Star Wars Weekends Exclusive Merchandise

I wanted to share a few items from the Star Wars Weekends exclusive merchandise that I saw at Disney World.  It’s too late to get most of it now, but you may find some things online or in Disney Store outlets in a few months if anything was in major overstock.  I haven’t really paid that close attention before, so I’m not sure where things could end up.

 

First up, the Passholder Exclusives (things you can only buy after showing proof of owning an Disney World Annual Pass):

These coins are silver and gold plated.  The silver coins are limited to 2014 pieces, and the gold ones, which appeared during the final week of Star Wars Weekends, are limited to 3000.  Both coins have the same image of Mickey in an X-Wing suit, and R2-D2 with Mickey Ears on.

The Passholder Shirt.  It’s a brown mono-toned images of the 2014 Star Wars Weekends logo.  They also offered these in full color, without the Passholder remark, and there is an app you can download to make the shirt move on your smartphone.  I hate to say it, but I think I liked the color, non-passholder shirt more, but I knew these were more limited, and I’m all about my special edition swag.

Star Tours name tags were my favorite Passholder exclusive.  They apparently make these every year, but they change up the color scheme.  This year the Passholders could order dark blue badges with orange accents, whereas the non-Passholders could get flashier orange badges (so YES you can still get these if you are not a Passholder, just in different colors).  They write your name in the intergalactic alphabet, which you can notice all over the Star Tours ride, and you may pick a job title or planet that you are from.  What I like best about these is that they say Star Tours on them, so it’s as if they’re official employee name tags in the Star Wars universe.

There were also Passholder exclusive pins or pin, but they were all gone by the 2nd week of Star Wars Weekends, so we missed out there.

 

Merchandise any Darth’s Mall guest could purchase:

Limited Edition pins that were so heavy they required two backers.  I didn’t purchase all of the pins available, but these town caught my eye.  I did not see any notation for what these sets are limited to.

Disney Star Wars towel was a last minute must for me.  They seemed to appear at the 5th and final Star Wars Weekend, and I had to snatch it up.  I’m glad that I waited to finish my Star Wars Darth’s Mall shopping or else I would have missed a number of last minute adds (mostly Star Wars Rebels goods).

The best iPhone case in the world!  I grew up on Goof Troop, and Max is a character rarely seen or remembered these days – especially the younger Max (not the 19 year old Max from the movies).  I have a lowly iPhone 4, but if I had an iPhone 5, I would have shelled out the big bucks to bring this baby home with me.

Princess Leia and Queen Amidala girly playset.  How often do you see Star Wars anything geared completely at girls?  My daughter loved this, it came with a figure of both characters, two outfit changes for each one, two extra heads for each, and some little extras like R2-D2 and Wicket.  I’m not sure that I love the idea of ripping off the figures heads to change their hairstyle (action figure enthusiasts will tell you that these pull apart, plastic toys will eventually warp and heads won’t stay on) I’m impressed at how well my daughter had taken care of this set.

There were some other items I believe were exclusives, like Disney characters dressed at Star Wars characters in the form of action figures and mutated Cars characters.  Other items, like the make-your-own-light saber kiosk were present, but that item, and many others, are available year-round at the shop near the Star Tours ride.

Star Wars Weekend – Week 4 Recap

We caught the tail end of Star Wars Weekend number 4.  We literally arrived at the park right as A Conversation with Mark Hamill was ending.  That broke my heart a little, because, while we didn’t get FastPass+ entry for the show, it was being broadcasted around the park simultaneously.  Oh, the joys of bad Florida traffic that threw us hours off track!

Billy Dee Williams (Lando) was also there, but he must have been part of the Stars of the Saga show, I didn’t see an individual show for him on the list.  In addition, Ashley Eckstein, Ray Park, and Taylor Gray were all there and doing autographs in the park.  Mark Hamill was not involved in autographs, and the guide marked him as a “special appearance” only, I’m not sure why.

We did have Fast Passes for Visit to the Maul starring Ray Park.  If you don’t know, he’s the martial arts expert who played Darth Mall in Episode One.  He put on a very talented display of his talents, and even the Darth Mall character came on stage and got Ray Park to sign his Tinkerbell autograph book.

Ray Park also brought up a fairly large amount of pre-selected kids to learn staff techniques with light sabers.  My daughter almost ran up to the stage herself, desperate to volunteer, but she had to curb her enthusiasm.  I don’t know how children were selected to participate in the show, all I know is that they had special bands and were allowed to enter the building early, while we stood outside forever in the pouring rain.

After the show we visited Darth’s Mall – the venue to get the exclusive Star Wars Weekend goodies, as well as the only place to get photos with Leia Minnie and Luke Mickey OR Darth Goofy and Stormtrooper Donald.  Admiral Snackbar is also in there, where you can get Star Wars Weekend food goodies, like a Darth Vader popcorn bucket, Stormtrooper mug, or, the most magical, rich, delicious cupcakes in the world.

