films and TV, and sort of broke down the pluses and minuses of why this would be good, why this wouldn’t be ideal. Because when you’re looking at something like a ride, especially when you’re in control, you need verticality and scale, and it needs to look and feel different.” The Mandalorian and Grogu director Jon Favreau pushed hard for Coruscant, and everyone agreed on Cloud City “because we hadn’t seen that in this sort of experience before.” “We considered every reason and every world and just kind of landed on those ones for various reasons,” Martin said.
That variety is just the beginning. Not only will every ride take you to a new location, each with its own unique story, set of action beats, and surprises, but all of the locations have their own paths along the way. “I haven’t done the math [on how many total combinations there are], but within each planetary destination, there are multiple branching paths,” Asa Kalama, an executive in creative & interactive experiences at Walt Disney Imagineering, told io9. “So on Tatooine, you can cut down the canyon to the left or to the right. You can go high up over the rockwork, or you can go down into the krayt dragon tunnel. Every single planet has multiple branching paths like that. So again, if you start to chain together all of those various branching paths with all of the different planetary destinations you can go to, there’s a ton of variability and re-rideability.”
So what did we see at each location? Let’s run them down.
Tatooine
Again, each time you ride this version of Smuggler’s Run, you will start on Tatooine after a quick jaunt from Batuu. And, as Kalama details above, even here in this sort of intro section, there are different things to see. Every time we rode through, the pilot always seemed to fly to the left of the canyon, so we didn’t get to see the krayt dragon cave.
Eventually, you make it to a large clearing, and three different ships are waiting. Here’s where Grogu will mistakenly fire some missiles, the ships will be spooked, and you’ll have to attach three homing beacons and make your decision of where to go.
Endor
When you pick “Endor,” you might be thinking of the forest moon from Return of the Jedi. But, don’t forget, this is The Mandalorian‘s time period. When you arrive at Endor, a massive Death Star was blown up there just a few years back. And that is where one of your Imperial bounties has fled to hide.
You and the Razor Crest then chase the enemy ship through the location. As you fly through the wreckage of the massive weapon, Grogu is scared, which only happens here. It’s also got a very trench-run feel as you zig and zag about. Eventually, you pop out the other side and somehow get stuck in a tractor beam. Of course, you get out of it thanks to some help from the Razor Crest, and you’re home free.
Bespin
Upon arriving on Bespin, you’re immediately graced with the trademark orange skies and majesty that is Cloud City. But, very quickly, the Falcon gets caught on a big cable and becomes attached to the enemy ship. You then have to maneuver it, and yourself, around the outside of the city. Eventually, though, the Razor Crest intervenes, the Mandalorian jumps out of the ship (which he only does in this location), flies outside, detaches you, and grabs the bounty.
Cloud City itself has two levels here, an up and a down, and while each is similar, the underside was cooler, in our opinion. As you fly close to the bottom of the city, you get a very unique view, just like Luke Skywalker hanging off it in The Empire Strikes Back. You can even watch as trash from the city continues to pour down into the air.
Coruscant
In terms of things to see, the Coruscant selection is by far the most stunning. It feels like you’re living the Zam Wesell chase scene from Attack of the Clones as you contend with traffic, tunnels, and all manner of Aurebesh advertising signs. You even have to deal with the power couplings that get such a fun moment in the prequels.
Those couplings end up disabling the Falcon, so there is a crash, like the original version of the ride. The Razor Crest soon swings around, and Grogu comes out, uses the Force, and saves you. At that point, even more help arrives in the form of New Republic X-Wings, which only happens in this location.
Also, this location forces you to shoot an ion cannon instead of a regular one. You can shoot the signs to get some cool results.
The Game
As the pilots are flying and gunners are firing, the engineers are using a tractor beam to steal cargo from each ship. Depending on how much cargo you steal during the mission, you get more points at the end and different ranks. We did a ride where we only stole one, and another where we stole five. We also got rankings like Privateer, Pirate, and Smuggler.
“There’s a lot of variation to the point system,” Martin said. “There’s definitely more crates that you can get, and at the end, when it brings the crates out, you will see how many you’ve got. And then that obviously impacts your score.”
What we found on our rides, though, is that even though the point of Smuggler’s Run is ultimately to smuggle this cargo for Hondo, less of an emphasis is placed on it than in the previous iteration. You can do it, and it makes the whole experience a little more fun, but the original ride had a very incessant directive to get the coaxium for Hondo. Here, it’s simply not as crucial a part of it, which we liked.
Easter Eggs
Even after riding the new Smuggler’s Run six times, we didn’t come close to catching all the Easter eggs. We noticed that if you get a certain number of crates, there’s a baby rancor in one of them. We also noticed, as we said, that the Razor Crest is the new version, which speaks to the timeline taking place after the movie. But what else is there? We asked some experts.
“There’s a lot of Easter eggs,” Martin said. “There’s some fun stuff in Coruscant, some of the signs. There’s a sign that references the Halcyon, which I think is kind of neat. In the Tatooine area, if you look real close, you can actually spot a downed pod racer. And depending on how you do, and I think maybe even the path you take at the end of the attraction, you might actually hear Han [Solo] yelling at Hondo, and that is so satisfying when you get it.”
We didn’t get that, nor did we see another one teased by Kalama. He says that fans who are curious why the Millennium Falcon outside the ride already has the new Force Awakens satellite dish will find an explanation in the ride.
On the original Smuggler’s Run, some fans realized you could use a “Wookiee Mode” that turned all communications into Wookiee speak. Well, fans have already figured out there’s a “Grogu Mode” that’s unlocked by the gunners.
The Verdict
While Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run was always fun, it was never quite the highlight of Galaxy’s Edge that it should be. This new Mandalorian and Grogu version changes that. It’s not quite as incredible as Rise of the Resistance, but it’s an upgrade to the original version in every single way. It’s more fun to ride, it’s more interesting to explore, it looks better, has familiar Star Wars locations, and familiar Star Wars music. It’s still the same basic video game structure, but the difference between the original ride and this is almost night and day. If you’re a Star Wars fan visiting Galaxy’s Edge, make it a priority.
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