Star Wars Weekends

My husband, son and I attended the third and fourth Star Wars Weekends. This report will focus on Sat., June 6. My husband is the biggest Star Wars fan in our family. He walked from the Beach Club to Hollywood Studios at 4:30 a.m. to get in line for autographs. When he arrived, in the wee hours Saturday morning, he was told the Billy Dee Williams line was already at standby. Yikes! So, he got in line for Ray Park instead. My son and I took the boat over to HS around 8 a.m. I was easily able to get in line for Ashley Eckstein and my son joined my husband in the Ray Park line. We ended up with two Ray Park fast passes, one for Ashley and one for Dave Filoni.

We then headed to the Writer's Shop for some much needed AC and breakfast. That place is a jewel! We waited in a couple of character lines for pictures and autographs for my 7-year-old son. The lines seemed way longer than they were last year. The long lines and crazy heat combined did not make it very enjoyable. We're from Ohio and were pretty much melting by 10 a.m.!

We managed to get in our shopping next. I do not like the new shopping locations! Last year's was so much better in the warehouse. It didn't seem like there was as much to choose from, either. I really miss the Big Figs.

We saw the Behind the Force show with Ashley and Dave and really enjoyed it. Dave is very funny and a talented artist. After the show, we tried to watch the Motorcade but had a really bad spot since the show got out so late.

Next, my son went to get his autograph from Ashley. She was incredibly nice and kept talking to him in her Ahsoka voice calling him "Sky Guy." Very cute! My husband and son then got their autographs from Ray Park. He couldn't have been nicer to them. We had lunch at Mama Melrose, and then my husband went to get his autograph from Dave Filoni. Again, another very nice and gracious celebrity.

By mid-day I was done. The heat and mobs of people were just too much. We attended around the same time last year and it just didn't seem as crowded or hot. We would have liked to have seen the Hyperspace Hoopla but heard from earlier accounts how crowded it is. It seems like Disney could use the Indiana Jones stage for this event.

We still had a good time, and my husband and son really enjoyed meeting the celebrities. It was interesting to watch all of the people getting turned away from the celebrity lines who did not have a fast pass. It seems like Disney needs to do a better job of posting information or communicating to guests that they have to get in line early to meet these celebrities. On the other hand, I don't think it's fair for people to camp out overnight in these lines. I'm not sure how they can fix this, but there must be a better way.  It would have been nice to know about the sign up for the Ray Park show as well. Again, it seems like Disney could do a better job of communicating this to guests. It would be nice for Disney to send a Star Wars Weekends tips sheet to all guests staying for these weekends. Almost all of the information I found for this event came from other helpful web sites (like this one). Keep up the good work. Love the site!