Star Wars Weekends

Had a great time for the first weekend of Star Wars! My wife and I took our son Brandt (22 months old) on Sunday the 24th.

We got to the park about 11am and there were pretty long lines waiting to get in. The fast passes had already blown out, I talked to a gentlemen (Rodney) who was standing where the fastpass machine was and he recommended getting to the park about 6ish in order to get the autograph fastpass. Being an annual ticket holder this advise will come in helpful as I plan on going to all 3 weekends. We started walking toward the Star Wars ride and had our first encounter with with the costumed characters. Queen Amidala was taking pictures with fans. The line wasn't to long so we decided to get her first. We waited about ten or fifteen minutes, got our photopass of course, got pretty good pics with her and were off to our next stop.

We decided to hit the ABC Commissary for a quick bite to eat. After that we were outside to watch the Star Wars parade. My kid loved watching the characters go by! Next week we have to get better spots though, I want him to get a full effect of the characters running up on him as Aura Sing, and the Tusken Raiders did to fans who had the "front row" experience.

Once the parade ended we decided to make our way to Vader. On the way we saw Ashoka Tano and decided the the line was short enough to do her first. Ashoka was next to the "Cars" photo-opt and my kid is SOOO into cars and trucks right now. When it came to our turn with Ashoka he was more into playing with the stroller then into Ashoka. He started to cry and point toward it when we posed for pictures. Ashoka thinking Jedi fast started pointing toward the stoller as well which actually made for great pics! Ashoka said she normally doesn't do this but took Brandt by the chin and planted a great big orange and brown kiss right on his cheek. The picture is priceless as my son gave the typical expression a little boy would when receiving such a kiss.

We made our way over to Vader. Now I was really excited about this. Last year Brandt reached up and touched Vaders' face which drew lots of laughter and "Awes" from the other people in line. During our stay on the line he kept pointing over to Vader and smiling. Unfortunately this year he acted afraid. Vader kept his distance (True professionals all of them) as I pointed to Vaders' eyes nose and mouth to warm Brandt up. Still he wanted none of it. So I made a common sense decision I would suggest to all parents who want a pic with someone (whether it be Vader or Santa). I told Vader we were just going to pose for a FAMILY pic and for him to sneak up behind us. Vader obliged and we got an AWESOME pictureof us with Vader.

With a picture of The Dark Lord of the Sith behind us (literally) we were off to Wicket's Warehouse. My Birthday was on the 3rd of this month and rightnow Disny is having a special where is you go to Disney on your Birthday you get in for free. If your an Annual Passholder the give you a giftcard for $75 worth of free merchandise which doe not expire. I decided to hang onto mine until this weekend. They have tons of great stuff at the warehouse and it was a bugger trying to decide what to get. The must for me was the Star Wars weekend Mickey/Yoda pin. I also grabbed the Passholder exclusive Yoda pin. We also picked up a Star Wars black t-shirt for my wife (Finding Star Wars shirts for girls is a pain) the Asian feel Darth Vader shirt for myself, and a mystery pin two-pack. We get up to pay and "wham" they don't take the birthday gift cards. I was only disappointed for 2 seconds as they volunteered to walk us over to the store by Vader so we could use the card there. Again the professionalism and kindness was much appreciated.

We didn't encounter the number of characters walking around that we did last year although the set up with backdrops and characters made finding Darth Maul and Boba Fett much easier. Both those two we located right next to the warehouse as opposed to last year where if you found them once you may not find them again. As I tried repeatedly to get a picture with some Storm Troopers (I was wearing my Marc Ecko Storm Trooper shirt) I ran into a Disney photographer who without prompting just said "Randomness" I asked her if she was waiting for someone and she said "I think Tusken Raiders should be out in 5 minutes" but her tone said otherwise. It seems she was as in the dark as we were.

By this time the sun was sweltering. The predictions for rain weren't coming true. We decided to take refuge in the Commissary again. After cooling of we decided to walk around and see if we would run into any characters. We passes Chewbacca and an Ewok taking pictures. I guess some people not in line were getting to close which mag=de their attendant screamed "If you don't back away I'm taking Chewbacca and the Ewok away" I guess for every 100 nice people disney hires they have to hire one complete jerk. Maybe because it was 100 degrees and she was 300 lbs I don't know.. But when we passed by 5 minutes later (We were walking around looking for characters) Chewie and the Ewok were still there taking pictures and she was gone. Hopefully someone complained and they took her back to reume her normal duties guarding the trash compactor on the Death Star.

Brandt got real happy when he saw Minnie Mouse Leia so we decide to get in line for that picture. Based on experience I asked the line monitor who was coming up next. You can never assume the character who is there when you get in line will be the character you get the picture with. ALWAYS ASK. I was thrilled when I found out Jedi Mickey would be next!!!

We had pics with Minnie and Darth Goofy from last year so I was hoping we'd get him. Sure enough we did. They were the first pictures of the day that he's smiling in. We only waited about 20 minutes or so, which is really good.

With the luxury of having 3 more weekends ahead of us we decided to call it a day. Pictures to accompany.