Cast of characters:
Me (23, missed my Disney b-day by 2 days), WDW vet, map reader extraordinaire, could draw a map of all parks and all attractions at any given moment
Spanky (23), WDW vet, knows where ALL the bathrooms in the parks are
Celeste (26), WDW vet, Epcot lover, likes to annoy us by reading Star Wars trivia books while in line
Rosie (21), WDW vet, really needs to publish Smoker's Guide to Disney by finding all the smoking places in all the parks
Friday
First day of the Star Wars Weekend at MGM.
The alarm woke us up at 6:45 AM. That is such a bad hour. I had set both the radio and the buzzer so we had quite a loud jolt to wake us up. No wake up calls for us. I don't trust those much since we got those calls back in the day and noone was there. Yeah, I got crank called by Mickey! After showering and eating breakfast at Tubbi's where Rosie and I bought the very useful $10 refillable mugs, we were on our way to MGM by 8:15. After waiting for the boat from the Dolphin (where we stayed), we made it to the park by 8:25. We had to activate our annual passes since it was our first time with our new passes, we made it over the Guest Services. 10 short minutes later, we were ready to wait to be let into the park. Instead of waiting in the extremely long lines that formed behind the middle turnstiles, we just waited to the side in front of other turnstiles that were not covered and had noone in front of. There was a little skit going on ontop of the gates with 2 stormtroopers, but since we were underneath it, we could only hear what they were saying. It was pretty cute and funny, but I am sure that those people not there for Star Wars were not too amused being called aliens and having these two men threaten to shoot them! Finally, at 8:45, they started letting people into the parks, only to stop us at the rope on Hollywood Ave. There, the group was split. Everyone going to ToT and RnRC went to the right. On the left, we were told to split again there, with the Anthony Daniels people going to the right around the pond and the Billy Dee Williams (BDW) people going to the left. We decided to get our BDW autographs first. We promptly got in line and noticed that none of the CM knew what was going on. There were no wristbands, nothing. They were threatening to make us stand in line for 3 hours in the sun to get the autographs! Mind you, I waited in line for twice that amount to see Episode 1. Yeah, it was 6 hours. I took an exam in the morning, and then took the bus to the mall and waited in line. The people in line were fun, espeically those who were dressed up. I enjoy the people who are that into it. I would never do that, but I respect those who spent the entire day in the hot 85 sun in their full Jedi garb. Luckily, I was under the one umbrella that was up to provide shade in line. After a half hour, they finally announced that yes, they would be handing out wristbands and it would be about 15 minutes until they were ready. I pity the poor person who had to write out all those bands! They had a nice little color-coded system but still had to write on every single band. Not a very fun job for that poor CM. So, finally at 9:45, they started handing out the bands. We got numbers 13 - 16 for the 12:00 session with Billy Dee Williams. We went over to get in Anthony Daniels (AD) line right away after that. After waiting for another half hour or so, I managed to get the last band for the 3:00 session for AD. Yea for #60! My friends got 1-3 of the standby line. I would also like to point out that the entire time we were in line, Celeste was reading a Star Wars trivia book and quizzing us the whole time. Got a little anooying. I am okay at the trivia. I know Attack of the Clones inside and out (can repeat most lines word for word) but the weapons and ships I am shaky on. Now if it was Buffy trivia, I would have kicked butt. I am really good at that!
After this, we went to sign up for the adult's trivia and since there were only 2 spots left in standby at this time of the day, I let Maria and Celeste take the last 2 spots. After getting their numbers, we headed off to Star Tours. The line was non-existent so the wait should have been marked "how fast can you walk?" instead of the 5 minutes that was posted. We stopped into Tatooine Traders to get our stuff so that we could send it back to the hotel and be finished with the store. An hour and a half and almost $250 later, I was finished, but not done by a long shot. It was now time to get back in line for our first autograph. Apparently, they are only signing the Disney provided pics so the photos that I brought were a waste. We got a little piece of paper to write our name on so that BDW did not have to actually interact with anyone. After about 15 minutes and a gruff "Hi" from BDW, we all were set with our first autograph. Just a note for everyone: BDW was wearing socks and sandals at this event. They were not regualr socks, no. They had polka dots on them! Oh and his picture, is he actually dressed like Lando Calrissian? Oh, no that would be nice. Instead, I got his prom picture, bow tie and all.
