A fun evening at Disneyland with friends featuring exclusive new merch, food, and photo ops!
This past week I was thrilled to have gone to a fun Disneyland event for May The Fourth: Disneyland After Dark’s Star Wars Nite! As a special all-night event from 9pm-1am (with early admittance to the park at 6pm), these events’ claim to fame is their exclusive food, merch, photo ops, and rare character appearances! Especially since it was May 4th, there would be even more exclusives available only for the day, which is why I made sure to buy tickets the moment they went up! Though Corey wasn't able to make it, I was excited to meet up with friends for a fun celebrating Star Wars night!
As these events are big on dressing up (some guests full-on cosplay!), I knew I had to be sure to plan my outfit accordingly. As such and after much brainstorming, I ended up deciding on an Ahsoka-inspired look by sporting my Her Universe tank top and cardigan, saber earrings from RockLove, mini backpack from Loungefly (gifted to me by Corey for Christmas!), and blue/orange embellishments in my hair, nails, and makeup!
A tiny photoshoot I did on Batuu!
After seeing the Disney Park’s “Foodie Guide” for the day, as well as seeing the map for the event released the day prior, I also made sure to come up with a list of foods that I wanted to try! There were so many yummy choices, and knowing that the lines for food could get long at these events, I knew I had to mobile-order early once I got there.
A scanned copy of the map’s food list for the event!
Before meeting up with my friends Justice & Art, I got to the park early in order to explore some of the other May the Fourth celebrations at Downtown Disney. As soon as I walked in, I was greeted to some Star Wars posters on a construction wall, as well as this awesome sand sculpture to promote the upcoming Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi!
I was also able to check out the Star Wars Trading Post, which is a relatively new Star Wars store in Downtown Disney, where many of the new May the Fourth releases were available! I was able to spot some fun new merch such as special pins, new Star Wars Wishables, a Blue Milk Cup, and a new "build your own lighsaber" station.
While some of the merch was Star Wars Day exclusive, others were newly released and are available now!
While I continued walking toward the park, I also stumbled on a fun activity that the Lego Store was organizing for the day, inviting guests to help them build a Yoda sculpture! The line was long and I had to run to get a spot in line for the event, but it was fun to see everyone helping out in celebration of the day :)
They also had a really cool Phasma sculpture made out of Legos that you could take a photo with!
Finally, once I made it through Downtown Disney, I arrived at the gate where the event line was forming and met up with Justice!
Tickets to Star Wars Nite are sold out right now, with the dates being May 3rd, May 4th, and May 27th (during Star Wars Celebration)
We were let in a bit earlier than 6pm and Art was going to meet us a bit later, so Justice and I headed over to Bubo’s Milk Stand at Galaxy’s Edge to try a new May 4th Blue Milk concoction and get the newly released Milk Stand cups! Similar to the previously released Toydarian Swirl (Green Milk swirled with mango jelly and topped with Tajin-like chili & lime seasoning), this new concoction was the Mon Cala Swirl, described as “Blue Milk with blue mango sour jellies topped with a sour shimmery mango gel”. As a big fan of Blue Milk and boba-like drinks, I knew I just had to try it, and sure enough I loved it! While the Blue Milk has a sweet dragon-fruit flavor, the gel and jellies added a yummy tart spin to the drink. I’m definitely crossing my fingers that it becomes a more permanent Milk Stand staple!
Justice & I got both types of Milk Stand swirls in order to compare! The Mon Cala was my favorite, while the Toydarian was Justice’s :)
Right after we finished our drinks, Art arrived and we went lightsaber hunting at Dok-Ondar's Den of Antiquities! Hearing about the new numbered boxed set of Rebels Ahoska sabers, as well as the day’s exclusive Luminara Unduli and Light-Side Asajj Ventress ones, Justice and Art both had their hearts set on buying one! While the limited Ahsoka sabers were not yet available in the parks and the Luminara ones were only at Disney World, the Ventress one was available! As such, Justice decided to buy the Ventress one and Art got the Clone Wars Ahsoka ones that he also had been wanting.
As a very high demand product, I was only able to snap a few photos of the yellow bladed saber and it’s exclusive white case!
While they waited in line to buy their sabers then put them on hold to pick up later, I explored Dok-Ondar's and the Droid Depot for other new releases and spotted a few, including Luke's Star Compass from Jedi: Fallen Order and The Last Jedi! Though I decided against buying it during this trip, I may end up buying it another time!
