We attended just one day of Star Wars Weekend IV with my DH and our DS7. Fans of the films, the Clone Wars is kind of a blind spot for us … we know the story and the characters, but haven’t watched all the episodes, and we are way into Star Wars: Rebels because of our son, who LOVES this series.
This was our first time with SWW so we weren’t sure what to expect, but we read a lot here and planned a lot, then made a list of DS7’s priorities, which were to do anything that related to Ezra, Sabine and Chopper.
With that in mind, we felt out best bet would be to try for the Padawan Mind Challenge, so that was our mission on Sunday, June 7!
Having heard mixed reports about bus schedules, we thought we should at least check. About 6:15 we went to the lobby of the Contemporary and were told that the buses wouldn’t start until after 7 am. Seeing as how we wanted to be at Hollywood Studios before 7, that would not work for us … so we decided to take a cab, one was right there and we were off. Made it to DHS around 6:30 or 6:40 … there were only a couple of clusters of people at the tapstiles, so we started a new line.
When they let us in up to the stormtropper show rope, I mentioned to my husband that the advice on this board was that we needed to head straight and then take a left at the stage to get to the PMC sign ups. The CM at the rope told me that we needed to go to the left for the sign ups. I was a little confused about what to do, but I decided to still head straight.
The stormtropper show was great, DS7 thought they were hilarious!
We fast walked to our intended destination - the ABC Sound Studios for the PMC sign ups - others ran.
We passed a CM who asked us where we were headed, we said “Padawan Mind Challenge” and she said to head to Indiana Jones. I asked “Are you sure?” and she very arrogantly said “I’m quite positive.” My DH says maybe they moved it, but that didn’t seem right, and by that time we were in the line at ABC Sound Studios. There were about 3 people in front of us. Someone asked “are there two lines?” then a CM behind the “desk” spoke up and said one line was for VttM and one was for PMC. No one moved to the VttM line, so the first family in line moved over there and signed up for that one right after signing up for PMC, so they had a super great day, I’m sure!
It didn’t seem to me to be a mad crush and I would have guessed anyone there within 30 minutes could have gotten signed up, but I have since read reports that it really was full within about 15 minutes. So if this is a priority, it must be done right away at rope drop.
The CMs seemed to not know much about this, and that makes sense given that Jedi training Academy is such a huge draw. But if I didn’t trust the advice on this board, I would have been sent to the wrong place and possibly missed out on the opportunity to sign up.
A side note about this – there was one participant who apparently had been in the show every day of every weekend. The host mentioned it during our show (something like, “it’s not like you haven’t been up here 17 times”) and a couple next to us in the parent viewing area said they had seen him in the show the day before. I kind of feel like that is a little excessive … I mean, its your prerogative to do whatever you want while at the theme park, but for something like this where there are limited spots available, I think that you might be being a little selfish to do it every day of every weekend. I just feel bad for other kids that got shut out of the opportunity because you wanted to do it for the 10th or 12th time! Just my opinion, and I’ll probably get flamed for it, but oh well.
So we were on the list with a 12:15 return time, priority number 1 – check! Right next to the PMC sign up area, they had the preview demos of the Disney Infinity 3.0 game, which is Star Wars characters, in case you hadn't heard. DS is a huge Disney infinity fan, so we stopped by before the line got too busy. He got to play a 3 minutes demo game as Yoda and really loved it! There is a cool slow motion feature on the last task of each mission – wish I could have played! ;o)
Since we were near Star Tours, we snuck a quick ride in (no wait … just walked straight through - awesome) and after exiting the gift shop, we saw good ole Chewbacca and an Ewok in line taking photos (for whatever reason, my kiddo was not interested in meeting the characters. He’s not afraid, but was just okay with seeing them as he walks by. Just no interest in meeting them … I would have LOVED to meet any of them, but perhaps another trip.)
Then we were off to the other side of the park for the RockNRollerCoaster. We hadn’t been to WDW since our DS was tall enough for this one, so this was another priority for us. We didn’t get a FP just in case he chickened out, but he was stoked! I think our stand-by wait was maybe 10 minutes on this – the photo time stamp is 8:50. When we got off, he wanted to do Tower of Terror so we did that also with a super short wait – 9:11 time stamp on that photo.
We headed over to
Pixar place for our Toy story Midway Mania passes … we were a little early so we walked around and found the magic shots, saw Darth Vader meeting people and also Anakin not too far away. We ran into a Gamorrean Guard. All lots of fun. TSMM was classic fun but I fear this was perhaps my last time to ride as DS7 will opt for a RnRC FP from here on out and the wait times for TSMM are just SO crazy.
