PHOTOS: Find Out What Lightsaber Training Is REALLY Like at the Star Wars Hotel in Disney World

The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser has a lot of activities you can do while you’re on the ship, like playing sabacc, interacting with characters, or trying the fun drinks in the Sublight Lounge.

The Sublight Lounge

But, one of the activities that we’ve been the most hyped up about (as we’re sure other Star Wars fans have been, too) is the lightsaber training! We know we’re not alone in saying that we’ve wanted to wield a lightsaber (and actually FEEL like we’re using it) since seeing the movies years ago. Is there even a cooler weapon in cinema?! Well, we finally got to try out the lightsaber training aboard the Galactic Starcruiser, and we’re here to tell you if it’s worth the hype!

Everyone aboard the ship will have a scheduled time in their itinerary for lightsaber training — make sure to check your schedule so you don’t miss it! When it was time for our session, we headed over to our designated lightsaber training pod.

We’ve been waiting for this!

Walking inside, there is some pretty dramatic lighting, which is perfect to set the scene for training with a lightsaber.

The pod

Let’s take a look around!

Here you can see the training devices

There are spots on the floor so you know where to stand.

More on this in a minute!

We also noticed these circular devices on the wall, which will come into play later!

Do you know what these are?

Each training session is led by a Saja, which is the title for a lightsaber trainer.

She showed us the way!

You’ll be lined up for the training stations. The first round will only be 4 people in the front with the lightsabers, but they will arrange everyone in a rotational system, so everyone gets a chance to train!

Training in progress!

These lightsabers feel like lighter versions of the Legacy sabers you can get in Galaxy’s Edge, but they did still feel like metal. The Legacy Lightsabers are heavy enough to make you feel like you need to be really careful with them, and we didn’t feel that at all with these sabers. However, they were heavy enough to feel “real” enough in the training sessions. And, they’re light enough that almost anyone should be able to hold and swing them with ease.

Shields and lightsabers

For the lightsaber training, a blue “tracer” light beam will come out from the training device indicating where you should place your lightsaber.

Follow the beams!

Then, a faster light will shoot out and if your lightsaber is in the right place, it will light up and you’ll feel the fire hit it!

Gotta be ready!

After everyone has a chance with a lightsaber, shields will be handed out to the people standing behind those with the lightsabers in the rotational system.

Time for shields!

This way, you get a chance with the shields AND the lightsabers.

The shield

These shields also light up!

Our shield

The people with the shields follow the light pattern just like you would with a lightsaber, so that if the person with the saber in front of you messes up, the light will hit your shield.

Hold it up!

The training gets harder and harder as it goes on, so be prepared to possibly break a sweat! The first half of this training session is pretty fun, but it does kind of feel like you’re in a gym class or a group fitness class. It’s entertaining, but definitely not the most fun activity you can do on the ship.

Training hard

Once you’ve trained for a while, your Saja will begin talking about the force and a recognizable voice will start talking overhead. This voice echos through the room and talks about using the force to train with your lightsaber.

Use the force…

So, the tracer lights are turned off and you have to “use the force” in order to know where your saber should go. Don’t worry though, there are some twinkle lights that will help you out! 😉

May the force be with you

This part with the force and the twinkle lights was fun, but we think Disney could’ve done a bit better with making it feel more real and less cheesy. The twinkle lights don’t really give off the feeling that you’re using the force — it’s just you looking at sparkles. The whole thing with the force in the Star Wars universe is feeling it, not seeing it. If something like sound effects were used instead, we think it would’ve been more impactful.

Your Saja will also talk about the force!

This was still a fun experience, but it didn’t really match the level of immersion we encountered during other activities on the ship. So, because of that, the story arc during lightsaber training didn’t quite feel right.

Lightsaber training

Toward the end, our Saja ended with a passionate and emotional speech about how inspiring we had been during the training process. She did a fantastic job, but because the immersion wasn’t built up enough in this experience compared to others, it was kind of confusing. If you’re really into Star Wars this could be moving for you. But for the more casual fan, it might seem a bit more confusing or out of place.

The end!

There you have it — that’s what training with a lightsaber is like on Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. If you’ve always wanted to use a lightsaber and are a big fan of Star Wars, this will probably be your jam. Even if you’re not a Star Wars fan, you should still enjoy the training aspect of this activity. Just know going in that it’s not going to be as immersive as other experiences on the ship and maybe treat it more as just getting to play with a lightsaber. Stay tuned to DFB for more from the Starcruiser.

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Do you think you would be good at wielding a lightsaber? Tell us in the comments!

Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. Today, we were invited by Disney World to attend their media preview of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink. You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ

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