May The Fort Be With You- A TCD SWW Trip Report!

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

Awesome people watching pics! You have a knack for finding them usually but sww must have made things easier.

[caveat lector 181]

TCD....Master of the TR force...you are.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Awesome people watching pics! You have a knack for finding them usually but sww must have made things easier.

Thanks, I try.

By the way, I think y'all would appreciate a closer look at that mom in the Princess Leia outfit:

I'll bet her feet hurt by the end of the day.

Otherwise, per my momma's rule, I don't have anything to say about that.

TCD

[michele j 9]

I'm with you on not waiting for hours and hours to meet a puppet voice. No thank you.

Yes, LMFAO was the band performing on Jay Leno. Can't say I liked them. Give me the 70's & 80's music anytime. Yup, I'm old

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

I prefer the 60s and 70s music. Yup, I'm even older.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

TCD....Master of the TR force...you are.

Thank you.

I try.

I mean-

No try, do.

Something like that.

I'm with you on not waiting for hours and hours to meet a puppet voice. No thank you.

Yes, LMFAO was the band performing on Jay Leno. Can't say I liked them. Give me the 70's & 80's music anytime. Yup, I'm old

And by the way, that Watto wasn't even a good puppet.

He looked fake as heck.

And how could Anakin and his mom be slaves to a stupid little puppet like that?

Why couldn't Anakin swat him with a giant flyswatter?

Dumb.

I prefer the 60s and 70s music. Yup, I'm even older.

Oh come on, Gwen.

Age matters not.

TCD

p.s. For the record, I like 60's and 70's music best too.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Oh come on, Gwen.

Age matters not.

TCD

p.s. For the record, I like 60's and 70's music best too.

TY, TY! I believe age matters not too. Abraham Lincoln said " ... it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." And that's my motto.

But some days, like today, I'm really feeling my years.

[michele j 9]

Whoops I should have said 60's music. My bad.

Gwen, you can't be any older than me.... I will be the big 50 this year

[ftwildernessguy 778]

Thanks for the close up of the mom in the slave outfit.

[stefa70 205]

Although I don't know Mrs TCD, my guess would be NO she wouldn't wear that.

I also don't think that would be a good 'do for you, not to mention yours would be white.

I will not comment on the yoda t-shirt, but I will tell you that I will look for one this week. ^-^

[YENSIDCAMPER 66]

Oh, I didn't know you were going this weekend.

I thought it was in June.

Have a great time.

I will have some tips coming up. And some intel that I learned from other attendees. I hope you will benefit from that.

TCD

TCD thanks for the preview of the SWW. Mark another Fiend who hasn't seen The Avengers.

We will get to spend three weekends at SWW now. We get to leave early now thanks to some reports coming in early at work! We got to extend our vacation to two full weeks by incorporating Memorial Day weekend. Fiesty was great helping us. I hope you find yourself at the Fort in those weeks, I owe you a dole whip at the Lodge.

[parrothead7368 aka Norm 101]

That is a cool painting.

I see that this artist's thing is to have images reflected in his subject's visors and such. This one is pretty neat. I like how distressed the helmet is and the reflection of the Han-sicle.

I would call BS on your comment about skating, but then I remembered you're from New Jersey. So, I believe you.

TCD

Hmmm, I think that was a shot?

Best Regards,

Norm

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

I think I may have lied. Once you mentioned Chewie... I seem to remember going to a comic con with DH and a couple of his geeky friends. I may even have autographed pictorial evidence.... I had completely forgotten about it. Chewie was not in http://www.petermayhew.com/rick4.jpg. (from petrmayhew.com). Following TCDs momma's rules.....

[LONE-STAR 370]

Never made it for Star Wars week. Looks like fun.

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

Possibly the best example of a butter face that I've seen on the internetz.

[kampfirekim 260]

I am finally in!!! Whoo HOoo!! All four of us are Star Wars fans so I am liking this TR!!

BTW... nice buns. The cinnamon buns I mean... NOT the "if ya can't say something nice don't say nothing at all" buns.

I was trying to keep track of comments I wanted to make in my head but POOF! they're all gone so I'll just be glad I"m all caught up and will wait patiently or not patiently for the next update. :)

Thank you for sparing us all a recreation of the horrifying sausage photo.

And don't you know that Kim may be reading this? The band should be referred to as LMSBO....Laugh My Silly Butt Off. Oh Lawdy!!!!

Amen on the sausage photo. I still have my secret weapon and I'm not afraid to use it!

Furthermore I hate that band. Not because of the name though. They are just lame. They should be called LMLAO. My 2 cents. ;D

TY, TY! I believe age matters not too. Abraham Lincoln said " ... it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." And that's my motto.

