Sorry so late. It has been crazy since we got home. Still a little Disney Lag, as I call it.... We also live in Charleston, SC which as many of you know from the news suffered great losses right after we got home...
We went to Disney for a 5 park ticket trip, our first in 5 years. We were at SWW Weekend V Friday. We also had a FtF premium package.
CHECK IN WEDNESDAY=
We checked in that Wednesday at AoA and I managed to sweet talk myself a SWW weekend V pamphlet
I told the front desk lady they seemed to be coming out every Wed or Thurs and they must be somewhere. She went to the back for awhile and reappeared with a box full
!! Which I quickly took pics of and posted to facebook tagging
@yulilin3 who ,thanks again, posted the pics to the SWW thread for me. Actually the pics started popping up on Star Wars Facebook etc even without me sharing them yet, I could tell it was my pics because our feet were in the pics, lol. So thanks to whoever did that for me, or us rather.
LATE THURS. NIGHT CAMPING OUT=
I checked, or tried to check, Yulilin's thread to see the chatter about camping out for Peter Mayhew's meet & greet Thursday night around 11pm. We stayed at AoA and cell service there was non existent in our room, I have Tmobile. Wifi was ok though. Had cell service but had to go outside to get a signal other than a circle with a line through it
Anyways reports at that time once I could see a few said the lines were getting kinda long so instead of arriving at HS at 4am as originally planned we headed over to HS around 12am. My DH and I went to the line, we were around the second light post back past bag check arriving around 12:20am. We had a bench and I made sure to take up space for all of us so ppl could judge how many ppl were there. My mom sat with the 3 kiddos in our van parked pretty close with the a/c on and it running so they could sleep. They joined us at 5am, no issues. Ray Park's line was a few ppl shorter than Mayhew's at that time. Overnight hubby, mom and I got no sleep. Disney did provide "psychological warfare" by loudly practicing the Frozen parade or show not sure which like the first few minutes over and over for a few hours. It was SO awful, lol.. Some ppl even had blow up mattresses, some just slept on the ground, some chatted with us with camping chairs, which is what we brought. The CM's arrived to pass out bands a little after 6am and asked us to not let anyone else in line from Park's line for when the announced that the line would be cut off. His cut off looked like it was around when we got there so roughly 12am he only did one signing that day. The CM were very nice, one even let my oldest hold the Ray park sign and I took a pic. We then after what seemed like an eternity got our wristbands and fastpasses. When we got up there there were a few 1st session fp left but we needed 6 so we got the 2nd set which still worked for us
Friday AM HS OPENING=
We got our fastpasses and jockeyed our way to the front left to the turnstyles and then proceeded to the stormtrooper show far left pretty close to the front. The plan was me and the kids sign up for VTTM and hubby Chewie Run, us and kids meet hubby after signups at Chewie. Well I got a little lost for about 2 minutes finding ABC studio to sign up and killed shot to sign up VTTM. There were only 15 spots that day and the CM said a few were taken with no names left, seems sign ups were fishy for VTTM this year most days, ppl signed in before opening reported other days as well. Hope they fix that. Luckily kids weren't too bummed. I also had FP for the VTTM anyways, which we missed. We then quick walked and met up with hubby in Chewie line which by then was getting pretty full, he had let a few families in front of him but by the time Chewie and Logray came out we only had to wait like 10 minutes maybe less to meet them.
FtF PREMIUM CHECK IN=
We were told check in started at 10am, yet from info on the SWW thread I knew they started earlier so we checked in at 9am. We were able to get Oz Show as our 1 reserved area seating and got our lanyards and stock photos, 1 per person. It included slightly larger than 5x7 stock publicity shots of Park, Mayhew, Eckstein, and Gray. I was still a little worried about the Parade and dessert party area so I talked to a CM and supervisor and they said if we had any issues just let them know. Backstory my 10 yr old has pretty bad anxiety which is another big reason we opted for the package, less stress. It worked out ok, more later.
PARADE / MOTORCADE=
We checked back in for the parade area around 10:15, parade starting at 11:30 I believe. The kids sat in front and I sat behind them as far away from the stage as possible near the rope so to cut down on missing some characters turning to go onstage. It was great! Kids were happy and had lots of drinks and popcorn and ice cream Mickey bars
They had so much snacks the CM were giving away drinks and popcorn to take with you as you left, score! For stress levels we were advised to fall back as stage show started to avoid the "mob" Well, my poor anxiety child lost sight of us for a minute in the "bum rush" when the rope dropped and had a little melt down but was ok. We then dipped out of the show / crowd as planned, this is what worked for us anyways.
