I never did post my full impressions of my cantina experience so here they are:
The line was indeed really long, and they frequently capped it, so it took a few attempts before we were even able to get in line. We just kept going and doing other things in between. Once we got in the line it took a couple hours.
When we got inside we got placed directly in front of Rex, so pretty ideal (from certain areas on the other side of the bar you wouldnt be able to see him). It's actually smaller inside than I expected, which explained the line. Imagine just the bartop area of a restaurant with booths lining the nearby walls and a little standing room in between. Can't actually hold that many people.
Which means the line won't be getting any better any time soon. I wonder if they might start allowing reservations down the road to fix it. It was not easy to get in to.
But it's really cool in there. It's of course modeled after the cantina in ANH, even with the silver IG88 heads on the bar. Very well and densely decorated, with a frog-like creature breathing in a fish tank near the top.
They don't actually let you choose where you are placed. There are bar seats, standing tables, and booths. It's just luck of the draw where you end up. Probably based on a combination of your party size plus availability.
The main visual attraction is R3X. He's in his DJ booth on one side, head bobbing to the music and waving a hand in the air. And the jams aren't bad. In between songs he introduces the next track with little comments and continues on. As you'd expect, one of the tracks is a remixed version of the classic cantina song. After long enough (45 minutes? not sure) his set restarts, which they disguise as a power failure. All the lights inside start flashing, there's a big boom, and R3x's speech slows as he loses power. Then it comes back on and R3x thinks it's his first day again (like how it was always his first day on star tours), and starts over.
One touch I appreciated is that the music is just about the perfect volume to still be able to hear the people at your table with you. They actually artificially pump some bass outside to make it sound louder than it really is to passers-by. Once you get inside it's not as deafening as you expect.
We saw a breakfast and a lunchtime menu but they didnt seem that different, with the lunch menu having more options. They don't actually have a lot of food, just a couple of sweets. The place is mainly for coffees and alcohol.
I just had a Blue Bantha, basically the blue milk but instead of being icy like the ones they sell outside, it was more milkshake texture. Plus a really tasty cookie on top. My lady got a Fuzzy Tauntaun, which has weird foam on top that literally made our tongues tingle. Like when your foot falls asleep or something, it was wild. I noticed on another table someone had what I think was a Bespin Fizz, which had smoke wisping off as if it had dry ice in it or something. So the main attraction here is clearly the alien drinks. The snacks weren't that good, skip them.
They have a couple drinks on the menu that come in souvenir mugs and they are pricey as hell. One of them is $47 for the single drink with what I think was a Porg themed mug. Iirc I think there was also a wookie mug and maybe something else.
The staff kept referencing it as Oga's bar, talking about how surly she was and how patrons had to watch out for her. They brought her up a lot so I expected a cast member dressed as her to be going around in-character, but we never saw her. So...shrug.
I'd say it's worth it at least once if you've got a group with you and you all try different drinks, so you get the experience of all the alien shenanigans and a few jams from R3x. Cool vibes. If you're not into drinks, at least ask the people at the door to let you take a quick peek inside. They were letting people briefly walk in and out if they didn't plan on staying.
Rex got quite a nice upgrade from his days as a glitchy Star Tours pilot.
I like the little story they gave him on the website. RX-24 crash landed on Batuu and was rebuilt by the droid shop guy into R-3X, and then given to the barkeeper to pay off drinking debts.
OT era
ST era
(not my photo, found on twitter)