But some days, like today, I'm really feeling my years.

"It's not the years .... It's the mileage." ~ Indiana Jones

[Lou... 3,118]

After seeing that horrible SW show I need to ask, would George Lucas be rolling over in his grave if he were dead?

Is there an apology made to him after those shows?

That's really bad stuff.

[Lil Lisa 53]

All caught up! I might have to change my name to Lil Late Lisa...

Love the people watching pics. Breakfast looked delicious! Now I'm hungry...

With all of these non-Fort trips, I am starting to worry about you. You're not going soft on us, are you?

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Thanks for the close up of the mom in the slave outfit.

Now, let's see.

You made that post at 5:19 pm.

So, you couldn't have been too drunk. Yet.

So that means Jim needs to have his eyes checked.

Although I don't know Mrs TCD, my guess would be NO she wouldn't wear that.

I also don't think that would be a good 'do for you, not to mention yours would be white.

I will not comment on the yoda t-shirt, but I will tell you that I will look for one this week. ^-^

I approve of you wearing a "Size Matters Not" shirt.

It would make sense for you to wear that shirt.

But a grown man should not be wearing that shirt.

Some of these Star Wars geeks really need to get a clue.

TCD thanks for the preview of the SWW. Mark another Fiend who hasn't seen The Avengers.

We will get to spend three weekends at SWW now. We get to leave early now thanks to some reports coming in early at work! We got to extend our vacation to two full weeks by incorporating Memorial Day weekend. Fiesty was great helping us. I hope you find yourself at the Fort in those weeks, I owe you a dole whip at the Lodge.

Two full weeks?

Wow!

That is awesome news!

And, that is sweet that you will be there for three of the SWW.

We hope to make it back for a couple of more visits duriing SWW.

We will see how that goes.

I was only at the Fort for a brief drive by on this trip. I definitely am up for a visit to the Fort. If it looks like that will be happening, I will let you know. Otherwise, maybe I will see you at a Hyperspace Hoopla or something.

Hmmm, I think that was a shot?

Best Regards,

Norm

Kind of.

But, it was all in fun.

Remember, I grew up in Joisey.

As an escapee, I am just poking fun at a resident of the great state of New Joisey.

I think I may have lied. Once you mentioned Chewie... I seem to remember going to a comic con with DH and a couple of his geeky friends. I may even have autographed pictorial evidence.... I had completely forgotten about it. Chewie was not in http://www.petermayhew.com/rick4.jpg. (from petrmayhew.com). Following TCDs momma's rules.....

Peter Mayhew.

He was at SWW last year.

And, based on my Momma's rule, I can't say anything else either.

Now comic con, that is something I would love to go to!

Never made it for Star Wars week. Looks like fun.

It is fun.

But, not as fun as spending some quality time in the Fall at the Fort.

So don't feel bad.

Possibly the best example of a butter face that I've seen on the internetz.

I about fell out of my chair laughing at that comment!

Good one!

Thankfully, my teenagers have kept me "hip" on the modern lingo, so I know what you are talking about.

Funny!

And true.

I am finally in!!! Whoo HOoo!! All four of us are Star Wars fans so I am liking this TR!!

BTW... nice buns. The cinnamon buns I mean... NOT the "if ya can't say something nice don't say nothing at all" buns.

I was trying to keep track of comments I wanted to make in my head but POOF! they're all gone so I'll just be glad I"m all caught up and will wait patiently or not patiently for the next update. :)

Amen on the sausage photo. I still have my secret weapon and I'm not afraid to use it!

Furthermore I hate that band. Not because of the name though. They are just lame. They should be called LMLAO. My 2 cents. ;D

"It's not the years .... It's the mileage." ~ Indiana Jones

Great comments, KFK!

Stay tuned for more Star Wars stuff!

I just remembered how much a fan Lil H is. I hope that you guys can swing a trip to a SWW for him sometime.

After seeing that horrible SW show I need to ask, would George Lucas be rolling over in his grave if he were dead?

Is there an apology made to him after those shows?

That's really bad stuff.

As I recall, George was present last year when Star Tours re-opened, and Hyperspace Hoopla moved to the new stage. I would expect that to a degree, he or his staff must know about it.

I think George has a sense of humor about this stuff. The extra material on the BlueRay set that I purchased has a lot of the spoofs that have appeared almost everywhere about Star Wars. And there are a lot! I think George must have approved including this stuff. That tells me that he enjoys it on some level.

