Nothing Star Wars would be complete without some galactically cool merchandise to go along with it, and the merchandise you can acquire from Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland definitely fits the bill. In addition to the lightsabers you can build at Savi's Workshop, one of the coolest things you can bring home from Batuu is your own personal astromech droid from the Droid Depot.
Droid Depot Entrance. Photo by Megan Walker.
Anyone who has ever watched Star Wars has certainly dreamed of having their own astromech droid in the likes of R2D2 or, more recently, BB-8. If you also shared that dream, you're in luck, because now at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge you have the chance of building your own droid friend to take home. Located at Droid Depot, guests on Batuu can enter the droid workshop and gather the pieces necessary to build their very own droid.
Droid Depot. Photo by Megan Walker.
When you first enter Droid Depot to build a droid, you'll head to the register and pay for the droid first. It's at this time you'll need to pick between building an R2-unit or a BB-unit. Once you've made your choice, you get the core part of your droid and a basket to collect the rest of your parts and you're shown over to the conveyor belt of parts. This is where the fun happens! Literally a conveyor belt circles around carrying all of the different parts for each droid type, in many different color and style combinations. Guide charts on the walls help you know how many of each part you need to collect. Here you get to decide what color, or what combination of colors, you want your droid to be and you pick the parts accordingly as they come across the belt. I've noticed that you may have to wait a little bit as the belt goes around a few times if you're looking for a specific part. Cast members behind-the-scenes add parts to the belt as they're chosen by guests, so a new color or style may come out on the next round if you're patient.
Droid Depot Conveyor Belt. Photo by Megan Walker.
Once you've picked all of your pieces from the belt, you head over to the actual building stations. Here, a cast member will give you the next round of instructions on actually building your droid and putting all of the pieces together. There's also a handy guide here to help you step by step. This part is super fun and actually a little complex. You definitely have to think about the process and be careful as you put the pieces together, it's not as simple as you'd think.
Droid Depot Building Station Guide. Photo by Megan Walker.
Once you get all of the pieces put together in the right order, your droid is almost ready. When you're ready to activate the droid, a cast member will come over and help you bring your new friend to life (which is really just activating the Bluetooth). Once your droid is activated, the cast member will hand you the remote control to test out and make sure your droid responds as it should and if it does, you're ready to roll!
Droid Depot Building Station. Photo by Megan Walker.
The droid building at Droid Depot is a lot of fun. Not only is it a really hands-on experience where you get to build your droid yourself and not just pick it off a shelf, but it's also completely customizable, which makes every droid really unique to whoever built it. Additionally, the droids themselves are a lot of fun to play with. The Bluetooth capability of being able to control your droid via remote control and watch it roll all over the place, not to mention speak to you also through beeps and chimes, is a Star Wars fan's dream come true. Although the price tag of $99.99 might seem a little high, it definitely is a high-quality piece of merchandise that also comes with a really fantastic experience. If you're in the market for a droid, make sure you stop by Droid Depot next time you're on Batuu and pick one up!