We had earlier sent Rosie off to get us fast passes for WWtBaM earlier, we now could go to the 1:00 edition of the show. It was not a Star Wars edition, but I still did really good, getting up on the leader board at #2 in the end. Oh well, at least I wasn't #1 and then have them end the show! Since it was now almost 1:30, we decided to go for lunch at the Backstage Express. After a nice relaxing lunch, it was time to stop at the pin cart in front of the restaurant and spend another $100 on pins. Please note that this is not all for myself and I am getting paid back by people for this! This would be the start of something very dangerous. We had avoided the pin carts for 2 years now. Unfortunately, Disney finally sucked us in. I do not trade my pins. I collect them. Only Celeste gets teased for the first pin trade. I believe the phrase "dirty dirty pin trader" was used. Please do not kill me pin traders! It really is just a joke. I would hate to see the news on that one: "girl found dead, stabbed millions of times with small pin-like objects." We really have no qualms against trading, but it always fun to make fun of your friends so hey, calling someone a pin trader is not that bad. All in all, I think I bought about 30 pins, most of them being the Star Wars ones that are to be displayed at home as soon as I figure out how to do that. Maybe if I can find some cheap pins that I do not really like, I will become a pin trader too.
After lunch, we went to the 2:00 celebrity talk show. Again, BDW was rather gruff and was not very personable with anyone. AD on the other hand is too cute! He definitely made the day for us. After this was over, it was about 2:45, so we decided that we had time to go on RNRC before getting the autographs. We had sent Spanky over before lunch to get us Fastpasses for this, so we walked right on. It was now about 3:15, we walked back and got in line. Gee, I'm at the end. Not too tough to figure out where I should go. Apparently they had not taken ANY standby people for the first session, so my friends were forced to stand outside the line until they could judge how many people they would be able to get through in the hour. Luckily, several people had not shown up, so my friends could no longer torment me with the ice cream that they had bought while I was standing in line! Yeah, my nice friends who were not allowed to join me inside the ropes bought ice cream for themselves and stood there eating it in front of me. Finally, it was my turn to meet AD! Okay, we did not get our notecards this time, so I had to spell my name for him. Mind you, my name is not very hard, but he kept wanting to put other spellings to it. My name is Katie, but AD wanted to first spell it with a C and then a Y. Basically it was me repeating my name over and over again. So, after having him practice my name on a separate sheet of paper, I got my autograph. My friends were right behind me in line, so they went up next. Apparently there is some tool or musical instrument called a Celeste so he started talking about that. All in all, he is an extrememly personable person and would be worth twice the wait to see him. We hurried out of this so that as many people as possible could get their autographs. See people, we really are nice!
Since it was now 4:00, we decided that it was time to catch the Muppets. We just cannot go to MGM without seeing that show. After stalking a couple of characters....Boba Fett, the stormtroopers, the Jawas, the Eworks, the Cantina band, Greedo, Mace Windu (this was just me, since I started running when I saw him). Yeah, I'm a really big Mace Windu fan. I will admit to jumping out of line for Luke and Leia to get my picture taken with him. I annoyed Maria almost every single time we saw Episode 2 in the theaters (a whopping 9 times together, 10 times total) by singing every time he was on the screen. Ah, Mace Windu and Obi Wan were my biggest weaknesses in that movie. But I disgress. We also got in line for Luke and Leia and when we were at the front, Han Solo came over, leaving a line of people to spend some time with us. Not quite sure why this was, but I think it was the fact that Luke and Leia had a girl who was in her 20s in front of us in line and then the rest of us (all in our early 20s) and all he had were little kids. That's my theory. The characters really do prefer people their own age, especially if they are of the opposite sex. So we got a very hard to come by Han, Luke, and Leia pic and some dirty autographs for our friend Pea Head who was still at home but sent her autograph book to get signed. I believe that all autographs that you are not present for are dirty so yeah, we got quite a few dirty autographs for her on this trip. After we left the line, Han went back to his own line and signed autographs again.
After a little bit of window shopping at a couple of various stores, we staked out seats for the 5:30 Stars in Motorcars Parade that we have missed every year due to rain and other various reasons. We got seats in the shade directly in front of the stage next to Star Tours, so we were in a really good position for pictures. We also had some pretty good interaction with the Jawas who were extremely interested in our empty pop bottles. It was rather funny. After the parade, it was time for Celeste and Spanky to report for the trivia. Both got into the show and Rosie and I watched from the sidelines. Why is it that you know the questions then but you can't answer them when you actually play? Oh well, they both got out in the first round on the question of "How many engines does a Y (or maybe it was X) wing have?" There were 3 answers given and each took a different one and they were both wrong. I would have guessed the right answer, but I digress. After this, we waited around, watching the rest of the contest, just to get a hang of what kind of questions are asked. After this, there was the Hoopla with some of the least funniest jokes in the world. I swear, they only had like 10 jokes and I heard them over and over and over again during the entire weekend. Hey, what happens when Luke's speeder breaks down on Endor? He Walks! (ewoks). Yeah, bad, but hey after no sleep, they are rather funny so we determined that you can say any bad joke you want as long as you wait for the laughter or ask people to laugh at you.
