Mando and Grogu Take Over Smugglers Run Across Two Resorts

Smugglers Run Gets a New Mandalorian Storyline Starting May 22

Disney Parks Blog announced that Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will launch an all-new adventure featuring Din Djarin and Grogu on May 22, 2026, at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort. The timing is deliberate. That same day, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in theaters, and Disney is treating the film's premiere as a reason to rewire one of its most high-profile attractions across both coasts simultaneously.

The new storyline sends guests to Tatooine, where Hondo Ohnaka has caught wind of a high-stakes deal between ex-Imperial officers and a band of pirates. You take possession of the Falcon, join forces with Mando and Grogu, and chase a bounty across the stars. Each mission can carry you to Bespin, the remains of the second Death Star near Endor, or the cityscape of Coruscant. The engineer position gets a particularly notable upgrade: a new interactive feature lets engineers check in on Grogu throughout the mission and make the pivotal planet choice that charts the course. That single mechanical change shifts the engineer role from the least glamorous seat on the Falcon to arguably the most narratively interesting one.

The overlay extends well beyond Smugglers Run. Disney Parks Blog details new food and beverage offerings themed to the duo at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at both resorts, including Grogu Cookies at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, plus a Sweet-and-Spicy Puffer Pig Pasta exclusive to Walt Disney World. Themed sippers and droid buckets round out the merchandise push. And at Disneyland, a limited-time projection show called "The Curious Child" is already running at Galaxy's Edge, transforming the spires of Batuu after "Shadows of Memory: A Skywalker Saga" with scenes of Grogu testing his power to recall fond memories. That show began May 16.

Meanwhile, WDW News Today reports that Pedro Pascal himself surprised guests as the Mandalorian in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland, adding a real-world celebrity moment to a week already saturated with Mandalorian content. When a studio coordinates an attraction overlay, a theatrical release, themed dining, projection shows, and an in-person actor appearance within the same seven-day window, the strategy is clear: Galaxy's Edge was always designed to evolve with the stories Disney tells, and this is the most aggressive demonstration of that philosophy to date.

The Parks

DisneylandForward just took a concrete step forward. MickeyBlog reports that Disneyland has filed two confidential building permits with the City of Anaheim for the Toy Story parking lot. According to a report from the OC Register cited by MickeyBlog, the permits relate to plans for a Disney Springs-style shopping district rather than a rumored third gate. The eastward expansion would include hotels, dining, entertainment, stores, and what Disneyland has described as "theme park elements." Concept art for the project shows a central lagoon surrounded by shopping and dining establishments, with a parking structure near the corner of Katella Avenue and Haster Street. Disney Tourist Blog separately published an analysis debunking the third-gate speculation, noting that while a third park remains a long-term possibility, these permits point toward a retail and entertainment district. For context, the City of Anaheim approved the broader DisneylandForward initiative over two years ago, with Disney pledging $1.9 billion in investment. The permits suggest that pledge is slowly becoming physical infrastructure.

At Walt Disney World, the summer transportation picture just got meaningfully better for water park guests. BlogMickey reports that Disney has expanded direct bus service to both Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon from select resort hotels. Guests at Disney's Port Orleans Resort, Riverside and French Quarter now have direct bus access to Typhoon Lagoon, bypassing the old Disney Springs transfer. For Blizzard Beach, three additional resorts have been added to the direct service list: Disney's Art of Animation Resort, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, and Disney's Pop Century Resort, joining Disney's Coronado Springs and the All-Star Resorts. Both water parks are open simultaneously through September 8, 2026. If you have stayed at Pop Century or Caribbean Beach and dreaded the Animal Kingdom transfer to reach Blizzard Beach, this is a real quality-of-life improvement timed perfectly to summer crowds.

Bluey is heading to Disney's Animal Kingdom. Attractions Magazine reports that "Bluey's Wild World" is coming to Animal Kingdom, while "Bluey's Best Day Ever" is now open inside the Fantasyland Theatre at Disneyland. According to The DisInsider, the Animal Kingdom experience begins May 26 as part of Walt Disney World's "Cool KIDS' SUMMER" celebration, featuring Bluey and Bingo. Editorially, the dual-coast Bluey rollout mirrors the Mandalorian strategy of using both resorts to amplify a single franchise moment, though the Bluey push targets a distinctly younger audience that has been underserved by recent attraction investments.