I can see where an honest to goodness fan might find Hyperspace Hoopla objectionable. But, I will tell you that the TCD twins would probably have gone through life without seeing a single one of the movies had it not been for us seeing Hyperspace Hoopla for the first time last year.

All caught up! I might have to change my name to Lil Late Lisa...

Love the people watching pics. Breakfast looked delicious! Now I'm hungry...

With all of these non-Fort trips, I am starting to worry about you. You're not going soft on us, are you?

I'm worried about me too.

I have to admit that it is pretty sweet having a hotel room. It is awesome to just walk in with an overnight bag, and being able to throw our stuff in our bags and walk out in the morning. A lot easier than camping.

Not to worry though, there will be some quality Fort time for us later this year.

I hope.

Oh, and in case you are interested, you can also wear a "Size Matters Not" shirt.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

It's time to move along.

We left off with us waiting on line to meet our first Star Wars character.

And here he is! :

Another pose:

One of the reasons that this line was a little on the slow side moving along is that Chebacca spent a lot of time with each set of guests. I took a bunch more photos. As did the Photopass castmember.

And then Chewbacca motioned for me to come and meet him.

I said no.

But the twins and he insisted.

So, here you go:

I don't know why it's fun to meet someone dressed up in a Star Wars costume.

But it is.

Now, here's an important tip for anyone who wants to meet Chewbacca- get in line early. We spent maybe 30-45 minutes in line. And, during that time, we ate breakfast. The line was in the shade, and the wait was very pleasant. Also, since it appears to be the rule that one person from each party can stand in line while the others come and go, members of your party can run over to the Star Tours gift shop or do other things while waiting. This is way better than lining up in the afternoon and standing in the hot sun.

Our Fastpass return window for Toy Story had just begun as we finished with Chewbacca. So, we headed that way. On the way there, we found Jango Fett was set up in the Bounty Hunter display area we had passed earlier in the morning. The girls thought it would be fun to meet him, so I said let's hop in line. Then I realized that there was no need for us to all stand in line, so I told the girls to go and ride Toy Story while I waited in line. I also asked them to get some more Fastpasses for later, if they could. That worked out perfectly. They were back within 15 minutes, and it looked like we would only have about another 10 minutes to wait. So, that's another tip for you- if you have someone in your party willing to stand in line- do that.

I actually enjoyed standing in line. The lady in front of me turned out to be a HS castmember on her day off. We had a great chat about Disney stuff. She was a huge Star Wars fan, and was really happy to be in the park for everything that was going on. She had a Fastpass to meet the actor who played Darth Maul in Episode 1, so she was pumped.

While we waited in line, we saw Darth Vader walk by on the way to his meet and greet area, which was over by the Backstage Tour entrance:

There were also random Stormtroopers just walking around and interacting with guests:

As we got closer, we could see guests meeting with Jango. This kid had his own Jango Fett costume, and had a lot of photos taken:

There was a teenage girl in front of us dressed up in a Padme costume and she told us that the kid in the Jango costume had already been through the line, and was dressed in a Boba Fett costume the first time. This is where we learned that Boba and Jango were taking turns coming out to meet guests this spot. The teenage girl had already met Boba, so she was back in line hoping to meet Jango. This girl was great as she went on about how weird it was for that kid to have changed costumes to meet the characters as she was standing there in her costume waiting to meet the other character. The irony of her comments was missed by her.

In case you're interested, this is a photo of the back of the head of the castmember who was on line in front of me, and the girl in the Padme costume:

These folks had a sign on the back of their stroller that said "My other Ride is a Millenium Falcon:"

Just as we were about to reach the front of the line, Jango walked off.

That meant Boba was coming.

Fine with us.

Not fine for the girl in the Padme costume.

She asked one of the nearby castmembers if she could let people pass by her so she could wait to meet Jengo.

The castmember said she would need to ask.

Then she came back and said no.

Which was really dumb.

They should have let the girl do that.

I guess I understand why they don't want people to do it.

The girl should have just done it on her own.

Remember that in case you run into this situation.

Anyway, we could see Boba heading our way from over there:

He was acting like the castmember working with him was his prisoner:

He marched her past us, and put her in the corner:

And then he gestured for her to stay, and turned to those of us in line and gestured for us to keep and eye on her:

Of course, the castmember did not stay put as instructed, which led to some more interaction:

Everyone in line was eating this up.

I, on the other hand, was thinking about how the line would move quicker without this nonsense.

But, I was clearly the only one who thought that.

We got to watch this young Meatloaf look-a-like meet Boba:

Which made me wonder: how the heck did this guy end up with a kid?

