The Jedi & Toons Tour - May 2007 (Disneyland & Star Wars Celebration IV) - Days 10 & 11 (5/26 & 5/27) *UPDATED 7/6* - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Day 8 – Thursday, 24 May 2007 Weather: hi 50’s & sunny a.m. – mid 70’s & sunny pm
Had an early breakfast ressie – so were up at 6am and walking to Paradise Pier by 6:45. It took us about 20 min to walk from the Tropicana to Paradise Pier – we cut thru the Grand Californian. Beautiful hotel – tho I’m not sure it’s personally worth the big bucks to stay there. Our resv was for 7:30, but since we arrived just a little after 7am, they let us in early.
There were only about half-a-dozen other families there in the 2 big rooms of the restaurant. We sat in the second room, closer to the windows and had a delicious breakfast. Since there were so few people, we had plenty of character time with Lilo, Stitch, Minnie and Pluto. We watched Stitch and a couple of kids play “musical islands” with cutouts of the Hawaiian islands. They played music & when it stopped, you had to jump on an island – of course, each time, one island was removed. It was a cute game! Minnie & Stitch also had a dance party to an Elvis tune – I forget which one.
We spent about an hour eating and watching the festivities – quickly browsed thru the gift shop at PP and walked back to our hotel. We finished packing & got everything taken out to the car…. well, almost everything. We left the spare camera battery and charging station in the room & didn’t discover that it was missing til much later that day.
We were on our way to downtown LA by 8:45 ... we knew we’d be catching the tail end of rush hour and on reflection, perhaps could have spent some more time in DTD waiting for the traffic to taper off, as it took us nearly 2 hours to get from Anaheim to our new hotel – the Kawada hotel on Bell street. We checked in, but our room wasn’t ready, so we stored our luggage & had the valet park our car (the only option at $15/day! ) We decided to take the Metro from the hotel to the Convention center, as the Civic Center stop was only about a block and a half from the hotel – and Pico Station was only about a block from the Convention center. We’re pretty much newbies to public transportation – but figured out the system pretty quickly, having done our research online ahead of time. Mind you, it's no Peoplemover/TTA, but it got the job done & saved us both the parking fees at the Conv center & the stress of driving downtown.
We got to the convention center – picked up our goodie bags & tickets to see Carrie Fisher (separate ticketed event) – the Fan Club day started at noon: it was only about 11, but lines were already forming at the 2 main entrances. In fact, lines were one of the major themes of the weekend… I’m sure we spent 2-3 times longer in queue at the convention than we did at Disneyland! At least it was (mostly) inside & you could usually sit down, as the lines usually formed long before the events.
Once we got into the convention center, we spent the next couple of hours exploring the smaller exhibits – such as the Droid Builder Room, the Helmet Art display, the Archives display and the vendor and exhibitor areas.
We're working on the Webshots album for this part of the trip.
We didn’t really run into any large crowds until we reached the vendor area – that was just a mass of people ALL weekend. I was starting to get a headache – so we stopped & got burgers at the concession stand, in hopes it was just a hungry headache.
We left the Conv center about 3, as that was the posted check in time. The first room (yes, first room!) was TINY – two double beds, a desk & chair (which bumped right into the edge of one bed) with the TV on the desk, a built-in kitchenette & bathroom – that was about it. We were planning on getting unpacked, making a grocery run & then returning to the convention in time to catch the Fan Club showing of “One Man Star Wars” at 6. Well…. the refrigerator wasn’t working & my headache was getting worse. I took some pain relievers and napped a bit while we waited on maintenance… and waited, and waited, calling the desk about every half-hour. 3 phone calls later, the manager shows up with keys for a new room down the hall. It was bigger (still only about ¾ the size of a WDW value room) and the fridge was working. Finally!
