Where to begin? Where to begin?
This is a belated report of weekend V. We live in Pennsylvania and a trip like this does not come very often for us. When we originally booked the vacation in August 2014, there was no intention to visit during SWW. However, once I realized the possibility existed that it could be one of the weekends, I eagerly searched the interwebs every few days for the official dates. I am a big Star Wars fan, so the opportunity to introduce this wonderful universe to my daughter really excited me. The indoctrination, I mean, Star Wars education started in January. My daughter is 5 and had the impression that 'live action' movies and TV are for adults only. I started her off gradually by showing her a few episodes of the Clone Wars. Then she turned to me one day, out of the blue, and said, "Daddy you're going to be happy. I want to watch Star Wars." Over the next few months, we watched the saga in order. I loved it. She really got into it. We even delved into the Clone Wars cartoons prior to watching Episode III which gave her, and myself (I never saw them before), a better appreciation for some of the Jedi and the events of Episode III. At this point my daughter really got into Ahsoka. She quickly became her favorite character, along with 3PO and Artoo. Watching a child discover Star Wars was awesome. She had no idea that Anakin becomes Darth Vader, even going as far as covering her eyes and getting pretty bummed out about it. Anyway, gotta keep this reasonable. We finished up the Saga. All the while I religiously followed the DIS board lead by Yulilin. Without her, and the help of others, the SWW could have been a bit messy.
Instead. It went off better than I could have ever imagined.
While this trip roughly comes around for us once every four years, I had to spread the wealth across all parks when planning. We could not spend an entire weekend in Hollywood Studios. I was able to, however, figure out about a day and a half.
Day 1 Friday, June 12th
We spent our evening in HS. I was able to get dinner reservations for the Jedi Mickey H&V Dine. We actually got to the park a little earlier than anticipated and beat a brief shower by getting into the GMR queue. Afterwards, while my DD5 and wife utilized a restroom I watched 3PO and R2 walk right past me. My heart jumped, and like a child, I chased after them. Realizing that my family might lose me, I returned to the restroom to find my daughter and scoop her up. The handler at the line said that the wait to see them was roughly 1 hour. I was not going to attempt that, especially when I knew they would only be out for about 20ish minutes. Instead, my DD and I were satisfied with a selfie that includes 3P0 and R2 just over my shoulder. They are waving at some people, but it looks like it's towards us.
We then wandered around. I felt like the kid in A Christmas Story when Santa asks him what he wants for Christmas, and his only reply is a week stutter, "uhhhh, football." Since I made the plans, and we were there earlier than anticipated, I was at a loss. My wife was like, "What now?" and all I could think of was..."football." We ended up finding the Cinderella carriage. Earlier in the day, while at Animal Kingdom, a nice person told us about the photo op with it and our daughter wanted to check it out. I purchased the Memory Maker so, the more pictures, the merrier.
Meeting Ahoka...aka, The Big One...aka, A Series of Unfortunate & Strange Events
While waiting in the short line, my wife wandered off and came back and said "there's some red person with crazy horn like hair stuff around the corner." Meeting Ahsoka was near the top of the SWW list for me since my DD likes her a lot. I went to that line while my wife and DD took pics with the carriage. The line for Ahsoka was surprisingly reasonable...I was guessing 20 minutes or so. I got into it hoping for the best since I knew it rotated with other characters. She then left. No one else came out. According to Kenny the Pirate site, I knew she was due to come back in 5 minutes. I figured I would wait as a few people started to leave the line. Dinner reservations were nearing however. Ahsoka did NOT come back...kinda. At this point my daughter joined me in line while my wife sat and waited for us. She sat near Josh and John, her handlers. They started paging her. Then they were calling her, leaving messages that she was 10 minutes overdue. Her line was starting to grow at this point. Finally, she came back. She met with 2 families and handler Josh started announcing that if it started to rain, Ashokas would have to go in. Understanable. Without warning, after meeting with a 3rd family, she left. My wife kept eavesdropping. Her handlers were confused...she had only come out for about 5 minutes. At this point, my daughter and I were 2nd in line. Josh came around and announced that Ahsoka "had an emergency at the Jedi Temple" and they didn't know if she would return. I was honestly hoping that "Ahsoka" was feeling well. Shortly after she left, Asajj Ventress showed up. I was surprised as she wasn't due to come out for awhile. 30 seconds behind her was Ahsoka! I had not seen anyone meet both Ahsoka and Ventress at the same time. It came to be our turn and I was excited. My daughter walked right up to Ahsoka and I said, “Riley and I came from a galaxy far far away to meet you Ahsoka!” Ventress was awesome. She stayed in character and scoffed at me…”I see how it is! I’ll let you be!” and she wandered away to play with the big line that formed. My daughter and I took a bunch of pictures with Ahsoka. She played with my DD’s headband and struck “force” poses together. I eventually called over to Ventress and she stopped and said, “Ohhh well well, I guess I’m good enough for them now!” She came over and gave my DD a stare down. DD and I posed for a nice picture with both of them. Then they set up a pretty aweome picture. Since DD and I had lightsabers, the photographer lined us up with Ahsoka. Ahsoka, DD, and I posed as if we were about to duel with Ventress as she returned with a menacing, defensive posture. While it was a pretty confusing wait, the conclusion for us was pretty memorable. If I figure out how to post a picture, I’ll throw one in here at the end.
