Seven years is a long time to wait for a ride to reach its potential.
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run has been operating at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios since 2019, and for most of those seven years the conversation around it has followed the same pattern.
The setting is incredible. Sitting inside the cockpit of the actual Millennium Falcon is a genuine theme park moment. And then the ride happens, and for a meaningful portion of guests, especially those assigned the engineer role, the experience does not quite match the environment it lives in.
Disney has heard that conversation. What is coming on May 22, 2026, is not a minor update or a character swap. It is a comprehensive reimagining of the attraction at both Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios simultaneously, touching the story, the characters, the destinations, the rider roles, and the underlying technology that generates the visuals riders interact with.
The new version of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will feature Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, and Grogu permanently as part of the ride experience. May 22 is also the theatrical release date of The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars film to open in movie theaters since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. Disney is connecting the park experience directly to the film's opening day, which is a coordinated move that gives both the movie and the attraction a shared cultural moment on the same date.
The ride will not close between the current version and the new one. It operates as normal through May 21. Overnight, Disney implements the changes. The morning of May 22, the new version opens at both parks without any downtime.
Everything That Is Actually Different
The current Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run drops guests into the sequel trilogy timeline, sends them from Batuu to Corellia on a coaxium fuel run, and does all of this under the direction of Hondo Ohnaka, the Audio-Animatronics figure from Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels who currently anchors the pre-show. The ride is set, the destination is fixed, and the story does not change between visits.
The new version keeps Batuu as the departure point but routes riders to Tatooine as the second destination, then branches into one of three possible final planets. Riders choose which of the three they visit. The options are Bespin, home of Cloud City from The Empire Strikes Back; Endor, site of Death Star wreckage from The Rise of Skywalker; and Coruscant, the densely populated city-planet featured across the prequel trilogy and more recently in Andor. The story running through all of this involves the crew tracking down ex-Imperial officers.
The rider choice element separates this from how Star Tours: The Adventures Continue handles re-rideability. That attraction randomizes its destinations, meaning guests have no say in what they experience. Some riders love the surprise. Others have ridden multiple times hoping to see a specific destination and landed on the same result each time. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is solving for that second problem directly. If you want to see Coruscant on your next visit, you select Coruscant. The choice is yours.
The engineer role has been overhauled. In the current version, engineers press buttons when the ride instructs them to. That has been the primary complaint about role assignment since the attraction opened, and Disney has redesigned the position entirely. Engineers in the new version are responsible for communicating with Grogu and selecting the crew's third destination. The exact mechanic for the Grogu interaction has not been revealed yet, but moving the engineer from the least desirable role to potentially the most pivotal one is a significant shift in how the ride distributes its experience across the three positions.
Walt Disney Imagineering is also updating the visual technology using Unreal Engine in collaboration with Epic Games. The original ride opened in 2019 and its software has not been updated since. Real-time rendering technology has advanced substantially across nearly a decade of development, and the new visuals are expected to respond more smoothly to rider input and look meaningfully sharper than what guests have experienced in the existing version.
Hondo Ohnaka is expected to remain in the pre-show. Replacing the physical Audio-Animatronics figure would require a closure period, and since this transition happens overnight without any downtime, it is unlikely Disney is removing him. His presence in the Mandalorian era of the timeline makes narrative sense regardless, given that his animated appearances placed him in the prequel era and his current in-ride appearance confirms he is still active during the sequel trilogy. The Mandalorian series takes place between the original and sequel trilogies, so the timeline is consistent.
What This Means for a Disney Trip Right Now
The May 22 launch date is the central planning variable for anyone with Disneyland or Disney's Hollywood Studios on their calendar this spring or summer.
Guests visiting before May 22 will experience the current version of the ride, which continues operating normally until that date. Guests visiting on May 22 or later get the new version. There is no gap between the two. If your trip is already scheduled before May 22 and the reimagined version is something you specifically want to experience, the only adjustment is timing a future visit for after the launch date.
For guests already planning a May or later visit, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is worth approaching differently than it has been. The no-closure transition means Lightning Lane demand for the attraction will likely shift significantly once guests start experiencing the new version and word travels. It is reasonable to expect the reimagined ride draws considerably more interest than the current version, which has historically been more accessible than Rise of the Resistance in terms of wait times.
Disney's Hollywood Studios has additional content arriving around the same period. Rock ‘n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets opens May 26, permanently replacing the Aerosmith version. Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live! also debuts that day for younger guests. The Magic of Disney Animation, featuring a short film, character greetings, and a drawing class with an Audio-Animatronics Olaf from Frozen, opens later this summer in the building formerly occupied by Star Wars Launch Bay.
At Disneyland, the original trilogy arrives in Galaxy's Edge starting April 29 with character appearances by Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Darth Vader, and Han Solo. That change is California-only and does not apply to Disney's Hollywood Studios.
If you have a Hollywood Studios trip coming up and want to experience the new Smugglers Run, target May 22 or later and plan your Galaxy's Edge time accordingly. Lightning Lane for both Smugglers Run and Rise of the Resistance is worth booking early on your park day. And if you have been holding off on revisiting the ride because the engineer assignment was the thing standing between you and a good time, that specific problem has been addressed directly. It is worth giving the new version a real chance.
