5/21 Star Tours Meet-Up and Dedication, With Extended Star Tours Queue Coverage!

May 21, 2011 Denise Bob Iger, George Lucas, Star Tours, Star Tours: The Adventure Continues, Star Wars

Hi everyone!

It’s been a whirlwind couple of days! We enjoyed the Star Tours Meet-Up at midnight on May 20th, being among the first to ride Star Tours: The Adventure Continues on the Grand Opening day (we had ridden twice earlier in the week).

We drove to Blizzard Beach for the Star Tours Meet-Up, registering and waiting on the bus for about 45 minutes before we left for Disney’s Hollywood Studios:

Jeff won a Disney Parks Blog pin by answering a trivia question right before we boarded the bus:

The red carpet from an earlier evening event was out, along with other themed elements:

Characters greeted us as we arrived:

Oopla was looking for someone who looked like a Wookie, and it seems Jeff fit the bill. He was asked to make the sound of a Wookie:

Snig and Oopla:

Star Tours:

C3PO takes his place in the Star Tours queue, missing the silver leg that he had in the last version. We have a nice video of the evening, including the queue here!

There are a lot of details in the queue, and I’ll have many more in the upcoming pages:

This screen now is in beautiful high-definition, showing departure times as well as advertisements and information. It also features the new character Aly San San, voiced by Alison Janney:

Star Wars characters joined us on the ride, including Princess Leia:

Most of my queue photos were taken after the first ride. We walked through the first time to enjoy a trip on the Starspeeder 1000, passing by the baggage and human scanning droids on our way. There are 54 different combinations that you can experience on the ride, we’ve been able to enjoy most of the difference scenes – but not nearly all the combinations! The 3D effect is seamless, and there are scenes that I prefer over others (one of my favorites is the Wookie Planet). I’ve seen nearly all of the different scenes, though I’ve not ridden enough to have 54 different combinations! My first ride earlier this week was probably my least favorite. So if you don’t care for one combination, keep trying – there are some amazing adventures! Of course, everyone knows that C3PO is now in the drives seat instead of Rex.

We encountered more characters as we left the ride, and headed over to check out the Imagineer question and answer session. Imagineers Kathy Rogers and Steve Spiegel answered guest questions, moderated by Bree Starliner. We have full video – Jeff stayed for it, I left after taking these pictures to spend more time in the Star Tours queue.

A cast member walks over the red carpet, through the smoke:

I’m back for Star Tours, but not to ride:

Flight #1401 of the Starspeeder 1000:

More writing on the Starspeeder:

R2D2:

Star Speeder 1000:

C3PO:

Directory:

Rex is among the droids to be shipped:

A cast member motioned above me, and I looked up to see Boba Fett looking down:

Droids:

One of my favorite parts of the queue is the baggage scanning droid. As he watches the screen, the droid makes comments about the contents of the luggage. He tends not to be knowledgeable about what is on screen – allowing some dangerous weapons to go through while blowing up innocuous items. If you look down, you’ll also see luggage with destination stickers – including Naboo, Hoth and Coruscant. You can see some footage of it here.

More droids:

I tried a different angle for the luggage, to see more of the stickers:

The human scanning droid, who tells guests to move along with some sarcastic lines. Guests see a thermal image of themselves (like at Test Track). You can see the top of my head in one photo. Two friends of mine believe the voice is of Patrick Warburton, and while I’ve not found that information out, it definitely has his voice mannerisms!

Starspeeder 1000 schematic:

We rode once more, with Chewbacca as a fellow passenger:

Chewbacca walks to his normal meet-and-greet area:

Disney treated us to ice cream sundaes with a toppings bar, as well as to hot and cold beverages:

2am came very quickly, and we walked back out to the bus:

We were going back and forth on whether to stay all night for the dedication – we chose the sleep. It wasn’t enough sleep, but it got us through the dedication event that featured George Lucas. (keep reading!)

The buzz on Twitter had been building about the event, and many thought that Disney’s Hollywood Studios would close at capacity. It didn’t. We showed up 45 minutes early, and while busy, it wasn’t a problem to park or walk in. It wasn’t enough time to secure as good a spot for the proceedings as we’d have liked, but we did our best with the time we had, looking for a place to watch the motorcade from.

The motorcade was an abbreviated one, and I was surprised that there were no celebrity cars for it:

While we secured a good spot in the street after the motorcade, it was still far enough where too many tall people (and children on shoulders) blocked most of my view. I started taking photos, but Jeff took over – he has a much better reach than I do! Disney Star Wars walk-around characters took the stage, as did actors from the films (and animated hit, The Clone Wars). We were very fortunate to interview Ashley Eckstein and James Arnold Taylor last year at Star Wars Celebration V, The Clone Wars has a very strong following (as we have seen with our YouTube videos).

Darth Vader tries to put a stop to the proceedings:

Walt Disney Company President and CEO Bob Iger walks out with George Lucas, and Iger tells Darth Vader that “it’s time to meet your maker”.

Photos from the dedication:

After the dedication, we went to Star Tours – which posted a 5 minute wait as it officially opened, but only a minute later the wait was posted as 90 minutes. There was a long queue set up that stretched into the Streets of America. I can’t imagine it was ever filled, and today I’ve heard that the queue has been less than an hour. Not too bad for opening weekend!

A few new merchandise items:

We saw Jedi Mickey posing with guests:

The stage was being broken down:

The last place we went was Jabba’s Hut, which is the large Star Wars Weekends store. We had no idea how long the line would be when we got into it – from start to finish, we waited about an hour and a half to go through the whole line! I took some merchandise photos while waiting, including of the upcoming Muppets figures and clothing from the Her Universe line. Ashley Eckstein told us last year that she hoped to have her clothing sold at Walt Disney World this year, and we are happy to see it here!