Smugglers Run Roles Ranked in Order: Best Seat to Worst

By · Local mom · Celebration, FL

Published September 4, 2026 · Updated October 15, 2026

Here’s the thing nobody tells first-timers about Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run — the ride is basically three different attractions depending on which seat you land in, and you have almost no control over which one you get. Left-seat pilot is the experience people rave about. Engineer in the back row is watching other people play a video game. Same wait, same price, wildly different payoff.

So the real planning question isn’t “should we ride it?” It’s “how do we ride it in a way that gets the people who care about flying into the front row?” That’s a solvable problem, and it starts before you’re anywhere near the cockpit.

The three roles, honestly ranked

Six guests board the Falcon’s cockpit. Two pilots up front, two gunners in the middle, two engineers in back. A Cast Member assigns the seats as you enter the boarding area — you generally don’t pick.

Pilots (front row, 2 seats). The best seat, no contest. You’re staring straight through the viewport with the flight yokes in your hands. Left pilot handles left/right steering, right pilot handles up/down. That split matters more than people expect: you’re not flying solo, you’re half of a two-person control system, so a great run needs both of you actually cooperating rather than yanking in opposite directions. If your kid has been counting down to this ride for six months, this is the seat you want them in.

Gunners (middle row, 2 seats). Genuinely fun and criminally underrated. You get lit-up targets and buttons, you rack up hits, and — key detail — you don’t have to look forward the whole time to do your job well. If motion sensitivity is a concern in your group, gunner is the sweet spot: you’re engaged, you’re contributing, and you’re not locked into the forward view that tends to make queasy riders queasier.

Engineers (back row, 2 seats). The honest take: this is the weak seat. You press panels when they light up, mostly in response to damage the pilots caused. You’re farthest from the viewport and your inputs feel the least connected to what’s happening on screen. Little kids often love it anyway because buttons are buttons. Adults who were hoping to fly the Falcon usually walk off mildly deflated.

The smart move: decide before you get to the boarding area who in your group most wants to fly, and be ready to say so quickly and pleasantly when the Cast Member is assigning. Cast Members are frequently willing to accommodate a simple, specific request — “can these two be pilots?” — if you ask before assignments are made rather than after. Don’t negotiate, don’t hold up the line, just ask once, early.

The party-size trick that actually moves your odds

The cockpit takes six. If your party is six, you fill the ship and every role in it belongs to your group — the front row is guaranteed to be one of you. That’s the cleanest path to a pilot seat there is.

If you’re a party of two or four, you’re getting grouped with strangers, and role assignment is dealer’s choice. A party of five is the sneaky-good number: you’re one short of filling the ship, so you’ll typically get five of the six roles and only one seat goes to someone else.

If pilot matters enormously to one person in your group and you’re a small party, the fallback is simple: ride it twice, at different times of day, and let the odds work. Which brings us to the timing.

When to actually ride it

Smugglers Run is one of the higher-capacity attractions in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge — a lot of ships cycling constantly — which is exactly why it behaves so differently from the land’s other headliner. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is the Lightning Lane Single Pass ride that soaks up the crowd’s attention and the early-morning stampede. Smugglers Run is Lightning Lane Multi Pass, and its wait tends to soften considerably once the rope-drop wave has cleared and people scatter across Hollywood Studios.

Here’s the strategy I’d actually run:

This is exactly the kind of ride where a best-time-to-ride forecaster earns its keep: SupaPark’s forecaster shows when Smugglers Run tends to be shortest across the day rather than making you guess, and the free tier includes live waits and the crowd calendar so you can see whether today’s Hollywood Studios is a “ride it twice” day or a “ride it once and move on” day. On paid tiers, a wait-drop alert will ping you the moment it craters toward walk-on — which is how a second lap costs you fifteen minutes instead of an hour.

Lightning Lane: is it worth spending here?

Smugglers Run sits inside Lightning Lane Multi Pass, not Single Pass — that’s the useful distinction. If you buy Multi Pass for your Hollywood Studios day, remember how the system actually works now: you buy it per day, then pick your attractions in advance (Disney resort guests can start selecting 7 days before arrival, off-site guests 3 days, with the window opening at 7:00 AM Eastern on your eligible day). You book an initial set, and once you use one — or its window passes — you add the next, one at a time, through the day in My Disney Experience.

My read on where Smugglers Run fits in that queue: it’s usually not your first Multi Pass selection. Spend your earliest, most competitive picks on the Hollywood Studios attractions that stay stubbornly long all day, and slot Smugglers Run in as a mid-day refill once you’ve redeemed one. Its wait is more forgiving than the park’s worst offenders, so paying your scarcest planning currency for it is a mismatch.

The one exception: if getting a specific person into the pilot seat is a genuine priority for your trip, a Multi Pass refill on Smugglers Run is a cheap way to buy a second attempt without eating an hour of standby.

Sell-out patterns matter here too. Some Multi Pass attractions run out of availability much earlier in the day than others, and refills reappear unpredictably. SupaPark tracks sell-out trends and predicts refills, and paid tiers will alert you the second one becomes bookable — you then confirm it yourself in My Disney Experience. SupaPark never books anything; it just makes sure you’re not the person who checked the app four minutes too late.

The stuff around the ride that most people get wrong

Don’t ride hungry and don’t ride on a Starbucks line. Galaxy’s Edge sits at the far end of Hollywood Studios, and the walk back for coffee is a real time cost. If you need caffeine before your morning in the land, skip the single Starbucks location — there’s exactly one per park and the line reflects it — and look for a Joffrey’s instead. There are multiple per park, the lines are consistently shorter, and plenty of guests rate the coffee just as well. Better still, mobile order it in My Disney Experience and walk up to a near-empty pickup window while everyone else queues.