After the Hoopla became out of hand with people shoving their little kids at the characters and getting into other people's pictures, we decided to head on over to get some dinner. We ate at Rosie's Cafe, which is over by the Beauty and the Beast Show. After this, it was getting near the time for Fantasmic so we knew that the waits for ToT and RNRC would be short. We ended up doing TOT 3 times in a row, ruining quite a few other people's pictures by being in the front row with our hands up, blocking everyone else in the car behind us. Oops. Well, they should put their hands up too. That ride is SO much more fun now that you can get some really good air time with the seatbelts. I love the random effects. Never the same ride twice! My only complaint with this ride that day was the lack of spooky CMs. Usually they are really creepy and scary, but tonight everyone was really friendly. I ended up chatting with one guy who suggested that I just quit my job and come work for Disney so I could go to the parks every day. Nice CMs are good to see, but they really were not in character. Oh well. After this, we did RNRC 3 times in a row as well. On our second last time, I was in the front car and looked up, losing my visor! Now, if you know how I wear my visors, they have never so much as budged on these rides before. I wear it on everything, including the Hulk and the Superman at my local 6 Flags, which is faster than RnRC and outside. I must not have had it tight enough or something. Luckily, it hit Celeste in the face (well, lucky for me; not really lucky for Celeste) and she caught it! I owed her after that one! Rosie had lost her visor last year on Splash Mountain and never saw that one again. After our third ride, it was after 9:00 so we could not get back into line. We shopped at the villians store a little bit and went to catch the boat before Fantasmic let out. We got back to the hotel room around 10 and showered and got ready for bed and a really long day on Saturday. So we didn't do too much today since we waited in a lot of lines, but we did what would take a good chunk out of the day so we would have time to do everything else on the other days.
Tomorrow: More Star Wars and an e-ride night!
Me (23, missed my Disney b-day by 2 days), WDW vet, map reader extraordinaire, could draw a map of all parks and all attractions at any given moment
Spanky (23), WDW vet, knows where ALL the bathrooms in the parks are
Celeste (26), WDW vet, Epcot lover, likes to annoy us by reading Star Wars trivia books while in line
Rosie (21), WDW vet, really needs to publish Smoker's Guide to Disney by finding all the smoking places in all the parks
Friday
First day of the Star Wars Weekend at MGM.
The alarm woke us up at 6:45 AM. That is such a bad hour. I had set both the radio and the buzzer so we had quite a loud jolt to wake us up. No wake up calls for us. I don't trust those much since we got those calls back in the day and noone was there. Yeah, I got crank called by Mickey! After showering and eating breakfast at Tubbi's where Rosie and I bought the very useful $10 refillable mugs, we were on our way to MGM by 8:15. After waiting for the boat from the Dolphin (where we stayed), we made it to the park by 8:25. We had to activate our annual passes since it was our first time with our new passes, we made it over the Guest Services. 10 short minutes later, we were ready to wait to be let into the park. Instead of waiting in the extremely long lines that formed behind the middle turnstiles, we just waited to the side in front of other turnstiles that were not covered and had noone in front of. There was a little skit going on ontop of the gates with 2 stormtroopers, but since we were underneath it, we could only hear what they were saying. It was pretty cute and funny, but I am sure that those people not there for Star Wars were not too amused being called aliens and having these two men threaten to shoot them! Finally, at 8:45, they started letting people into the parks, only to stop us at the rope on Hollywood Ave. There, the group was split. Everyone going to ToT and RnRC went to the right. On the left, we were told to split again there, with the Anthony Daniels people going to the right around the pond and the Billy Dee Williams (BDW) people going to the left. We decided to get our BDW autographs first. We promptly got in line and noticed that none of the CM knew what was going on. There were no wristbands, nothing. They were threatening to make us stand in line for 3 hours in the sun to get the autographs! Mind you, I waited in line for twice that amount to see Episode 1. Yeah, it was 6 hours. I took an exam in the morning, and then took the bus to the mall and waited in line. The people in line were fun, espeically those who were dressed up. I enjoy the people who are that into it. I would never do that, but I respect those who spent the entire day in the hot 85 sun in their full Jedi garb. Luckily, I was under the one umbrella that was up to provide shade in line. After a half hour, they finally announced that yes, they would be handing out wristbands and it would be about 15 minutes until they were ready. I pity the poor person who had to write out all those bands! They had a nice little color-coded system but still had to write on every single band. Not a very fun job for that poor CM. So, finally at 9:45, they started handing out the bands. We got numbers 13 - 16 for the 12:00 session with Billy Dee Williams. We went over to get in Anthony Daniels (AD) line right away after that. After waiting for another half hour or so, I managed to get the last band for the 3:00 session for AD. Yea for #60! My friends got 1-3 of the standby line. I would also like to point out that the entire time we were in line, Celeste was reading a Star Wars trivia book and quizzing us the whole time. Got a little anooying. I am okay at the trivia. I know Attack of the Clones inside and out (can repeat most lines word for word) but the weapons and ships I am shaky on. Now if it was Buffy trivia, I would have kicked butt. I am really good at that!
