Star Wars Weekends

Last year Disney set up a temporary merchandise location on Mickey Avenue to help spread around crowds from the Star Tours gift shop.  With the construction of Toy Story Midway Mania in that area going on, there wasn't an indication where, if anywhere, that sort of a location would be for 2008.  A reliable source indicates the old meet-n-greet area where Darth Vader would be all day long on Mickey Avenue, will be used this year once more for Star Wars Weekends.  It very well could be the home of the merchandise shop or another character meet-n-greet area.

Every year we hold planning chats to help all of you plan your trips to Star Wars Weekend and answer questions as well as share strategies and talk all about Star Wars Weekends.  We invite everyone to join us for these chats as they are a lot of fun and very informative.  Here are the dates for our chats this year...

Friday, May 09, 2008
Time: 8:00pm EST

Friday, May 30, 2008
Time: 8:00pm EST

 On the date and time specified, you can join us in our chat room by clicking here.

Each year the Celebrity meet and greets has ended up being one of the highlights of the Star Wars Weekends experience for my family.  Like most of the other things at Star Wars Weekends, this takes some planning and is one of the more difficult tasks to complete if you are looking for all of the celebrity autographs for one weekend.  In the past few years there have been at least three autographs available.  This year is no different with Warwick Davis being available all four weekends. Read more

The Logo for Star Wars Weekends is something I look forward to each year.  It is the backdrop for the event, sometimes being specific to a movie release or an anniversary.   Other times it is simply a creative tie in between the two worlds of Disney and Star Wars.  The evolution of these logos over the years has been interesting to watch.  One of the things I always loved about the early ones was their simplicity.  The first logo depicted a light saber cutting through the darkness and producing a Mickey shaped cut.  The second one had R2-D2 producing a hologram of Mickey Mouse.  The third Jedi Mickey and Yoda back to back with light sabers ignited with the fourth giving us Mickey with Minnie as Luke and Leia in 2004 in a scene straight out of Episode IV.  2005 gave us the Revenge of the Sith release with a Darth Vader helmet over fire and lava, a gloved Mickey hand drawing mouse ears on the top of the helmet. Read more

Disney has released pictures of the pins it plans to sell at Star Wars Weekends 2008. The pins range in price from $10.95 to $275 and some are more rare than other.  Some iterations of pins have runs of only 100 and there are a number of framed sets.  One pin is labeled "Star Wars Weekend 2008 Logo" and has an image of a number of Storm Troopers and Donald Duck in Storm Trooper armor.

Jake Lloyd has been confirmed as an attending celebrity for Weekend #4.  Lloyd played the young boy Anakin Skywalker in Episode I, the Phantom Menace.  Lloyd's addition completes the celebrity list for 2008 (barring any last minute changes or cancellations).

Studios Central is proud to be hosting a special package for everyone coming to Weekend 1 of Star Wars Weekends. Here's a quick rundown of what the event is...

• Private catered dinner on Sunday, June 8 at 6pm for just us in an awesomely themed room.
• The dinner is all-you-can eat (click here to view a menu)
• Special group rate for every Disney resort (All Star Resorts for $10 cheaper per night than the available posted rate!)
• Special discount on tickets (cheaper than you can get directly from Disney)
• No minimum! Want to stay for one night? No problem! Seven nights? Perfect!

Sound good to you? Click here to book now!

If you have reservations already booked but still want to attend dinner, then click here to book dinner-only reservations!

While reading Matt Hochberg’s column on "Missing from Star Wars Weekends" I was reminded of my secondary frustration with the event.  My first is just as Matt has described, the poor release of information, handcuffing anyone who might be on the fence about attending the event.  It is too good a draw for Disney/Lucas over the past several years not to get this information together and out sooner.  Does anyone really doubt there will be a Star Wars Weekends 2009 with two television productions coming online?

  Read more

TheForce.net is reporting some new celebrities added to the list along with some changes. Amy Allen ("Aayla Secura") has been added to Weekend 3 with Dave Filoni (Clone Wars director) being added to Weekend 4 while Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) has been swapped from Weekend 4 to Weekend 1.  That would leave one to be announced slot left for Weekend 4.  In addition, it's rumored that Troy Denning (author) is going to be attending Weekend 1.  Thanks to ksomm814 for the updates.

Matt Hochberg has posted a column complaining about the lack of information about Star Wars Weekends in advance and thinks Disney needs to do a better job of getting the information to the public much more in advance.  Take a look and read over Matt's thoughts of what needs to change when it comes to Star Wars Weekend planning by clicking here.