Jedi Mickey H&V Dinner
After the photo we took off to get to our ADR at H&V on time. We did with just enough time to cool off a bit before meeting Jedi Mickey. We really enjoyed the dinner. The dessert was enough for me actually, but since I actually needed protein I can recommend the BBQ style meatballs. Since I really did not plan on buying the full sized cupcakes, I definitely downed one of each smaller versions (Yoda / Vader / Jabba). The jabba cupcake was, unique, but I think the Vader wins in my books. I also tasted/ate about 5 of the other offerings. We had the time. The dinner took quite awhile. This was the second day of our trip, and after a busy first day of travelling and parks, it was nice to take our time. We actually ended up meeting the Chipwoks, Leia Minnie, Stormtrooper Donald twice before Darth Goofy got around to us. He was worth the wait. He took so long because he was awesome! He took his time to make the experience memorable for each table. He wrapped my daughter in his cape and kept her there. She emerged, laughing hysterically. We then asked him what his buttons do. He pointed at he control panel. I “pushed” a button, and he proceeded to pretend that I zapped him and ‘shut down.’ He didn’t move. He went limp, like I flipped his switch to “off.” My daughter had to turn him back on and he tried running away, scared we would turn him off again. It was a great time.
DD's First Ride on Star Tours
After dinner, we took advantage of our Toy Story Mania FP’s. It was a great ride! After that we wondered down to Star Tours. This was a big deal. Star Tours is probably my favorite ride in WDW. I spent months prepping my daughter for it! While waiting to board, I asked her where she thinks we’ll travel to? Ice planet? Desert planet? Wookie planet? I didn’t think she would know that actual names, but she blurted out, “I want to go to TATOOINE!” She called it. We went to Tatooine. She had a blast. We were both hooting and hollering the whole time. As I promised her, for being a “brave little Jedi” she was rewarded with building her own lightsaber! I thought she would have gone purple, but she went green and made a nice one. While waiting in the line for it, wifey wandered off to explore and came back with a drink. I think it was the Mustafar (?). It was red and pretty darn good. Even better, she had the x-wing clipped to it! The bartender told her that he actually ran out of the Death Star and Falcon cubes. Oh well. I was happy with the X-Wing. Even BETTER than that was that she ALSO returned with a Vader skull (I mean helmet) filled with popcorn.
The End to a Perfect Night
We ended our night by enjoying the Symphony of Stars fireworks show. We relaxed prior to the show, enjoying the popcorn and my daughter striking poses with her new lightsaber. Taking a cue for Yulilin, we watched from a nice spot along Echo Lake, across from the Prime Time Diner. It was a great show. I felt like how the rebels, celebrating the destruction of the Empire...while eating popcorn out of Darth Vader's cranium.
We passed out at the hotel.
DAY 2 to Follow SOON!
Good luck with the wedding.
Report on weekend V soon....
And in 2016 we are there twice, SWW and Food and Wine in the fall....