It was almost 4:45 by this time - we still had to find groceries & my headache wasn’t any better (starting to make me nauseated). This was also about the time we discovered the missing battery & charger. We called over to the Tropicana & left a note for housekeeping to check their lost & found in the morning – they’d left for the day & all found items were under lock & key. We scrapped plans to go back to the convention & drove much farther than we thought we’d have to in order to find a grocery store! Ordered pizza when we got back – I was feeling too icky to eat (got sick later on), so made an early night of it & were in bed by about 8:30.
(I did feel better the next morning, after some decent sleep.)
We got up about 6:15 - we wanted to be at the Conv center early, since the Post Office was releasing the Star Wars stamp collection at 8am and we expected both long lines & possibly running out of some of the limited edition stuff. We had 2 friends that had “placed orders” with us for the first day covers & some other material that had been advertised on the website. We also had a “fast pass” for the Celebration store that was good from 9a-11a that morning. After standing in line for at least 3 – 3 ½ hours for the store at the previous 2 Celebrations, we were looking forward to using the “fast pass”.
We left the hotel about 7:10 – saw several fellow conventioneers waiting on the free shuttle, so we decided to wait with them & save the Metro fare. The bus came fairly quickly and we were at the Center and in line for the stamps by 7:25. The line moved pretty quickly once the Post Office tent opened – they had passed out price lists to the crowd ahead of time & had most of the selections in a separate display – which made it easier to decide what to buy ahead of time. We got the color first day issue set, a set of postcards – I think that was it for ourselves.
We walked around the Conv center to the store entrance – the place was deserted! Again, we had a shopping list from a couple of fellow SW fans – ended up spending about $250 total and had it all shipped home – including the programs (duh!) They had handed out a basic schedule/program in the “freebie bag” – but the full color/detailed story program would have been handy to refer to throughout the weekend.
A little after nine, we joined the general admission line – the convention opened at ten. I realized that the Post Office was doing date stamps on the postcards & thought that would be a neat souvenir – so got back in line to get the postcard pack & date stamps. We were back in the building by 10:05 – the first event we wanted to see was Charlie Ross’ One Man Star Wars Trilogy - one (very active!) guy acts out the key scenes of the original trilogy in about an hour, no props, just hand/body gestures and voices. We’d seen him at Celebration III (and maybe C2) and were really looking forward to see him again.
The line to get into the 11:30 show was already forming (outside), so we joined it. At least it was against a wall & it wasn’t very warm outside. While we waited – I called over to the Tropicana & made sure they’d found our camera battery & charger. We made arrangements to come pick them up later in the day.
We were next to a Princess Leia in queue – we got talking about the stamps (couldn’t show them, as we’d had then shipped home as well) & she asked if we’d hold her space & watch her stuff while she went to take a look. She didn’t make it back until they were already letting us into the hall – so Scott went to get good seats & I waited outside the door until she got back – she seemed quite relieved to see me with her bag! The show itself was amazing – he’d be a great asset to the Star Wars Weekends!
About 12:45 we headed up to the Fan Club Lounge – another perq of being a Star Wars fan club member. They had sandwiches, sodas & snacks for sale at about the same price as the other concession stands – so we got cold subs for lunch & relaxed a while. The fan club folks had a couple of different activities going on in the room, including a trivia challenge – we both answered a few (padawan-level) questions & got some trading cards as a prize.
We went over to the Star Wars in Popular Culture room for awhile – a continuous showing of TV specials, commercials, news stories etc. all relating to any of the six movies. Unfortunately, they were having trouble with the equipment on & off all weekend – the DVD would get stuck or skip.
We decided to check out the sneak preview of Fanboys – an indie film made with the cooperation of LucasFilms: the story of a group of 20-somethings who, as a last hurrah before adulthood, decide to break into Skywalker Ranch to see the rough cut of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. We joined the line about 1:30 for the 3:00 screening. Yes – the lines were like this all weekend (except for the store). Most of the time the organizers would set up a queue in an adjoining room or a designated queue area along the side of a hallway – and people would usually sit or lie down while they waited – saw lots of handheld games & books being brought along to pass the time. Scott brought his GBA along the last 2 days of the convention, and I listened to my iPod. The Fanboys sneak peek presentation was a lot of fun – they showed about 45 minutes’ worth of clips and had a good Q&A. They’re still looking for a distributor and hope to have the movie in limited release sometime in 2008.
