Star Wars Weekends

As many of you who have followed this site & Blog know, weekend #1 offered a chance to add to the Star Wars Weekends experience with the Matt and StudiosCentral.com .   SWW already offers a great number of things to do, but the Dinner Party was a wonderful way to make up for those things that have fallen by the wayside in the past two years with the loss of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Star Wars Edition and the cancellation of the Adult Trivia.  Disney goes to great pains to make this event great with the events and such that they do provide, and judging by the turnout over the first two weekends, SWW is alive and well even with some corners calling for change. 

The big contribution to weekend #1 this year was the StudiosCentral/MEI Travel sponsored Dinner event.  This exclusive event was behind the scenes in the Prop Room yielding a very cool atmosphere to go with the great food that was served, a fitting end to the first weekend.  We were greeted by park personnel who gathered us near Wicket’s Warehouse until it was determined that the entire group was accounted for.  Then we were taken to our backstage area, a room filled with “eye candy” as Matt put it, with items from various films and television shows from the last several years.  It was a reasonable sized group of between 40-50 people, so it was not so large that you felt lost but rather a good number for mingling with.  Upon entering and finding our tables a group of 4 Storm Troopers came in and eyed the group.  We were reminded once again that everything in the Galaxy falls under the Empire’s watchful eye.  Once it was determined that Matt posed no real threat to the Emperor, we were allowed to begin with our meal.

I won’t bore you with the details of the food specifics, but will point out that the Buffet had numerous, delicious options and the Chocolate fountain desert table was nothing to ignore.  The Disney people wasted no time having the food ready to go.  Despite the heat of the outdoors I believe that everyone found their appetite quickly once they laid eyes on the food layout.  For me the hard part was discussing all of the events of the weekend while trying to eat.  With people from all over (Wisconsin, England, Mississippi, New Orleans, New York, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Washington… you get the idea) there was no lack of things to discuss.  It was a fantastic opportunity to hear about things Star Wars, Disney and life related with everyone who was there.  I really can’t say enough about the wonderful people we met here.  For anyone who couldn’t do it this year, if Matt decides to give this a go again next year, I strongly advise signing up.  It was a lot of fun and with year one under our belts, it is bound to only get better.

Matt did hold two trivia contests, of which I was happy to help with the questions.  If there are any complaints from the attending peanut gallery, I’m sure the Kids Trivia, which by my own admission may have had too many easy questions early on would be a topic of discussion.  My only defense is that I had put them together very late on two different nights and had ordered them from what I thought was simple to hardest.  I’ve seen the Padawan mind challenge several times and thought this was the way to go, but surprise, the children in attendance would not be fooled by the simple questions.  It was becoming comical that the children were not dropping out.  I don’t think Matt heard me one time when I called over to him “jump ahead a few pages” knowing that it might be time for the harder questions.  In the end we did finally crown a Champion.  Congratulations go to “Figaro’s” son (a StudiosCentral member) who came away with several very nice prizes that Matt had pulled together.  On this night he was the Master.  Each child who participated came away with a prize and judging by the number of questions they all answered, were each deserving of it.  It was a sharp bunch!

The adult Trivia also went well although again there was a call early on that the questions there were easier than the kid’s trivia.  (I had toyed with the idea of letting the kids winner participate in the adult challenge…. maybe next year!)  For this Matt had some wonderful prizes from both StudiosCentral.com and MEI Travel.  Sadly I had opted out of this trivia challenge before I heard the prizes…. (perhaps Matt can let me in on that next time before I bail out….lol).  The questions were pulled from the Star Wars Trivia Pursuit game and our contestants put on a good show.  Again any problems with this were mine because I was scanning the questions trying not to drop question on the group in the first three rounds like “how many toes does a Gamorean Warrior have?”  In the end I believe everyone had a good time and our winner came in the form of the newest Orlando resident, Glenn Sonoda.  Each of our top three winners came away with gift certificates from MEI Travel and StudiosCentral.com and I believe each had a good time.  Mr. Sonoda has been warned that if such an event comes off again next year, it’s game on!  Truthfully I was just happy to be able to participate by helping out with the games in this small way and can just hope that everyone had as good a time as I did.

  By the end of the evening, we had two trivia champions, a well fed group and a great number of stories shared.  It was a great idea and one that I hope somehow can happen again next year.   Sharing the stories about what time everyone got started for the Celebrities, to the Merchandise down to the travel involved with just getting to Disney World, it was a blast.  Matt and Annette (MEI Travel) deserve a big thanks for organizing this event.  I do want to thank everyone who came out.  You made it a great experience for my family and I. Somehow after that, it was easier to accept those events that Disney and Lucas have not replaced.  The Force was strong with this group.