Star Wars Weekends

Saturday, June 6

My plane arrived in Orlando mid-day on Saturday, June 6th. My friend Dave and I checked in at the Caribbean Beach Resort and went straight to Hollywood Studios. We arrived around 2:00pm and grabbed a quick lunch at the Backlot Express, one of the best walk-up restaurants in all of Disney. Next, we hit up Wicket’s Warehouse to see how well the limited edition items were selling. By the afternoon on Saturday, only one SWW limited edition spinner pins had sold out. I bet you guys can guess which one it was…the Darth Vader/Emperor Palpatine – Empire spinner pin. Anyways we scouted out the terrain that evening and enjoyed dinner at one of my favorites, Ohana at the Polynesian Resort.

Sunday, June 7

The night before, I scheduled a Mears taxi to pick-up Dave and myself at 4:45am on Sunday morning. We arrived at Hollywood Studios around 5:00am and proceeded to join the autograph lines. We decided to get in line for Jeremy Bulloch first, since we had met David Prowse the previous year. We had a great time hanging out with fellow Star Wars fans and of course, Ms. Leia Skywalker. Those of you who have attended Star Wars Weekends before, know to whom I am referring. When it reached 8:00am, Tim walked down the line as he always does every year to tell us the rules of the fast pass for this year’s SWW autographs. At 8:20am they started handing out fast passes. Dave and I were in the first fast pass group for Jeremy Bulloch and the first group for Jay Laga’aia. We received a stand-by for David Prowse. All-in-all we did pretty darn good. We were able to get all three autographs that day. We actually got Jeremy and David to sign the same black and white picture of them unmasked on the set of Empire Strikes Back. I will post a picture of it for you guys once I go through all my pictures. At 9:00am the park opened and since Disney changed the fast pass location this year, we were able to enjoy the entire stormtrooper opening sequence. Kudos to Disney for finally getting fast pass distribution right this year. At 11:00am we got our spot staked out for the Legends of the Force Parade and got great video of the entire parade. Next we grabbed a quick lunch at the ABC Commissary and headed out to the Premiere Theatre for the Stars of the Saga Talk Show. We also videotaped the entire talk show. The show was fantastic. Jeremy and David are absolutely hilarious together, and who would have thought that they were both fabulous singers. They even did a great skit were David put on Darth Vader’s gloves and started to force choke Jeremy, who played along brilliantly. As always, Jay was a great host and they ended the show with the time old tradition of the Mickey Mouse Club goodbye. Later we grabbed dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater to end the day.

The third weekend was great all around. I think the only problem people were having that weekend was dealing with the heat. Luckily I am from a warm, humid climate, but I saw people passing out or getting close to it during the entire weekend. I did not get to check out the beloved character encounters during the third weekend, but you will get to hear about it in my Weekend 4 report. Remember, the force will be with you always.