Use BaseLine Tap House as your Galaxy’s Edge staging area. It’s right at the entrance to the land, and it’s the fix for a very specific Hollywood Studios trap: those Star Wars-themed Coke and Sprite bottles look fantastic and cost real money, and Disney won’t refill them. Grab a proper drink at BaseLine instead — the charcuterie board and the Bavarian pretzel are both solid, shareable, and a much better value than another bottled soda from an outdoor cart. It’s also a good place to park half your group while the other half rides.

Time your meals off-peak. Mobile order in Hollywood Studios gets genuinely competitive at noon and 6 PM, with pickup windows pushed way out. Ordering at 11 AM or 2 PM routinely gets you a near-immediate window — and it means you’re eating while everyone else is standing in line, then riding while everyone else is eating.

Watch the tip boards, not just your phone. The physical tip boards near the park entrances carry most of the same wait-time info as the app, and they sometimes come alive at odd hours. Useful when your phone battery is dying — which, on a Galaxy’s Edge day with this much photo-taking, it will be.

Family considerations worth knowing before you queue

Smugglers Run has a height requirement, so check your child’s height before you commit the group to a long standby. If someone in your party can’t ride, Rider Switch means the adults don’t have to skip it — one waits with the child, then swaps in without re-queuing. SupaPark tracks child heights against ride eligibility so you’re not doing that math at the entrance sign with three tired kids.

The motion question is real. The cockpit moves, the view is forward and fast, and the whole thing is more intense than the exterior queue suggests. If you’ve got a borderline rider, put them in a gunner seat — the job doesn’t require staring forward, and that alone helps a lot of people. And know that a rough flight — lots of collisions, lots of alarms — is a bumpier ride than a clean one, which is another quiet argument for putting your most competent, most cooperative pair in the pilot seats.

The one thing to remember

Smugglers Run rewards a plan you make before you’re in line, not after. Decide who’s flying, ask the Cast Member once and early, ride at the afternoon or evening dip rather than at rope drop, and treat a second lap as the actual strategy rather than a luxury. Get that right and the person who’s been dreaming about piloting the Falcon since they were eight actually gets to — instead of pressing a blinking button in the back row and pretending it was the same thing.

Smugglers Run crew roles ranked in order: which position is best?

Ranked in order, best to worst: left pilot → right pilot → gunner → engineer. That’s the whole answer, and the gap between the top and the bottom of that list is bigger than most first-timers expect.

Here’s the order with the reasoning:

  1. Left pilot. Front row, dead center of the viewport, and you control left/right steering — the inputs that most obviously change what you see happening in front of you. This is the seat people describe when they say they “flew the Falcon.”
  2. Right pilot. Same front-row view, same yoke, but you’re on up/down. Marginally less satisfying only because the steering inputs read more dramatically on screen. Still a top-two seat by a mile.
  3. Gunner (either seat). Middle row, clear targets, constant things to do, and the most forgiving position if anyone in your group gets motion-queasy, since you aren’t locked into the forward view. The genuinely underrated role.
  4. Engineer (either seat). Back row, farthest from the viewport, pressing panels that light up in reaction to damage someone else caused. Kids who just want buttons are perfectly happy here. Adults who came to fly usually aren’t.

The two engineer seats and the two gunner seats are effectively interchangeable within their row, so the ranking that actually matters is really three tiers: pilots, gunners, engineers.

The practical takeaway: since you’re assigned rather than choosing, treat this ranking as a planning tool, not a wish list. Decide in advance who in your group would be disappointed by tier three, ask the Cast Member politely and quickly before assignments are made, and plan on a second ride if the pilot seat genuinely matters to someone.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you choose your role on Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run?

Not officially — a Cast Member assigns the pilot, gunner, and engineer seats as your group enters the boarding area. Politely asking for a specific role before assignments are made is often accommodated, but it’s never guaranteed.

Which seat is the best on Smugglers Run?

Pilot, by a wide margin: you’re in the front row with a flight yoke and a direct view through the viewport. Gunner is a strong second and the best choice for motion-sensitive riders, while engineer in the back row is the least engaging seat.

Is Smugglers Run a Lightning Lane Single Pass or Multi Pass ride?

Smugglers Run is included with Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is the Single Pass attraction in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, purchased separately à la carte.

What’s the best time of day to ride Smugglers Run?

Late afternoon and evening usually beat rope drop, because the ride’s relatively high capacity means its wait tends to come back down after the morning rush while lower-capacity attractions stay long all day. Checking a best-time forecaster for your specific date beats guessing.

How does the two-pilot control system work?

The two pilots split the controls — one handles left-and-right steering and the other handles up-and-down — so a smooth flight requires the pair to actually coordinate. That’s why it’s worth putting your two most engaged riders in the front row together.

Is Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run single rider?

Yes — Smugglers Run has a single rider line at Hollywood Studios. Since the ride assigns you one of six crew seats regardless of party, single rider is a genuinely painless way to ride solo or split up.

Which Smugglers Run position is ranked best?

Left pilot is the best position — front row, full viewport view, and control of the Falcon’s left/right steering. Right pilot is a close second, with gunner third and engineer last.

Can you request a specific crew role on Smugglers Run?

You can ask, and Cast Members are frequently willing to accommodate a simple request like “can these two be pilots?” — but only if you ask quickly and pleasantly before seats are assigned, not after.

Go deeper — the full guides: Avatar Flight of Passage Height Requirement & Ride Tips · Will Your Kid Hate Soarin’? How to Decide (And Where to Sit)

SupaPark tracks live wait times and crowd forecasts, and pings you the second a hard-to-get reservation opens or a ride goes walk-on — free to start at supapark.com.

Keep planning: Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run · live wait times · is Lightning Lane worth it

Go deeper: the full guides