Everything to Know About the New Millennium Falcon Ride

The fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy just got a whole lot more interesting. Starting Friday, May 22, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is getting its biggest overhaul since it opened in 2019 — a full Mandalorian and Grogu-themed mission update timed to coincide with the duo’s theatrical debut on the same date. And based on early rides at a Disneyland media preview, it’s not just a fresh coat of paint. This is a genuinely better ride.

The core setup will feel familiar: up to six guests pile into the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon as two pilots, two gunners, and two engineers, each with distinct responsibilities. Hondo Ohnaka is still your shady employer. But this time, Din Djarin — the Mandalorian himself — and Grogu are along for the mission, chasing down a trio of bounties: two ex-Imperial officers and one pirate. It’s enough of a story hook to justify the action, and the tone is lighter and faster than the original ride’s glorified errand run.

Four Locations, Endless Combinations

Every ride begins with a hyperspace jump to Tatooine, where your crew intercepts a shady deal going sideways. Grogu — naturally — blows your cover, the bounties scatter, and then something genuinely new happens: one of the engineers gets five seconds to choose where you go next. Three options, three completely different adventures.

Those destinations are Coruscant, Bespin’s Cloud City, and the wreckage of the second Death Star orbiting Endor. The choice wasn’t made casually. Matt Martin, a senior creative executive at Lucasfilm, told io9 he built an elaborate spreadsheet weighing every major Star Wars location before landing on these three. “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,” Martin explained. Mandalorian and Grogu director Jon Favreau pushed hard for Coruscant, and Cloud City made the cut because, as Martin put it, “we hadn’t seen that in this sort of experience before.”

But the variability goes even deeper than just picking a planet. Within each location, pilots can choose different paths — cut left or right through a canyon on Tatooine, fly above or below Cloud City, navigate different corridors through the Death Star debris field. “I haven’t done the math on how many total combinations there are,” Imagineering creative executive Asa Kalama told io9, “but within each planetary destination, there are multiple branching paths. If you start to chain together all of those various branching paths with all of the different planetary destinations, there’s a ton of variability and re-rideability.”

Each destination also has its own emotional texture. Endor is dark, smokey, and a little ominous — the kind of spooky that makes sense when you’re picking through the wreckage of a superweapon. Coruscant is neon-lit and chaotic, a full-throttle chase through civilian traffic and illuminated tunnels that plays like the Zam Wesell speeder chase from Attack of the Clones. Bespin catches you during golden hour, with the Falcon careening around the outside of Cloud City itself — including a view from below that echoes Luke Skywalker dangling from that antenna in The Empire Strikes Back, complete with city trash raining down past you.

“The goal was not only are you going to a different location from a geographic perspective,” Kalama said, “but to feel emotionally like you’re going on a different adventure.”

The Engineers Finally Have Something to Do

One of the longest-standing complaints about the original Smugglers Run was that the engineer seats were a bit of a dead end — not much to do beyond occasionally pressing a button. That’s been completely flipped. Engineers now control the destination choice, fire tracking beacons at bounty ships, and operate a new tractor beam to snag up to six cargo crates during the mission. One reviewer who rode the updated attraction multiple times put it bluntly: everybody’s going to want to be an engineer now.

The cargo system feeds into the scoring. Depending on how many crates you collect and what’s inside — galactic credits, Kyber Crystals, or even a baby Rancor — your crew earns different point totals and rankings. Think Privateer, Pirate, Smuggler, all the way up to the elusive Employee of the Month for the highest scorers. “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.”

The pilots and gunners aren’t left out either. Pilots will notice the flight controls have been tuned — still responsive, but with an invisible guided hand that keeps even inexperienced riders feeling like they’re pulling off something cinematic. “We’ve tuned it in such a special way that no matter how skilled or unskilled you might be, you’re always guaranteed to have a flight that feels really cinematic,” Kalama said. The original ride’s tendency to have Hondo berate bad fliers for the entire five minutes has also been dialed way back. Gunners, meanwhile, now choose between automatic and manual targeting modes and have more targets and environments to interact with, especially on Coruscant, where an ion cannon replaces the standard weapon — and yes, you can shoot the advertising signs.

The Tech Upgrade Makes a Real Difference

Under the hood, the ride has been rebuilt on the latest version of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. The visual jump is noticeable — backgrounds are sharper and more detailed, and the environments feel closer to film-quality than theme park game. One caveat: some of the enemy TIE fighters and starfighters in the dogfight sequences reportedly look slightly less polished than the stunning background scenery, a small inconsistency in an otherwise significant visual upgrade.

The software improvements also make the controls more responsive across all positions, which feeds directly into that more cinematic feel Kalama describes. The ride is the same length — around five minutes — but it moves faster and with more intention.

Easter Eggs, Grogu Mode, and Hidden Surprises

Veteran riders will remember the old “Wookiee Mode” that turned all cockpit communications into Chewbacca speak. That’s been replaced with a “Grogu Mode” — unlock it by having both gunners press a specific button sequence, and Grogu sounds and extra Grogu appearances will pop up throughout the mission. Fans have already cracked it.

The Easter eggs go much further than that. Martin teased several: a downed pod racer visible on Tatooine if you look carefully, a sign in Coruscant referencing the Halcyon (the Star Wars hotel that was part of Galaxy’s Edge), and — if you hit a certain score or take a specific path at the end — the chance to hear Han Solo yelling at Hondo. “That is so satisfying when you get it,” Martin said. Kalama added one more: fans who’ve noticed that the Millennium Falcon outside the attraction already sports the Force Awakens-era circular satellite dish will find an in-ride explanation for why.

There’s also a baby Rancor hiding in one of the cargo crates, though you’ll need to collect enough of them to find it.

The new Mandalorian and Grogu mission is a legitimate upgrade — more replayable, more visually impressive, and more fun for every seat in the cockpit. Whether you’re fighting over the engineer chairs or letting someone else navigate while you shoot ion cannons at neon signs over Coruscant, the ride finally feels like the centerpiece Galaxy’s Edge always needed it to be. The full mission details are available on the Disney Experiences site, and Disney Parks has a breakdown of tips for every role if you want to go in prepared.

Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run opens with the new mission on May 22 at both Disneyland in Anaheim and Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World. The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters the same day.