Star Wars weekends and attendance...

[wdwphanatic]

Just wondering if the Star Wars weekends will likely have a significant impact on attendance levels at the parks... I just discovered that the first Star Wars weekend will be May 16-18, which is our only weekend at the parks! How will this affect crowds? Will MGM in particular be a lot more crowded? Should we avoid that park on Saturday and Sunday? Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Sarah

 

[Mark P.]

Hi Sarah,
We'll be among the probable masses at MGM opening day of SWW. I would say the MGM's going to be real busy on those weekends, as they didn't have SWW last year.

Not sure how it will affect the other parks, though. Hopefully someone else can offer more on that...

 

[zulaya]

Was there in 2001 and really, it was only more noticeably crowded at MGM in two places:

1. Where the celebrities did their autographing. Which was back behind the Great Movie Ride, then, out of the main stream of traffic.

2. Near Star Tours - there were a lot of the Star Wars characters over there so there were more people in that area.

The rest of MGM was fairly normal and not what I would call crowded at all. Even getting through the Star Tours area wasn't a big deal, just more people than the rest of the park. The CMs did a great job with keeping the autograph lines out of the mainstream of traffic.

Bottom line, don't skip MGM just because of SWW if you only have those days to go to MGM.

 

[wdwphanatic]

... they didn't have Star Wars weekends last year. I bet it will be more crowded this year then. We'll actually be at WDW 5/16-5/21 (not just the weekend), so maybe we'll just schedule our MGM day for Monday or Tuesday. My older ds loves Star Wars stuff, however, so perhaps we ought to at least pop over there for some autographs at some point during the weekend. Do they do anything else that's special for SWW? Is it just character appearances? I think I read that they include some of the characters in the parade as well.

Thanks for the information,
Sarah

 

[zulaya]

The autographs are more crazy than I want to worry about. You have to get in line and get a wristband and I think you have to pay to get celebrities (Carrie Fisher, etc.)

But they have characters in the parade during the event and near Star Tours. I got plenty of pix of DH with Princess Leia, Queen Amidala, Darth Maul, The Emporer and Imperial Guards, Chewie and Han, C3PO and R2D2. The only one we missed was Luke.

I don't know that I'd necessarily avoid MGM. Just because it didn't happen last year doesn't mean people will flock to it from out state. (Although I am one of those that willb e making the trip just for SWW). But you might find MGM a little lighter on Monday if you have time. But if you have SW lovers in your group, you have to just go and experience it.

Remember, May is not a terribly busy time anyway, it's not like the height of summer or Xmas week. Don't freak out about crowds just because there's an event going on.

 

[Mark P.]

The DIS Homepage has a link with SWW info. Here's another real good link:

http://www.mgmstudios.org/sww.html

 

[wdwphanatic]

... and link!! Looks like it will be fun. I've never been in May, so I have no idea what to expect crowd-wise. We usually go in early February when it's generally pretty quiet, but this year we had to postpone our trip because I'm expecting a baby next week! Hope May will be a good time to visit. It's pretty hot then, isn't it? DH and I went in late Sept. last year and it wasn't too bad at all.

Thanks again for the useful information,
Sarah