On to my last report and my overall experience with SWW this year:
Got to DHS around 7:15am, son got fp for James Arnold Taylor, DD and I decided not to meet anyone and just take the last day in.
Park opened again at 8am but the secret was out, there was a large size of people waiting for that. Filmed the whole Stormtrooper spiel and will edit the video and post later on. Rode ST with no wait, grabbed FP for it for later. Went to Jabba's Hutt to see what they had on sale, and all the SWW 2011 logo t-shorts and mugs, glasses, shot glasses were on sale. Asked about CM discount on top of that and in fact it was available, so decided to wait for my DH to get out of work to take advantage of that (he works at backlot tour).
On to the shows, the plan was to watch all of them again, so got in line for Behind The Force, Tom Kane is awesome as voice over, he has done plenty of commercial (scrubbing bubbles, walmart, voice of the Oscars) Again Ashley, James and Tom did a great show. Grabbed lunch. In line for the second Behind the Force, same show, nothing special was presented to Ashley as they did last year for her last show. In line for Stars of the Saga, Ray Park opened the show pretend playing his guitar and dancing around, really funny. Peter Mayhew even though he had knee surgery recently said that he wouldn't miss SWW for anything (he has come every year since it began) Class act. After that couldn't take standing in line again for Visit to the Maul, so went back on ST with our FP, rode again with another set we picked up, and a CM friend of ours gave us 3 more FP but we gave them away. Went to Obi Wan and Beyond recorded the whole show and will post later.
Grabbed a snack and headed over to the Hat Stage to see PMC, my DD went to Jabba's to say goodbye to Ashley who was signing t-shirts from Her Universe, my DD was last in line, and they talked for abit about SWW and up coming Celebration VI and then Ashley gave her 3 more fp for ST which we also gave away. Then we got our bench in front of the AIE diamond vision to watch Hoopla. Still don't understand why people can sit and stay seated with no problem in front of the screen but have to stand in front of the stage. Talked to a manager of the event that started years ago at the info desk and we have gotten to know well; fun to see how some CM climb the Disney ladder; and he said that they can't ask for people to sit down, and that they had considered doing Hoopla inside the Indiana Jones theater but the plaza in front of the Hat holds more people.
So my final observations:
Celeb Fp. hard issue for many this year, but I think it's fair for everyone, as I saw people coming in at 8am still being able to grab a fp for someone, when before they were all gone by 6am. New process seems to have worked out well, and I doubt we will see it going to how it was in the past.
Star Tours: awesome ride, the randomness of it makes it fun to ride again and again. will it affect the TSM morning madness? I doubt it, each ST simulator holds 40 people opossed to the 12 people that TSM hold so I would still grab a FP for TSM first and then go ride ST.
Characters: same as last year, and still , how hard is it to build a little canopy for them? 90% of them were in direct sunlight, I just never understand that. I would walk past poor Amidala and cringe.
Shows: fun, fun,fun and easy way to get out of the heat for 30min. Favorite one was JAT show, he is brilliant.
Merchandise: not at all impressed. I didn't really like this years logo and it was only on a couple of items, they didn't even make the baseball cap as they've done in the past. Still got 2 t-shirts because they were on sale plus my DH CM discount of 20%. The tent was a big plus, big space and awesome A/C
Hoopla: better now that there's more space, still needs improvement, the theme this year didn't allow for alot of choreography which is what I really enjoyed in the past (Darth Vader dancing to thriller, doing all the moves
) but it was still funny. Would love to meet the person that does chewbacca, he is a great dancer.
Overall I give it a B+ it's an improvement but still there's room for more.
On a side note: missed tons of the CM that worked the event in years past, even a certain CM that was mentioned a couple of pages ago, left after the second weekend because of differences with how it was being managed. Alot of CM didn't have that predisposition to help, only to follow the rules. Still a few true gems remain and I made sure to thank all of them for their hard work and dedication to this event
Until next year cyber-friends....and as always...May the Force Be With You....Always