Star Wars Weekends

I know this Newbie report is quite tardy. I think we're still recovering from an excellent learning experience!
Rule number one is to attend with people who are willing to wait in line. :) While I enjoyed the anticipation of rope-drop, our children did not because of the direct sunlight. And thus set the day's tone.

We did wait to meet Leia (missed Luke by seconds). The younger kids got to meet Luke at the Padawan Mind Challenge. We saw the Sith Lords at JTA. That's about all of the SW characters they would wait for. Actually, if we had known specific times and places, we may have maximized our experience. We should have logged in Friday night to see Colin's helpful blogs.

After a 40-minute wait at ABC Commissary for hamburgers reminiscent of those soy things in school lunches (Sorry, Matt), the kids were anxious to move on. I had an Asian salad that had refreshing flavor but wispy lettuce.
Rule number two is dressing up is really fun!

Our youngling's request for everyone to dress turned out to be a great attention-getter! The press folks we met were alot of fun. Although the little one didn't get chosen for the JTA (a little too shy), he was the only member of our family to remain in costume the whole day. Well, he took off the outer coat. Everyone else returned to civilian threads by 11:45. We knew the sun would be hot, but whew!!!

We did ride Star Tours in costume--really fun!

Rule number three is that the Studios is so much fun by itself! (It's a distraction) :)
Once we were in civilian clothes, we were lured by all of the other things--Toy Story Mania, meeting Prince Caspian, the stunt shows, ToT, RRC, Beauty and the Beast. We did walk over to the 2:00 meet to meet more SWW fans and to cool in the shade for a few minutes and then we were off again. By the time we really headed back to SWW areas, it was time for our 4:40 reservation at Hollywood and Vine.

Rule number four is to expect to wait 45 minutes after your reservation time to be seated.
This is good if you're a tired parent, but not good if you are a cranky child. Well, if you are an arrogant, tired adult who is used to getting immediate service, it's not good either. That was interesting to watch. We found a shady spot to wait and watch people. We also got to wave at Mr. Davis as he was signing autographs. That was fun!

Hollywood and Vine was relaxed...so much so that many people didn't want to leave their tables and thus the wait to be seated. We enjoyed the meal. They had something for all taste buds. We had a fun waitress who really took time to talk to us.

Oh, rule number five is to leave home Master replica light sabers. :)
We caught our youngling's excitement and agreed to let him bring his special light saber. He enjoyed getting questions about it, and showing off his skills. He even carried it more than we thought he would. However, Papa Jedi could not protect it from the raging waters of Backlot Tours. Good news--2 days in the car in Disney parking lots dried it out and it works like new.

Rule number six is that the best part is meeting people.
We really enjoyed chatting around JTA on our first day--it was really fun to put screen names and faces together. Ya'll are really fun! The dinner was fun--as my youngling said, "awesome!" My almost-teenager felt really special and learned much about gracious losing b/c Matt allowed her to help with the adult trivia. Thank you. By the way, the little one has a crush on ksomm (I apologize if I've got your screen name wrong). When we went back to HS on the Thursday after, he wanted to know where she was so he could hug her for her gift of pins. [He hung the lanyard on his bedroom door and stops to talk about those 2 pins almost every time he walks through.] Thank you for being so thoughtful. Small things that you all did or said taught lessons to two impressionable children.

Our biggest disappointment--lack of information from CM. I know SWW was only a portion of Studios events that weekend, but we began our SWW experience on Saturday, the 2nd day. That was plenty of time to distribute event schedules, etc. to strategic CM in the SWW area. I approached five CM's to ask about parade information, and not one told us that sign up was back at the information table. By the time we asked at the table, it was too late. Also, they could not tell me times for character appearances. It would have been great it they'd been able to carry a small version of what the CM's at the event table had...we should have written it down. Oh well, there's always SWW 2009 (we hope)!