Jedi Academy - Tips & Highlights

[jennine]

Do you think this will be an effective sign?

Hopefully this post actually works......first time posting a photo!

The Jedi part was a design by Dom13 on the DISign board.....awesome work BTW!

 

[spookygirl]

Are the children who are chosen expected to speak? My son has a significant speech delay, and while I know he'd LOVED to be chosen, he would not be able to answer questions or anything. Thanks!

 

[HydroGuy]

Are the children who are chosen expected to speak? My son has a significant speech delay, and while I know he'd LOVED to be chosen, he would not be able to answer questions or anything. Thanks!

Nope. They are only expected to follow training directions and even then when they can't the Jedi Master makes light of it and helps them.

 

[spookygirl]

AWESOME! Thanks for the information. I am going to make signs for both of them then

 

[everwondering]

Took my daughters this past week. We got there maybe 5 minutes before the show started and stood on the left side. Unfortunately, since we were pretty late in getting there, we were behind about 2 rows of kids/parents, so my kids didn't stand out much at all--the kids in front were either the same height or even taller! My girls didn't wear anything to stand out either.

BUT, we came armed with a sign that we made at home out of 3 pieces of bright pink construction paper taped together.

The Jedi picked some kids out, and then saw the sign. He actually took a few seconds to read it, and then actually laughed and called the girls up. They were SO incredibly excited. During the show, Darth Maul stalked by and gave the crowd his evil eye. I flashed him the sign, and the look on his face was priceless.

BTW, there were a whole lot of kids in the crowd, but I think we were the only ones with a sign. I am convinced they would not have been picked without it.

 

[mamaofthree]

Too funny everwondering!!!!! Awesome story, glad they got picked.

 

[laura&fam]

Did someone answer if you can bring in your own lightsaber to the park? My son has 3 already so I really don't want to spend $20-25 on another.

Thank you for the tips I know this will be the highlight of the trip for my DS 5 wether he is picked or not. He's a huge star wars fan and pretends with his lightsabers at home all the time.

 

[HydroGuy]

Did someone answer if you can bring in your own lightsaber to the park? My son has 3 already so I really don't want to spend $20-25 on another.

Thank you for the tips I know this will be the highlight of the trip for my DS 5 wether he is picked or not. He's a huge star wars fan and pretends with his lightsabers at home all the time.

It sounds like you think kids need their own lightsaber for the JTA. Not so. The JTA provides lightsabers to each kid selected.

If you have a lightsaber you can bring it but it will not make any difference for JTA.

 

[laura&fam]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I did know they provided them I just know that my DS will want to buy one if he doesn't have his with him . . . and probably even if he does. He already has 3 yet he still asks if we can buy another. How many lightsabers does one kid need?

 

[jennine]

Took my daughters this past week. We got there maybe 5 minutes before the show started and stood on the left side. Unfortunately, since we were pretty late in getting there, we were behind about 2 rows of kids/parents, so my kids didn't stand out much at all--the kids in front were either the same height or even taller! My girls didn't wear anything to stand out either.

BUT, we came armed with a sign that we made at home out of 3 pieces of bright pink construction paper taped together.

GREAT sign!!!

 

[bumbershoot]

I love that pink sign.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I did know they provided them I just know that my DS will want to buy one if he doesn't have his with him . . . and probably even if he does. He already has 3 yet he still asks if we can buy another. How many lightsabers does one kid need?

My kid would say..."more".

It's totally OK to bring in your own lightsabers to the park. If you have the $8 ones from Target made by Hasbro, those are the ones sold for $10 in the park. They also sell the spring-action ones that you can find at Target...for probably half again as much. etc.

The only thing disney sells, lightsaber-wise, that's really unique (b/c you can get build-your-own kits away from the parks) is this super-cool MICKEY-themed (but not shaped) blue, light up, makes sounds, lightsaber. It's about $12. It's a chrome colored handle with mickey head accents, and the button is Mickey head shaped. Even though Ds has something like 4 of the cheapie sabers (half from Star Traders, half for maybe $5 each from Target on clearance), we got one of those ones. The sound and light are like the build-your-own, BUT they are smaller, the blade retracts *completely* like the cheapies (and UNLike the build-your-owns), and they have the all important BELT CLIP (UNlike the build-your-owns, which is how we LOST DS's brand new build-your-own, b/c it was huge and heavy and didn't have a clip).

So you might toss an extra $15 into your budget, just in case he loves those as much as my son (and husband and I/me) liked it.