Some of the new merchandise, as well as new droid building parts inspired by Chopper and CB-23!
Next, we had to face a very tough decision… either honor our hard-to-get reservations to Oga’s Cantina, or watch the exclusive fireworks for the event! Since we all wanted to take a look at the new food and especially since Art had never been to the Cantina, we decided to go there!
Some footage of the fireworks from my friend Jenmarie, who was also there that night!
Once we got to the Cantina, we were able to sit down and order some yummy drinks, as well as some yummy food! As always, Oga's was pumping with some fun galactic tunes, all DJ'd by R3x from the original Star Tours ride. From Gungan drinking songs, to droid-written electronic songs, the music is always such an immersive Star Wars highlight of the experience!
New starting on May the Fourth, Justice ordered the yummy Five-Blossom Bread, described as a "warm pretzel knot with Hawaiian black sea salt served with honey-mustard cream foam and Calabrian cheese sauce". As a creative galactic twist on a pretzel, my favorite dip was definitely the honey-mustard foam!
Five-Blossom Bread
Though it seemed like they ran out of the May 4th Fondor Fizz that I had been eyeing online ("Toniray Teal Chardonnay, Tito’s Vodka, and Joffrey’s White Tea with flavors of lemongrass and pea flower citrus"), I did order two drinks that were exclusive to the night!
The first one that I ordered was the Tarkenian Nightflower, which I had previously tried as a Life Day release in December! Showing up in A. C. Crispin's Legends-era Han Solo novel Rebel Dawn, this drink is described as a mix of "gin, elderflower, lime, ginger, and huckleberry", and topped with a candied hibiscus flower. While it was one of my very favorites a few months ago, I think they gave me a very heavy pour of the ginger/berry syrup, which made it a bit hard to get through this time around!
The Tarkenian Nightflower
After some fun and conversation, we decided on another round of drinks to celebrate the day! As such, I next chose the other May 4th exclusive for the night: the Sith Scorcher! Listed as a blend of "Hendrick's gin, Chineses 5-spice syrup, cranberry juice, lime juice, and cranberry syrup", I was a bit worried that it might be too spicy after the last gingery drink, but it was perfect! It very much reminded me of a yummy mulled apple cider, and it may be one of my favorite drinks at Oga's now!
The Sith Scorcher
Once we left Oga's, we wandered around the park in search of food! After getting through the lightsaber meetup crowd, we ended up getting some Ronto Wraps (yum!) and Justice tried one of the night's exclusive food offerings: the Crispy Kaadu Cutlet Sandwich! Described as a "Panko-crusted pork cutlet with pineapple gremolata, guava barbecue sauce, spiced pork rind, Hawaiian bread bun, and purple slaw", I took a bite and it was delicious! We then went on Star Tours, where we visited Kashyyyk and Coruscant!
After that, we continued to wander around and explore, going to photo-ops like the meditation rock on Tython, meeting special event characters like the Seventh Sister, and Ezra and Sabine from Star Wars Rebels! At one point Captain Rex literally bumped into me, and I was so excited to see him!
At the very end of the night, while Justice and Art were picking up the lightsabers that they had held at the droid depot, I hung around New Orleans square to see if I could get the exclusive Yoda beignets before the park closed! Branded as the "LFL Choice", the Dagobah-bite Beignets were "rolled in White Chocolate Matcha sugar" and served with "Matcha Milk Dipping sauce", I was more than happy to stand in the long line to get them! Though I didn’t get the chance to see them, I was able to hear Figrin Dan and the Modal Nodes as they jammed out on the Rivers of America as I waited!
Jenmarie's footage of the Modal Nodes!
Right before 1am, I was finally able to get the beignets in time for Justice and Art to join me! Always a fan of matcha, I just loved the hint of green tea that were featured in the dessert. I've always love the beignets at Disneyland, but I think these may have been my very favorite. Hopefully Disney brings them back for other Star Wars events!
Overall, I had a very fun time at Star Wars Nite and would definitely recommend it to Disneyland and Star Wars fans alike! Though the night went by very fast (next time I could probably buy a pass to be there all day prior to the event), I had so much fun celebrating the day with fun friends. Though this was my first time attending a Disneyland After Dark event, it definitely won't be my last!