We went to the front of the park to check in for the deluxe Feel the Force package – got the run down and then had a bunch of mickey bars, popcorn and water. We had a great spot on the curb and got some awesome pictures. DS was holding his Ezra lightsaber and Ezra came over to him during the parade to say something about it. DS was very excited about that! Then we got to walk with the parade up to the stage, which was surprisingly really fun.
I don’t remember how we killed time until the 12:15 check in for the PMC, but then that show started. It was a cute show, although DS was convinced that they had the answer wrong to one of the questions that knocked out like half of the kiddos. They all got an action figure after the show, which was a nice surprise! They didn’t get to interact too much with Ezra, Sabine and Chopper, but those characters were all on stage.
We headed to ABC Commissary to get some lunch. The wait was long (long meal waits everywhere!), the meal was meh, but it hit the spot and the air conditioning was a good break.
We then headed over to the Theater of the Stars for the first show of the day – Ashley Eckstein in Star Wars: Rebels show. DS loved to vote in the little polls and try to get all those around us to get on board with his choice. The show itself was good and held DS7’s attention – he actually really liked it. The length was just right for kiddos his age.
After that show, we had a FP scheduled for Tower of Terror, which worked out well because of the proximity. After the ride we had a snack and then back into the Theater for the Stars of the Saga. DS LOVED the stormtropper pre-show, and then he really enjoyed the clips and conversations with Ray Park and Jeremy Bulloch. I had wondered about this one – wasn’t sure if he would be interested in the actors themselves vs them being in character, but he was really into it and kept talking about bits form it that he thought were particularly funny.
After this show we went to Darth’s Mall – On our way over, a jawa was trading with some adults, so DS, who LOVES the jawas and had an “Utinni” shirt on, pulled out his trade item – a tiny slinky that the Jawa seemed very excited about – he gave DS a small monster truck and posed for some pics (no autographs).
Another priority for our kiddo was to get “something that was Star Wars Weekend exclusive.” At the store, we got the vinylmations of Zeb and Chopper (Rebels characters) and a vinylmation set of Luke and Han that was signed by the artist. He also got two Cars that were in Star Wars character, a Darth Maul Mickey head pin, a Logray plush (that he decided to call Wicket!?), and DH got a t-shirt.
We had a 5 pm reservation at the Jedi Mickey dinner, which worked out perfectly for us timing-wise. Good character interaction, and the food was not bad – I wouldn’t say it was great, but it was okay. Although I wish I ate more desserts – I had read that the fireworks party desserts were essentially the same, so I held off, but they were different enough that I wish I had more that I wanted to try during the dinner.
We headed over to the James Arnold Taylor show which DH decided he wanted to see after watching him host all day! This was a good show too, and DH and I were really impressed with his talents.
We had our last FP for Star Tours and had a good time on that … always a favorite. Then we headed over to the fireworks party. We probably didn’t need to be there right on time (there was a small line that formed before they would let us in) but we were kind of out of gas by then. The DJ Elliot show was okay but a little techno remix goes a long way. The snacks were okay, they had a full ice cream cart there which I was thrilled about because that meant I could have a frozen banana!!! Yum. The cocktails were fun too … we tried the Force (meh) and the Jedi Mind trick (yum)
The dance party went on a little long ... a CM who joined me in an over-dramatic rendition of a Journey song, went to find out what was up and came back explaining that there were “technical difficulties” but not to give up. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes of his report the fireworks got started. Great fireworks ... really made me appreciate the Star Wars music even more!
We decided to get in RnRC one more time so we walked that way only to find out that it was closed. We aren’t usually in this park at night, so we had no idea. One good thing was that much of the crowd thinned out, and the bus line wasn’t too terribly long to get back to the resort.
All in all, a super full day and we accomplished everything we wanted to ... and then some. Thanks to the advice and suggestions on this board, we were able to have a good plan and be familiar with options to make choices on the fly. It was a great day and the family was quite pleased with how smoothly it all went for us.
Next year (oh yeah … we’re definitely going back!!!), I think we will spread it out over two days and see if we can get some character meets mixed in as well as see all the shows without having to skip any. I don’t think the autograph sessions will be of interest to DS, so I think we can safely pass on that again – which is a great logistical burden avoided on our part. Maybe next year we might try the breakfast characters if they continue that option.
Lots to look forward to i 2016 and also curious how things might be changed up with the Force Awakens being released … new characters? New experiences? I will for sure be checking with you guys and this board to be in the know!!!
And just maybe I might feel brave enough next year to try to seek out some fellow Dissers! Too shy (but also so busy!) to seek anyone out this year, but with you all in spirit!
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It's been great getting to know you all through the main SWW thread! 
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