DARTHS MALL=
entered around mid afternoon. Only had to wait a few minutes. Only items I noticed that were sold out was mugs, Tervis, dooney wristlets. I am still sad about the mugs and Tervis, dang resellers. It was cool though. We entered at x wing collectibles like told to in SWW thread to not have to exit and re-enter. A few items were slightly marked down. It was pretty crowed.
MEETING PETER MAYHEW=
We arrived for our meet and greet window. The CM or whoever they were inside were a little like drill instructors, not very friendly. Sternly telling us to stand against the wll, etc. You could only take your item to be signed in the room with Mr. Mayhew as well. I guess problems with resellers? We felt very rushed. A photopass photographer would have been awesome. I got the CM in the room to take pics and they turned out grainy
Mayhew was very nice, but quiet. He seemed tired or sad. Very sweet though. As we left he said "May the force be with you always" in a very sincrer wistful way, it was amazing! The kids loved it.
CONVERSATION WITH OZ & a MAGICAL MEMORY=
Forgot to redo FP and still had a FP as well for this show. I did find a nice couple from the facebook group to use 2 of them though, I met them and gave them 2 of our magic bands to use and got them back right before the show started, they walked them over to us at our seats, he was super nice and I really enjoyed helping them out. We arrived about a half hour before our special seating window, same entrance as VIP or Deluxe FtF package. The kids played with their lightsabers they made while we waited. A camera crew approached us to film the kids playing, more than likely to appear on Disney Park Blog if anywhere they said, still super fun!! They took the boys just beyond the ropes and had them play act for several shots, had me sign releases and gave us all special Disney Pins they said you only get when they film you! They did start seating while they were filming so we were a little further back than we would have been but it was worth it! Our seats were still a few rows below the box for film crews etc. in the middle. About 20 minutes into the show my littlest one had to go to the restroom and was getting rowdy so I took him to the restroom, for the 2nd time and decided to stay just outside at the top of the theater as to not be disruptive, sad to have missed most of the show, the rest of my family enjoyed it though.
REBEL HANGAR=
We had a 6:45pm reservation. Crowd outside was pretty grumpy. Waited about 20 min. to be sat after ressie time. Server was rude, caught us by surprise. She was meaning to be frank and sarcastic we quickly figured out and LOVED her! We took about 20 minutes!! Cute decor. The kids ordered drinks to go with xwing glow thingys. Jawas came by, which is what we wanted. We got our baggie of tradeables and gave them lots of costume rhinestone jewelry. Kids had a ball trading with them, got cute pics. Very happy with this ressie, would recommend a visit!! Tipped her well, she was shocked/thankful. I have been a server most of my life off and on
DESSERT PARTY=
We arrived just as the dessert party started. I had earplugs for the kids, DJ Elliot was amazing though! My lil one with anxiety had a little emotional moment from all the stimulation a few minutes into it, which I kinda expected. He said he loved it though. We ate a lot of sweets and the kids danced a little, we only stayed like a half hour though as to not over stress him. Did not see the show. We did arrive back to our room in the Cars Suites in time for the fireworks and the kids watched them from their bed and thought that was awesome!!
OVERALL=
Crowds were pretty dense. wE TOOK COOL DOWN DECOMPRESS MINI BREAKS THROUGH THE PARK OFF AND ON. wISH WE HAD MET MORE CHARACTERS. gOT TO SEE yULILIN BRIEFLY NEAR lUKE & lEIA MEET. tHAT WAS FUN! Oops sorry caps lock, too lazy to retype all that forgive me
Had a great fun filled time. Glad we did the FtF premium it worked perfectly for us. Planning on SWW again in 2 years!! Maybe more character meets! Did Jedi Academy on our non SWW day, great experience!!! First in line to sign up with just a small walk from a H&V 8am before park opening ressie, worked like a charm and the breakfast was fun! Feel free to ask any Q's. I will try to check for alerts off and on. Cant wait to go again!!!! Thanks for all of your help and guidance from the thread SWW, we had a amazing time we will never forget!!!
And in 2016 we are there twice, SWW and Food and Wine in the fall....
With that being said we already booked Art of Animation for next SWW (guesstimating weekend 4)! So we are booked June 7th - 13th 2016! Never stayed at this resort before will need lots of tips. We will be driving so no need to worry about Disney Transport.
It was wonderful to know more than even phone CMs when calling for RH ADRs. I could be persistent, and get FP+ for both Frank Oz and SOTS shows, when they switched from tier 1 to tier 2. 