After this, we went to sign up for the adult's trivia and since there were only 2 spots left in standby at this time of the day, I let Maria and Celeste take the last 2 spots. After getting their numbers, we headed off to Star Tours. The line was non-existent so the wait should have been marked "how fast can you walk?" instead of the 5 minutes that was posted. We stopped into Tatooine Traders to get our stuff so that we could send it back to the hotel and be finished with the store. An hour and a half and almost $250 later, I was finished, but not done by a long shot. It was now time to get back in line for our first autograph. Apparently, they are only signing the Disney provided pics so the photos that I brought were a waste. We got a little piece of paper to write our name on so that BDW did not have to actually interact with anyone. After about 15 minutes and a gruff "Hi" from BDW, we all were set with our first autograph. Just a note for everyone: BDW was wearing socks and sandals at this event. They were not regualr socks, no. They had polka dots on them! Oh and his picture, is he actually dressed like Lando Calrissian? Oh, no that would be nice. Instead, I got his prom picture, bow tie and all.
We had earlier sent Rosie off to get us fast passes for WWtBaM earlier, we now could go to the 1:00 edition of the show. It was not a Star Wars edition, but I still did really good, getting up on the leader board at #2 in the end. Oh well, at least I wasn't #1 and then have them end the show! Since it was now almost 1:30, we decided to go for lunch at the Backstage Express. After a nice relaxing lunch, it was time to stop at the pin cart in front of the restaurant and spend another $100 on pins. Please note that this is not all for myself and I am getting paid back by people for this! This would be the start of something very dangerous. We had avoided the pin carts for 2 years now. Unfortunately, Disney finally sucked us in. I do not trade my pins. I collect them. Only Celeste gets teased for the first pin trade. I believe the phrase "dirty dirty pin trader" was used. Please do not kill me pin traders! It really is just a joke. I would hate to see the news on that one: "girl found dead, stabbed millions of times with small pin-like objects." We really have no qualms against trading, but it always fun to make fun of your friends so hey, calling someone a pin trader is not that bad. All in all, I think I bought about 30 pins, most of them being the Star Wars ones that are to be displayed at home as soon as I figure out how to do that. Maybe if I can find some cheap pins that I do not really like, I will become a pin trader too.
After lunch, we went to the 2:00 celebrity talk show. Again, BDW was rather gruff and was not very personable with anyone. AD on the other hand is too cute! He definitely made the day for us. After this was over, it was about 2:45, so we decided that we had time to go on RNRC before getting the autographs. We had sent Spanky over before lunch to get us Fastpasses for this, so we walked right on. It was now about 3:15, we walked back and got in line. Gee, I'm at the end. Not too tough to figure out where I should go. Apparently they had not taken ANY standby people for the first session, so my friends were forced to stand outside the line until they could judge how many people they would be able to get through in the hour. Luckily, several people had not shown up, so my friends could no longer torment me with the ice cream that they had bought while I was standing in line! Yeah, my nice friends who were not allowed to join me inside the ropes bought ice cream for themselves and stood there eating it in front of me. Finally, it was my turn to meet AD! Okay, we did not get our notecards this time, so I had to spell my name for him. Mind you, my name is not very hard, but he kept wanting to put other spellings to it. My name is Katie, but AD wanted to first spell it with a C and then a Y. Basically it was me repeating my name over and over again. So, after having him practice my name on a separate sheet of paper, I got my autograph. My friends were right behind me in line, so they went up next. Apparently there is some tool or musical instrument called a Celeste so he started talking about that. All in all, he is an extrememly personable person and would be worth twice the wait to see him. We hurried out of this so that as many people as possible could get their autographs. See people, we really are nice!
