Day 2 - Part 4
Before I begin, I should note that I changed the chapter title from what I listed as “up next” in the last chapter in order to stick with the Star Wars theme. I think you’ll soon agree that it fits. Now, on with the show.
As I filled out the credit card slip to pay for our meal at Sci-Fi Dine-in, our server, Missy, asked Judy if she wanted another vanilla coke. She said “no”, but I quickly chimed-in and said, “oh, I think she
would like some more”. When Missy brought it to us, er I mean Judy, it was in a to-go cup! Thank you Missy!
We left Sci-Fi and headed to Echo Lake to get an autograph of James Arnold Taylor, who is the voice of Obi Wan Kenobi in the “Star Wars, The Clone Wars” cartoon series. I watch that show with James sometimes, and I have to say this guy really does sound like Ewan McGregor. Since it didn’t take us very long to get Peter Mayhew’s autograph, the ladies said they’d wait for us in the shade.
On the way over, I saw Darth Goofy and Leia Minnie signing autographs and took a quick picture. Minnie looks like she's going to box that kid.
James and I walked up to the rope “pens” where they corral the autograph seekers until they send them, in an orderly fashion, to the tent where the celebrity is. We turned in our fastpass and were directed to enter one of the pens. We were in the pen to the right, and it was empty except for us. The pen to the left had several people in it and we immediately noticed that it was from that pen that they occasionally released people to walk down the path to the tent where James Arnold Taylor was. After a minute of assessing the situation, I thought, “Hmmm…why the second-class treatment?” James was a little blunter and verbally exclaimed, “What’s the deal?!”
Here you can see the rope that separates our pen from the “preferred” pen. (And you can also see someone who’s a little bit more of a Star Wars fan that I am. It was a really hot day to be wearing your Darth Vader costume! Actually, I pretended like I was taking James’ picture, but I wanted to make sure I got a good shot of “Darth”.)
So, I went up to the cast member directing traffic to the people pens and asked why we were in the pen that appeared to have no hope of ever actually getting to the celebrity. She directed me to look at my fastpass ticket. It was a “Stand By Autograph” fastpass, not a full-fledged fastpass, whatever they might look like.
See that ugly black strip of text across the top?
I now realized that that’s what the cast members at the front of the park were giving out by the time we arrived that morning. When we had gotten Peter Mayhew’s autograph earlier in the day, we had just timed it right, by luck. Plus, with the limited amount of interaction with him, his line moved quickly.
So, that’s when a fastpass isn’t a fastpass. When it’s a “Stand By Autograph” fastpass. We’d be allowed to go when the other people pen was empty…if the celebrity was still there. And people kept coming. It’d get down to 4 or 5 people, and then 3 more would show up. Darth Superfan went, but we stood.
The ladies were close enough that I was able to get their attention and tell them what was going on. They said they were going to go into some shops to look around and get cooled off. James and I decided to wait it out a little longer and see if it looked like we’d get to go, but we planned to see the Indiana Jones show at 2 o’clock so we couldn’t wait around too long. Plus it was waaay hot.
The other problem was the line was moving really slowly. They would only send a couple of people every few minutes it seemed.
In this picture of the “penthouse” pen you can see the guy in the red shirt wondering what’s taking so long. There were nearly a dozen people over there. It wasn’t looking good for us.
We waited 20 minutes before giving up. The whole time we waited I think only one other person ever came into our pen, and he left after a minute or two. James started to cry because he’s a big fan of the cartoon series that this guy works on, but he could see that we weren’t going to get a turn. I told him we’d at least walk over and take a picture of him.
Here he is.
Now I could see why it was taking so long. He took forever, talking to each person, yucking it up. I mean, that’s nice, but there’s something to be said for Peter Mayhew’s approach!
Laugh it up, fuzzball! (To borrow a line from the “original” Star Wars, episode 4.) Don't worry that small children are in tears. (Don't worry, James got over it pretty quickly.)
We left and went to find the ladies. They were in a clothing shop on Hollywood Boulevard, right near Echo Lake and we found them pretty quickly. (I think the store was Keystone Clothiers?) Our fastpass window had opened again, so while the others shopped and cooled off, I dashed up Sunset Boulevard to get some Tower of Terror fastpasses.
Yes, at this point I had 3 sets of fastpasses in my pocket. TSM, RnRC, and ToT. Muhahahaha!
I went back and found my family again and we walked out onto the street. James had a conversation with this guy in this car. To this day I have no idea what they talked about!
They both look fairly amused by whatever transpired between them.
Then I saw a Photopass person, so gathered up the family for our first Photopass pictures of the trip. First, a couple with my camera.
Then a few from the Photopass person’s camera.
We decided to start heading over to the Indiana Jones show, so we walked around the corner where James had been talking to that guy in the white antique car, towards Echo Lake. As we rounded the corner we saw a couple of “Streetmosphere” people. They asked us if we wanted some free wine samples.
Then the lady, who looked like Liza Minelli’s better-looking younger sister (hey, you never know, she might read this), said in a very whiny voice, “Why are the lines so long?” And the chef guy said, “Why is it so hot?” Free wine (whine) samples, get it?
Then she saw me taking a picture and struck a pose.
She noticed James and said, “I’m on vacation, why do I have to comb my hair?”
They really hammed it up, and loved it when I took their picture, as you can see.
She said, “Are all 3 of these yours?”, pointing to the kids. “Did you get married at 12?” (Hey, I like her!!)
They intereacted with Judy and the kids some more, we had them all to ourselves for a little while. While they talked, I remembered that since I just gotten a Photopass card I should take a picture of the back of it so that I had the number in case I lost it. (You can kind of see the Streetmosphere people in the background.)
She said to Judy, “Why he is taking a picture of that card?” And Judy explained that it was so I’d have the number if I lost the card – then I could still retrieve my pictures. Then Liza’s beautiful, younger sister exclaimed, “Oh, he’s smart
and he’s handsome!!” Here, you can see how smitten she obviously is with me. And the chef guy was just awestruck.
Here’s a picture of my family talking with them, and a few other people starting to come over to see what was going on.
We needed to leave in order to get a decent seat for Indiana Jones, plus other park guests were starting to gather around, so we had to bid them farewell. I think the Streetmosphere people had a lot of fun talking with us and hated to see us go.
Up next: We meet again, Doctor Jones
Link to next chapter
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Yeah, but certain in the party seem to enjoy it. Explaining to the non-DisOriented is the hard part at times. 
We were pretty much seated on time, though, which was better than nothing, and we were in two cars next to each other.
Thanks for stopping in on your way out. We wish you the best Jordan!
I hope you're funnin' me with that burger comment! 
to the TR mom3sonstt! Thanks for joining in.