We braved the vendor area/exhibit hall after the show – that place was mobbed all weekend. I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for crowds, but this was starting to make me feel agoraphobic! We browsed around & picked up all the freebie handouts we could find, then headed back out to the shuttle stop about 4:30.
Got back to the hotel about 5:15, decided to wait out rush hour for a bit, so noshed on the leftover pizza and watched TV for about an hour before heading back to Anaheim. Took us about 45 min to get over there – had no problem picking up our stuff. Stopped by a grocery for some more snacks (that we ended up not having time to eat) and got another pizza for dinner on the way back to the hotel. We’d been on the go all day & knew we’d be out late the next two days, so decided to make it an early night of it.
Just catching up here. Congrats on winning the YOAMD ears! Glad you had a good time at DL! Sorry about all the convention lines, but it seems like you still had a great time!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
Spent most of this day going to the Star Wars: Robot Chicken events - a preview/Q&A with Seth Green and Matt Senreich, a writer's panel and a props panel. We're fans of the show and were looking forward to seeing the Robot Chicken take on the saga.
Took pix at the informal costumer gathering in one of the lobby areas at the convention -- some folks take their costumes very seriously - there's a national fan club called the 501st - they dress in Stormtrooper or other Imperial costumes & do a lot of fundraising & appearances. Others have a more humourous take on things... we saw more than one guy in a Slave Leia outfit, a Mexican Wrestler Stormtrooper - fun stuff!
Speaking of humour, we also attended a "Hilarious Star Wars Collectibles" slide show - with photos of some of the more ... unusual ... SW offerings over the last 30 years. The recent Disney crossovers were included: Stitch Emperor & Goofy Vader were the crowd favorites, I think.
We wrapped up this day with "An Evening with Carrie Fisher" (separate ticketed event). She spoke for about an hour about her involvement with the Star Wars trilogy and then took questions for almost another hour. She was a delight to listen to - seemed geniunely happy to be speaking to the gathering & very gracious to the questioners. We even saw her "space-themed" tattoo!
Day 11 – Sunday, 27 May 2007
Back to the Convention - caught another live performance: Star Wars in 30 Minutes - a theater troupe of about a dozen college-age folks performing the first trilogy with creative props (flashlights for lightsabers, folding chairs for X-wings & TIE fighters). Another excellent, and funny show!
Next up was "An Hour with Anthony Daniels" - we'd seen him at a Star Wars Weekend at WDW a couple of years ago. He's another entertaining speaker who seems appreciative of his role in the saga and willing to share his recollections. He had some fun with the audience, too; he asked everyone if they remembered that the Ewoks treated C3PO as a god & wanted us to bow & chant to him as well... All in good fun!
We attended the second of the two costume contests being held that weekend - the kids' category was a lot of fun - and some of the adult costumes were just incredible - the Gowns category & Hardware were probably my favorites. Best in Show award went to an amazing Chewbacca costume - handmade from artificial hair bought from a local beauty salon.
We wrapped up our California trip with a visit to the El Capitan theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End during opening weekend. We took the Metro over & had a quick meal at the Disney Soda Fountain next door about a half-hour before show time.
We'd bought VIP tickets ahead of time & had front row middle balcony seats - sweet! The theater was all done up in a pirate/nautical theme & the organist was playing an appropriately-themed Disney medley when we arrived. (I recorded some of it on my phone, but haven't figured out how to get the file back off it yet!) We really enjoyed the movie, even more so in such a great setting! It was a late night getting back - but very worth it!
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