Since it was now 4:00, we decided that it was time to catch the Muppets. We just cannot go to MGM without seeing that show. After stalking a couple of characters....Boba Fett, the stormtroopers, the Jawas, the Eworks, the Cantina band, Greedo, Mace Windu (this was just me, since I started running when I saw him). Yeah, I'm a really big Mace Windu fan. I will admit to jumping out of line for Luke and Leia to get my picture taken with him. I annoyed Maria almost every single time we saw Episode 2 in the theaters (a whopping 9 times together, 10 times total) by singing every time he was on the screen. Ah, Mace Windu and Obi Wan were my biggest weaknesses in that movie. But I disgress. We also got in line for Luke and Leia and when we were at the front, Han Solo came over, leaving a line of people to spend some time with us. Not quite sure why this was, but I think it was the fact that Luke and Leia had a girl who was in her 20s in front of us in line and then the rest of us (all in our early 20s) and all he had were little kids. That's my theory. The characters really do prefer people their own age, especially if they are of the opposite sex. So we got a very hard to come by Han, Luke, and Leia pic and some dirty autographs for our friend Pea Head who was still at home but sent her autograph book to get signed. I believe that all autographs that you are not present for are dirty so yeah, we got quite a few dirty autographs for her on this trip. After we left the line, Han went back to his own line and signed autographs again.
After a little bit of window shopping at a couple of various stores, we staked out seats for the 5:30 Stars in Motorcars Parade that we have missed every year due to rain and other various reasons. We got seats in the shade directly in front of the stage next to Star Tours, so we were in a really good position for pictures. We also had some pretty good interaction with the Jawas who were extremely interested in our empty pop bottles. It was rather funny. After the parade, it was time for Celeste and Spanky to report for the trivia. Both got into the show and Rosie and I watched from the sidelines. Why is it that you know the questions then but you can't answer them when you actually play? Oh well, they both got out in the first round on the question of "How many engines does a Y (or maybe it was X) wing have?" There were 3 answers given and each took a different one and they were both wrong. I would have guessed the right answer, but I digress. After this, we waited around, watching the rest of the contest, just to get a hang of what kind of questions are asked. After this, there was the Hoopla with some of the least funniest jokes in the world. I swear, they only had like 10 jokes and I heard them over and over and over again during the entire weekend. Hey, what happens when Luke's speeder breaks down on Endor? He Walks! (ewoks). Yeah, bad, but hey after no sleep, they are rather funny so we determined that you can say any bad joke you want as long as you wait for the laughter or ask people to laugh at you.
After the Hoopla became out of hand with people shoving their little kids at the characters and getting into other people's pictures, we decided to head on over to get some dinner. We ate at Rosie's Cafe, which is over by the Beauty and the Beast Show. After this, it was getting near the time for Fantasmic so we knew that the waits for ToT and RNRC would be short. We ended up doing TOT 3 times in a row, ruining quite a few other people's pictures by being in the front row with our hands up, blocking everyone else in the car behind us. Oops. Well, they should put their hands up too. That ride is SO much more fun now that you can get some really good air time with the seatbelts. I love the random effects. Never the same ride twice! My only complaint with this ride that day was the lack of spooky CMs. Usually they are really creepy and scary, but tonight everyone was really friendly. I ended up chatting with one guy who suggested that I just quit my job and come work for Disney so I could go to the parks every day. Nice CMs are good to see, but they really were not in character. Oh well. After this, we did RNRC 3 times in a row as well. On our second last time, I was in the front car and looked up, losing my visor! Now, if you know how I wear my visors, they have never so much as budged on these rides before. I wear it on everything, including the Hulk and the Superman at my local 6 Flags, which is faster than RnRC and outside. I must not have had it tight enough or something. Luckily, it hit Celeste in the face (well, lucky for me; not really lucky for Celeste) and she caught it! I owed her after that one! Rosie had lost her visor last year on Splash Mountain and never saw that one again. After our third ride, it was after 9:00 so we could not get back into line. We shopped at the villians store a little bit and went to catch the boat before Fantasmic let out. We got back to the hotel room around 10 and showered and got ready for bed and a really long day on Saturday. So we didn't do too much today since we waited in a lot of lines, but we did what would take a good chunk out of the day so we would have time to do everything else on the other days.
Tomorrow: More Star Wars and an e-ride night!