Sunday's crowd data at Walt Disney World told an interesting story. Lightning Brain's daily park report recorded Magic Kingdom at just 3/10 (Moderate), well below expectations for a May Sunday, with a median wait of just under 12 minutes. EPCOT, meanwhile, was the busiest park in the resort at 5/10 (Average) with an 18-minute median, driven by Flower and Garden Festival traffic that produced a 30-minute median peak at 8:00 AM. Both Hollywood Studios parks came in light. The reopening of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was expected to pull guests back to Magic Kingdom, but that surge simply did not materialize in the wait data. EPCOT had an operationally uneven day: Frozen Ever After went offline for about an hour during the midday peak, Remy's Ratatouille Adventure had a 47-minute closure in the early evening, and Spaceship Earth logged two brief closures totaling about 50 minutes across the afternoon. Journey Into Imagination with Figment was the standout outlier, running at double its typical wait, possibly because festival guests used it as a shady midday break.

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Over at Disneyland Paris, Disney Experiences published a detailed look at how Cast Members were trained to open World of Frozen at Disney Adventure World. Nearly 15 months before the land opened on March 29, 2026, the resort launched a recruitment effort that combined internal mobility, targeted recruitment, and a European casting tour to welcome more than 1,200 Cast Members into new roles. Just 350 were selected as Arendelle "villagers," each receiving what became known as the "letter from the village," an invitation written in character by Fredrik, royal emissary of Queens Anna and Elsa. Cast Member Dorine Hermier described being chosen for the opening guest flow team as a "heart-stopping surprise." The piece illustrates something easy to overlook about new land openings: the storytelling begins long before guests arrive, with the Cast Members themselves as the first audience.

The Screen

The Devil Wears Prada 2 continues to perform. D23 reports that the 20th Century Studios sequel has topped the global box office for two consecutive weekends, earning nearly $440 million to date. But the D23 piece focuses less on the numbers and more on the role the Walt Disney Archives played in production. Costume designer Molly Rogers and Walt Disney Archives Director of Operations Joanna Pratt explained how signature pieces from the original 2006 film, including the famous cerulean sweater, were pulled from the Archives to serve as both inspiration and direct connection for the sequel. Pratt noted that as The Walt Disney Company has grown to include brands like 20th Century Studios, the Archives' collection has expanded accordingly. It is a small but revealing detail about how Disney's institutional memory functions as a creative resource rather than just a museum.

On a very different screen, Disney Cruise Line is building what amounts to a floating Frozen festival for its Alaska sailings this summer. Lightning Brain's cruise report details a daylong immersive Frozen experience aboard the Disney Wonder and Disney Magic, anchored by "For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration," a live show performed on the upper deck with Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff against the real-world backdrop of Alaska's glaciers. The day fills in around the show with Anna's Frozen Fun Hunt, Oaken's Maypole Swirl and Twirl in the atrium, and a dedicated Frozen-themed dining experience with dishes inspired by the film. Beyond the Frozen programming, DCL is adding a Broadway Stars Series on select Wonder and Magic sailings and promises a new "Pirates in the Caribbean" experience across the broader fleet. The strategic logic is sound: Alaska earns Frozen in a way no other itinerary could, and tying entertainment to destination creates the kind of cohesive experience that justifies the premium DCL charges.

The Vault

The Walt Disney Family Museum is presenting "Preserving Pixie Dust" with Walt Disney Imagineering, according to WDW News Today's daily recap. Details in the recap are slim, but the title alone signals a program focused on the intersection of archival preservation and Imagineering's creative legacy. It sits in interesting company this week alongside the D23 piece on the Walt Disney Archives and the Devil Wears Prada costumes. Two separate stories in the same news cycle, both centered on how Disney's past is actively maintained and deployed as a creative tool for present-day projects. The Archives supplied wardrobe to a billion-dollar sequel. Imagineering's history is being presented as a public-facing museum program. The common thread is that Disney treats its institutional memory as a working resource instead of a warehouse.

WDW News Today also flagged that Disney gave a young fan an exclusive look inside the Imagineering Robotics Lab during Week of Wishes. And in Hong Kong, Lord Henry Mystic and Albert have debuted as meet and greet characters at Hong Kong Disneyland, bringing two of the most beloved original characters from Mystic Manor into the parks in a way guests can interact with directly. Mystic Manor remains one of the finest attractions Imagineering has ever built, and giving its characters a physical presence outside the attraction suggests Hong Kong Disneyland recognizes the cult following that attraction has earned among park enthusiasts worldwide.

Sources

Disney Parks Blog · WDW News Today · MickeyBlog · Disney Tourist Blog · BlogMickey · Attractions Magazine · The DisInsider · Lightning Brain · Lightning Brain · D23 · Disney Experiences