I have not gone very deep into the world of Disney bakery items, but these were magical.  One was chocolate and peanut butter, the other chocolate and nutella.  I’m not sure which was which now, but I think Vader had the nutella.  The figures on top were milk chocolate (Vader) or white chocolate (yoda).  They were $6 a piece, which is very steep, but, again, they are so rich that it could take two people to take down a single cupcake.  Seriously, they recommend the Mickey’s Kitchen Sink for 4 people, and I could take down the bulk of one by myself if I’m hungry, but I couldn’t eat half of this cupcake (thank you for coming in containers!  Good call Disney merchandising!).

Because of the on-again-off-again rain situation, that’s really about all we did for weekend number 4.  We had tried to meet with characters, but most of them were stationed outdoors, so they weren’t coming out, and we were told the fireworks would be rained out for the night, so we threw in the towel just before 9pm.  I’m still glad to have gotten to experience even a part of a Star Wars Weekend though, and I recommend it to all!

Star Wars Weekend – Week 2 Recap

We had the luxury of catching (at least partially) three out of the five Star Wars Weekends at Disney World this year.  This is my recap of Week 2.

We arrived to Disney World late in the afternoon on Saturday, having just driven in from out of town.  We had already Fast Passed the Stars of the Saga show, which was in the Premiere Theatre (a building not used daily in the park, so no shows were taken out of the schedule to make room for Star Wars Weekends), as most of the Star Wars shows are.

We kind of went into this blindly.  I’m sorry to admit that I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, I know all the characters and plot lines, and was a big action figure collector for a while, but it’s not something I have big fan girl moments over, especially not compared to my husband and son, BUT, I was the one doing all the FastPass+ bookings.  Naturally, when I was some Premium FastPasses listed for Star Wars, I dumped our Toy Story Mania reservation and re-booked for the themed shows.  Warning to all, the Star Wars shows did not appear on the My Disney Experience app, only the actual website.

Anyhow, for Saturday and Sunday, I just picked the Star Wars shows that sounded the most interesting to me, “Stars of the Saga,” and “An Ewok’s Tale:  My Short Story.”  I was quite surprised that my husband knew off the top of his head who Warwick Davis and Jeremy Bulloch were (Wicket the Ewok and Boba Fett, respectively).  I just really liked Ewoks and talk shows.

For Saturday, we had passes for Stars of the Saga, which had James Arnold Taylor (the voice of Obi Wan Kenobi in Clone Wars) interviewing Warwick Davis and Jeremy Bulloch.  The voice actresses Ashley Eckstein and Tiya Sircar were also there that weekend, but did not attend the show, as if it were “original cast only!”

I have to say, both Davis and Bulloch are incredibly entertaining to listen to.  Both men are English and have a fantastic sense of humor.

But, my favorite moments of the Stars of the Saga show would have to be all about the Stormtroopers (who did a really funny intro show) and the photos/clips that Taylor showed off to the audience, including a clip from the show Robot Chicken.

On Sunday, we had the show An Ewok’s Tale:  My Short Story, which starred Warwick Davis and told the story of how he got the role of Wicket when he was 11 years old.  Davis is insanely funny on his own, but he pulled out a fairly large cast from the audience to help him relive his story, which, if you’ve ever seen a live show, people who have no idea what they’re doing or saying is very entertaining in it’s own right.  But I can’t tell you enough how much I enjoyed listening to Davis.  I also didn’t realize that he was the star of Willow and was every little person in the Harry Potter saga, from teacher to goblin.  I left the show downloading his app, Pocket Warwick (go look it up, it’s adorably silly and your kids will love it!).

Note that we were really this close to Davis when he was wearing a fake nose and glasses, pretending to be a director who was casting for the show last minute.  If you get the chance to see this show in 2015, do it!

 

Moving on, those were the only two shows we saw.  I wanted to see James Arnold Taylor do his show, where he throws out 200+ voices, but everyone was so burnt out from the long drive that we didn’t manage to stay very late on either day.  We had a lot of fun visiting characters (over 30 at various stations and walking around the park), shopping at Darth’s Mall, the exclusive event store, and riding Star Tours (my son’s favorite in all of Disney World) a million times, but I just didn’t have the stamina to survive for the fireworks show, or other events that were later in the evening.

You are also able to sign up in advance for limited space for the Jedi Training Academy (which is year round) and to get autographs from the visiting celebrities.  But, you have to be there before rope drop if you want a shot at a spot in either.

Overall, though, I would recommend Star Wars Weekends 110% – just look ahead when planning, stars tend to change out every weekend and many events fill up quickly.