The Crowds Are Strong With This Park

Today was the first day of the final Star Wars weekends at Hollywood Studios, so obviously we had to go.  This week they had Peter Mayhew and Billy Dee Williams making appearances.  This explains why there were people camping out at the gate the night before.  To get an autograph you had to get a fast pass, and by the time Tori and I got to the gate a few minutes after open, they were already all gone.  Crazy!  That's ok we got to see them in the parade, though I have to say Billy Dee looked really less than badass with his giant hat and cane (watch out for grandpa Calrissian, you stay off his clouds).

The park was extremely crowded, especially the Star Wars area of the park, which really only has one ride, and a gift shop (though the expanded "Darth mall" was pretty busy too.  We did get to ride Star Tours early in the morning during one of the autograph sessions, but after that the wait ticked up to over an hour, which is insane!  There were also a number of characters around the park to get pictures with, but the lines were long and we always seemed to happen upon them when they were going on break.  Jasmine did get a hug from Chewbacca when he headed off to break, but other than that the only character interaction we got was when Tori got a picture with a guy from the Cantina band as they were out on the street.

After hitting all the major attractions we then decided to shoot over to Epcot to get some lunch.  The day before we decided it would be fun to head to Morocco and get some Shawarma, and it turns out that was a good decision.  It was good and different from anything else we had for meals so far.  We also had some time for the girls to see some characters.  When we finished that up we headed back to see the Indiana Jones stunt show.  It was interesting because they made a few changes to it, though nothing major, but it was still neat to see that it was different.  Somehow despite getting there close to show time we still ended up in the third row center, which was awesome. 

After that it was close to closing time so we did a quick run through a gift shop and then Tori and I headed to the main stage to watch the final Star Wars event the Hypersapce Hoopla.  Pretty much it's a show from the hosts of the Star Wars Weekend, where all the characters come out and they have a dance off/dance party.  I'm really glad we stayed for that because it was pretty freaking fun.  Jasmine wasn't interested so she ran to the Darth Mall to pick something up for Tori, and Becky headed to the memorabilia store to look around and met us after the show was over.  If you're bored or like Star Wars here's the video.  It's kind of campy and silly, but I had a ton of fun.

After we finished at the park we headed to Downtown for dinner at the Earl of Sandwich (SO GOOD!) and then shop around downtown.  They had some great new Lego things like The Hulk, and then the good old ones like the Prince fighting with the Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.  They also had a really neat painting at the Art of Disney store of Peter Pan and the characters from Neverland in the clouds.  It was pretty cool.  So, all together today was really nice, and it didn't even rain! WOO!  Star Wars weekend was super fun, I wish we had more time and it wasn't quite as busy so we could have hit some of the other presentations, but perhaps sometime in the future we can make it back.

Picture(s) of the Day:

Picture 95

Han in carbonite greets you as you enter the Darth Mall.  Cute play on words there... harhar.  Pretty much it was a giant tent that was filled with tons of stuff to buy.  My favorite was a picture of Admiral Ackbar dressed in 19th century naval uniform and a huge mustache.  If only I had the money for that one!