 

[JoyG]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I did know they provided them I just know that my DS will want to buy one if he doesn't have his with him . . . and probably even if he does. He already has 3 yet he still asks if we can buy another. How many lightsabers does one kid need?

Yup. We brought our own lightsabers. We were allowed to bring them into the park, but they didn't use them for the JTA.

 

[laura&fam]

The only thing disney sells, lightsaber-wise, that's really unique (b/c you can get build-your-own kits away from the parks) is this super-cool MICKEY-themed (but not shaped) blue, light up, makes sounds, lightsaber. It's about $12. It's a chrome colored handle with mickey head accents, and the button is Mickey head shaped. Even though Ds has something like 4 of the cheapie sabers (half from Star Traders, half for maybe $5 each from Target on clearance), we got one of those ones. The sound and light are like the build-your-own, BUT they are smaller, the blade retracts *completely* like the cheapies (and UNLike the build-your-owns), and they have the all important BELT CLIP (UNlike the build-your-owns, which is how we LOST DS's brand new build-your-own, b/c it was huge and heavy and didn't have a clip).

So you might toss an extra $15 into your budget, just in case he loves those as much as my son (and husband and I/me) liked it.

Those do sound cool . . .Star Wars and Mickey together! And $12 isn't too bad especially if it has the belt clip.

 

[2wildchildzmom]

Thanks so much to everyone one this thread!!

Here is our story:

We arrived about 20 mins before the show (on a Saturday) and there were a few kids there but not many. We got on the front row and the kids got there signs out.

I was surprised that no one else had signs. When the Jedi Master came out he picked the boys together, yeah our plan worked! They were so excited and Ian took it so seriously.

It worked out perfectly too because Ian wanted to fight Darth Maul and Isaac really wanted to battle Darth Vader and that is just what happened!

After JTA we headed over to the Star Tours gift shop. The boys really wanted to do the build your own lightsaber, but I had read on the boards that the quality was not good. I steered them over to the lightsabers that had the mickey button and they each got one of those. They love them and have played with them constantly since we have gotten back.

 

[Hound 109]

Excellent story & pictures, 2wildchildzmom.

Both got picked (even your 12 y/o).


Those Darths are really taking a beating from the DisKids.

 

[2wildchildzmom]

Thanks! My 12 y/o is small for his age. He is bummed that it will be the only time that he will get to do JTA. I asked him today what his favorite thing of the trip was and he said JTA of Course!

I also wanted to mention that the photopass people were there and gave us a slip of paper to view the pic later in the day at the Main St. Photo Center. We went and they were able to load the pic onto our photopass card. Very cool!

 

[laura&fam]

2wildchildsmom - where did you get the graphic of mickey with the lightsaber? I have seen that before, but now that I want it I can't find it anywhere. Any Mickey/star wars graphic would be great.

 

[2wildchildzmom]

I can't find where I got it from! but I did find these:
http://www.4shared.com/account/home.jsp
from the disigner WendyPooh

and from Tebi73
http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/ee98/tebi73/Star Wars/?start=0

Just go to their posts in the Disigns thread and they will be able to personalize their disigns for you. The disigners on this board are AMAZING!

The Yoda sign is from Dominic13 and so are the name shirts.

Have Fun!

 

[laura&fam]

Thank you!

I hadn't ever been on the DISigner forum, what a bunch of talented people! I found a couple of great already made Disigns that will work wonderfully and I can even print them off twice so I can have a copy for my scrapbook (that is ok isn't it?).

 

[clb79]

My son who was celebrating his 5th B-Day (wearing his button) and got picked. He was so sad when the girl next to him was chosen, then the boy on the other side and behind him got picked, he thought they had chosen him and he started to run out. The lead Instructor said "ok little one in the orange shirt since your so enthusiastic, we can use that kind of attitude".

I started to get worried when he was moved from his waiting spot where I had a good camera shot. We lost sight of him and then noticed that he was walking out center stage next to the Instructor. He ended up being the one that all of the jokes and/or comments were about. Examples:

"Little one," pats him on the head "you just keep doing your own thing, its working for you!" (About half way through learning the combination, he was really trying his hardest and was one of the younger kids picked for that show).

"You might one to aim a little higher, odds are your opponent will be bigger than you, we won't be fighting any ewoks"


Maybe these are all canned comments, but he felt like he was on top of the world.

He also got to be the first one to fight Darth Vader!

It was definitely the highlight of the trip!


(Maybe once I figure out how to post pics or videos I can add some, my profile pic is from that day...)