Before our last trip, my wife and I asked the kids if they wanted to build droids at Droid Depot. The boys are somewhat Star Wars fans. My oldest has watched almost all of the movies, the Clone Wars cartoons, the Mandalorian series and he’s starting the Book of Boba Fett. My youngest son is kind of a fan, I guess. He’s 7 so he loves the lightsabers, actions scenes and action figure toys. He’s watched a lot of the cartoons and some of the movies and series. My daughter, however… not a fan. She’s a casual observer at best.
That being said, when we asked them if they wanted to build a droid, they all jumped at the possibility. We had no idea what it entailed outside of what the review online and what Disney’s website said. We tried to go into it with little to no expectations. It did not disappoint.
After rope dropping Rise of the Resistance then heading to Slinky Dog we ate lunch at Woody’s Lunchbox and finished up Toy Story Land with Toy Story Mania. After that, we hustled over to Galaxies Edge to get the kids to the Droid Depot. We got there a bit early, so we walked around the shop and the general area, about 15 minutes or so. Once we were inside, we were able to check in and get the process started.
Once you check in, you go through and look at the available styles for droids you can build. There are 2 styles, the R series and the BB series. Each series comes in a multitude of colors allowing you to create a custom droid based off of your color choices. Each droid has different head shape options. My boys went with R series droids and my daughter went with the BB series.
Once you figure out the style of droid you want, you move to check out. They let you pick a personality chip, Resistance, First Order or “Sassy” (I’m sure it’s named something else, but that’s how they described it to us) for an extra charge. They also try to upsell you on a book sack for the droid. We did both of those and I’m really glad we did. I can’t imagine the kids would have been okay carrying around a cardboard box with their droid in it all day.
After checking out, you move to the conveyor belt which contains the droid parts that you need to build your droid. For the BB series, you need the body pieces and the head piece. For the R series, you need the body, two legs, a center stabilizer and a head piece. Once you pick all of that out and put it in a tray, you move to the build area.
The build area is pretty awesome with an electric screw driver to help you set the pieces in place. A CM will come by if you need help. I wound up helping my youngest son while my wife helped my oldest son and our daughter. For the R series droid, you attach the legs, stabilizer then the head to the main body. There are a couple of clip on additions that you can choose different color schemes for. Once that is complete and you’re happy with your droid, the builders come and help you activate/program it. It’s a complete production but so very worth it!
For the BB series, you get the bottom half and top half of your “ball” body and the head style. My daughter went with purple, naturally, for her sassy droid. Once over at that build station, they put the gyroscope body in the ball, put the ball together and then attach the head. The head, for the BB series droids, is magnetic.
Once the droids are activated, the builders show you how to operate them with your remote control. They also show you how to store them in the back pack. They also talk to mom and dad about families/houses that have more than 1 droid, ensuring that at least 1 or 2 are off over night or they will stay up and “talk to each other”. It is quite hilarious.
So, at the end of the build process, we went to walk around, where we found out that you could buy extra personality chips. My oldest, bought each of his siblings a personality chip and he got all of them for his droid. There’s so much cool stuff to see and do in the Droid Depot, I’m just disappointed that I didn’t spend more time in there. It was crowded and, while I looked around and browsed shelves, I didn’t really spend time inspecting everything. Maybe that’s another trip in and of itself!
One of the coolest things ever, I think, was while I was building my lightsaber at Savi’s (more on that later!), the kids and our niece went to relax at an area tucked out the way. Well, they ran into Chewy and Vi Moradi. The kids were playing with their droids and Chewy and Vi interacted with my daughters droid! She said, “looks like a lost droid”. The kids were thrilled!
May the Force Be with You!