My review of Star Wars Weekend 2015

Last May, my mom, my boyfriend Ryan, and I surprised my youngest brother, Anthony with a short trip to WDW during Star Wars Weekend. The surprise went off without a hitch and Anthony was completely shocked (in a good way)! Our family are huge Star Wars fans, but we are not fans of crowds. So, my mom and I did not plan a full day at Hollywood Studios, but we booked the Jedi Mickey's dinner at Hollywood and Vine on our last night of the trip so that we could spend the afternoon and night seeing all of the Star Wars Weekend excitement but not dealing with the crazy crowds. When I did my research, most people said that Sundays were the least crowded of the three Star Wars Weekend days. We honestly did not notice the crowds to be too crazy, besides the lines for some of the big characters like Darth Vader.

We got to Hollywood Studios around 3:30pm to take everything in. We knew that most of the characters were out near Toy Story Midway Mania, so we headed that way. We made sure to stop and listen to some of the jams being played by the favorite, DJ Elliot! When we got to the character area, it was crazy! Some characters were just walking around and taking pictures, like the Stormtroopers, which me and my mom got a picture with! We saw how long the lines were to meet the major characters and decided just to walk around and watch the interactions.

We then headed to the Star Wars shopping area near Lights, Motors, Action! stunt show. My brother nearly died when he saw all of the merchandise! You can imagine most of his spending money was spent here! Disney did an amazing job on theming- you truly felt like you were inside a Star Wars movie. When we left the stores, a clone trooper had a duty- to arrest Ryan! It was hilarious and a really cool and genuine interaction.

After freeing Ryan from the clone trooper, we headed back through the characters and stumbled upon our favorite youtubers! Ryan and I are big Youtube fans and we had found thetimtracker a couple months before our trip and became huge fans. We were really hoping we would see them at one the parks and luckily for us we did on our last night! Ryan spotted them right away and we went right up to say hi and get a picture. Jenn and Tim are the most down to earth youtubers that I have met. They were so sweet and easy to talk to! Needless to say, Ryan and I were a little starstruck after! We really hope we can see them again this coming January :)

After all of our sightseeing, it was time for Jedi Mickey's dinner! We had never eaten here before so we had no idea what to expect. When you first walk in, you are greeted by Jedi Mickey and are able to take a picture with him. It is a pretty quick interaction but still cute. The dinner is buffet style and the food was really delicious! This was hands down our best character interactions for the whole trip. We felt before that because we were all older, a lot of the characters rushed through (or even skipped) our table, but at this dinner, the characters came back to us more than once and played with us for awhile! Donald even took a selfie with me (: Although the price was very high for the dinner (tip is NOT included in the price online), we really enjoyed this meal!

After dinner, we staked out a spot in the street for the preshow to the fireworks. We were about 30 minutes early (but I recommend getting there around that time) so the boys went to the character area again while me and my mom saved our area. We sat on the street right between Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards. It was a great spot for the fireworks, although it was much harder to see the preshow.

The preshow was really cool and definitely got the audience excited for the fireworks. The fireworks were hands down the best firework show I had ever seen. To this day, I still watch videos I took from him because it was just THAT GOOD. In the finale, the fireworks were so loud that you could actually feel the BOOM in your chest! If you aren't Star Wars fans, I would still recommend you go just to these those fireworks!!

Overally I would rate Star Wars Weekend a 9/10. The only reason why I would not give it a 10/10 is because I never got to see the shows so I would need to fully see everything before I completely judge it. BUT... I highly recommend it to any Disney/Star Wars fans! They truly immerse you with the Star Wars culture and highlight everything that is so special about the franchise.