Finally, the TCD twins got to meet Boba:

Much fun was had by all. You can see that he had them put their hands in his space handcuffs. When they tried to leave, he ordered them back. Then he called me in to be back-up:

Look at me going all Star Wars geek!

So, that was fun.

It was now obviously very busy in the park.

We didn't have a burning desire to meet any other characters today.

And, we had already done Star Tours, and the girls had done Toy Story. We knew that we could hit RNR and TOT when we came back later.

So what now?

Did I mention that we were going to visit the MK today?

Well, we were.

I'll tell you why soon.

But it wasn't time for that yet.

One of the twins said let's go the Animation Academy.

We had just done that for the first time on our last visit.

That sounded like a good thing to do.

So, we are headed there next.

TCD

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

Sounds and looks like all had fun. At least the bounty hunters know you have to keep an eye in both twins. Although if he needed your help to do the job, he needs some more experience in his job.

[BuckeyeFortFan 35]

I just got a chance to watch the Hoopla video. I should say I got a chance to watch 5 minutes of it, because that is all I could tolerate. I don't know how you stood there for the whole thing, even if you were able to distance yourself from the diaper. What was going on on the stage stunk as bad as any diaper I have ever come into contact with.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Sounds and looks like all had fun. At least the bounty hunters know you have to keep an eye in both twins. Although if he needed your help to do the job, he needs some more experience in his job.

Good point.

I can keep the twins in line by myself.

So some Bounty Hunter that Boba guy is.

I just got a chance to watch the Hoopla video. I should say I got a chance to watch 5 minutes of it, because that is all I could tolerate. I don't know how you stood there for the whole thing, even if you were able to distance yourself from the diaper. What was going on on the stage stunk as bad as any diaper I have ever come into contact with.

Do you realize that this puts you in the same category as Lou?

HHH.

Hyperspace Hoopla Hater.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Continuing on with our Saturday morning . . .

We had accomplished what we came to do that morning- meet a couple of characters, ride a couple of rides.

There were shows and presentations going on, but we decided we were not ready for that kind of thing.

So, it was on to the Animation Academy.

I think this is going to be a must do for all future Hollywood Studios visits.

It's a lot of fun, and we all enjoy it.

So we headed over.

And, we got right in.

Here we are with our new friend, Joe, the animator:

We have only been here once before, so I'm still not sure if it is always done this way, but the animator begins with leading the audience through making a decision on which character to draw. He gave us 4 or 5 choices. Some classics, some newer. When he offered Bolt, a lot of people perked up. From what I gather, a lot of folks are repeat animators, and it seems like the obscure characters are preferred over the classics.

So Bolt it was.

Which was fine with us, since we all like that movie.

Here are the TCD twins ready to draw:

I forgot that John Travolta provides the voice of Bolt.

But twin #1 didn't.

She started cracking some jokes about John Travolta, and had the folks around us laughing.

But I told her to hush before she got herself in trouble.

The process here is pretty simple.

The animator stands up front and tells you what to do. He will say start with a circle, then add an oval, etc. If you follow his lead, you should end up with something that looks like a Disney character.

Joe went pretty quick, and he did a good job drawing Bolt:

I knew that I was in trouble early on:

My Bolt had a crazy eye:

Meanwhile, Joe was finished:

Joe did a good job.

How about us?

Here's Twin #1's drawing:

And Twin #2's:

And as much as I hate to show it, here's mine:

The twins laughed at me.

So did some of the people around us.

I'm not sure where I went wrong. But, my Bolt ended up looking like a demented Llama.

Joe asked everyone to hold up their drawings.

He laughed at mine too.

Just kidding.

I guess he's not allowed to laugh.

Otherwise, I'm sure that he would have.

Joe did something that the previous animator we had didn't.

He said he would give his drawing to the person who could answer his trivia question.

He asked if anyone could name Bolt's two sidekicks from the movie.

Twin #1's hand shot-up.

He called on her.

She correctly answered that Bolt's sidekicks were Mittens the cat and Rhino the hampster.

Joe called her up and presented her with his drawing:

Hopefully, Joe will go on to become a famous animator and we will be able to sell this original drawing for the price of a Wookie Family Portrait.

In the meantime, I think he looks a little on the creepy side.

So, that was fun.

Time for us to make like a tree and leave.

We were heading to the MK to do something new.

TCD

[caveat lector 181]

.....

As we got closer, we could see guests meeting with Jango. This kid had his own Jango Fett costume, and had a lot of photos taken:

TCD

This photo perplexed me a bit.

Either TCD has some mad Photoshop skills, Jango's jet pack is fully functional, or Jango has mastered that levitation trick that David Blaine does.

Ah, the magic of Disney is alive.