We had a wonderful trip! Still trying to get caught up here in the real world since our trip ended up lasting an extra day due to our flight being cancelled because of the flooding in Houston on Monday evening.
One thing that I will reiterate that has been mentioned on here many, many times is to HYDRATE!!! It was so hot and humid there this weekend. I live in far west Texas in the desert, probably the only spot in the state not flooding this week, and we are just not used to the humidity. Combined with the temperatures (and heat index), it was HOT and we were drinking lots and lots of water but I still managed to get dehydrated on Saturday.
The VIP Tour was great! We were only there for the long, holiday weekend so this allowed us to see so much more at SWW than if we had tried to do it on our own. It was a long day since we had to be there at 6:45 am but both my husband and I agree that this tour was worth the money. We saw Darth Vadar before heading into the Mall to shop. Then we had breakfast at the Hollywood Brown Derby (eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, potatoes, sweet rolls) before heading out with our guide to the rides. We rode Star Tours twice, Toy Story Midway Mania once, and Rockin' Roller Coaster once. We didn't do the Tower of Terror since we had done Star Tours twice and our guide was afraid we would be cutting it too close to make it to the parade viewing area in time. It was hot in the parade viewing area but they brought out umbrellas for us to share while we waited and we had all the water, soft drinks, Mickey bars, strawberry ice cream popsicles and popcorn that we wanted. After the parade, we headed to lunch at Mama Melrose's. Our lunch came out very quickly (since you preordered during breakfast) so we had about 45 minutes to ourselves before we had to head over for our first show. We had front row seats for both the StarWars Rebels Show and the Stars of the Saga. They did tell us that we would be seated in those same seats for the other two shows that day, Ewok Tale and Obi-Wan and Beyond, but we were so worn out from the heat and humidity that we went back to our resort for a nap and didn't attend those two shows. We were back by 8 pm for the Dessert Party and they let us in right at 8:30. It was not crowded at all and in fact, there were a few tables that remained empty all evening. It was a great vantage point for watching the show before the fireworks. The stage does block some of the view of the fireworks, but we had a table towards the back and I think that we saw most of them. Compared to the massive crowds that were watching from other areas, we were very fortunate as we could move around instead of being in one huge mass. Everyone was great and I don't think that you will be disappointed since the tour does allow you to do so much more than you would be able to do on your own in one day. The tour guides go out of their way to make sure that everything is going well and they even have frozen towels for you when you are waiting for the parade and the shows to help cool you down.
If you have any other questions, I would be happy to answer. Everyone on this board has been so helpful and our SWW wouldn't not have been such a success without the amazing information that I found here! Thanks to everyone here but especially
@yulilin3 for starting this thread and keeping it so up to date. I was going to try to come by to thank you personally on Saturday night before the fireworks but when we got out of Fantasmic, the crowds were insane (I know that you all had warned us of this but I didn't really understand the amount of people that would be crammed into that area until I was there myself) and there was no way to get to your spot at that point.
We also plan to check in early for breakfast (by 8:45) in hopes of getting seated earlier. I'm hoping we can be done in about an hour, but I don't want to rush breakfast. See ya there!!
