DH (Brian, aka CanadianWDWFan) – Celebrating his new job
Me (Jennifer, aka Mickey’sGIrl) – Celebrating my 41st birthday
DS12 (Harry) – Celebrating his 12th birthday
DS6 (Euan) – Celebrating life, cuz it’s pretty good when you’re 6 and at Disneyworld!

Day 3 – Sunday May 23

We are very big Star Wars fans in our house. My children have their names because of Star Wars; DS12 is Harrison for Harrison Ford aka Han Solo, whom I fell in love with when I was just 6, and Euan is for Ewan McGregor aka young Obi Wan, whom I fell in love with as a young adult. Our plans for Star Wars weekend were very simple. Get there early, and don’t worry about what we do... we are there to see what we can see. My only hope was to see Greedo, my favourite Bounty Hunter and LEGO Star Wars guy, Darth Vader, a family favourite, and to see the parade.

We got to the Gates by 8am, a full hour before the park opened, but it wasn’t long before Storm Troopers and Boba Fett arrived to entertain us from atop the turnstiles. Very fun .... then at about half past, they started letting us into the park, and escorted us over to a new rope to wait until 9 o’clock. When the ropes dropped, people rushed off towards the Jedi Academy to sign up. We took our time and headed over to Star Tours to see what we could see ... Turned out it was an Ewok by the speeder, the Princess Leia with R2D2, and we saw Chewbaaca where the Ewok was, and over around down near Al’s Toy Barn Mace Windu and Chaak Ti were waiting without ANY one and the guys had a great visit (Chaak Ti Rocks!) and then they saw Commander Rex (from the Clone Wars) and we headed up towards where we knew Darth Vader would be waiting for us. Turn out we were waiting for him ... for over an hour, but it was sooooooooo worth it! He was fabulous, and took a shine to me (he must have sensed my inner-Sithness) and gave my DH nasty looks, and we got tons of great photos. Then we went up to check out the line for Jengo Fett, but it was too long, so we snapped his photo in passing before literally running into a Gromorian Guard just wandering around with his axe. Very cool.

We watched the Star Wars parade over by Star Tours. It was extremely hot and crowded, so I had to hang back with Euan, and Brian and Harry got up close to see what they could ... all of the characters and Jedi Mickey and the 501st Legion of Storm Troopers. After the parade we rode Star Tours ... well, the guys did, I just passed through the ship to the other side. Can’t ride Star Tours anymore! When they were done, we left to go back to the pool for some swim time.

Later in the evening, after we had cooled off in the pool and cleaned up considerably, we met friends over at ‘Ohana for late dinner. We didn’t have to wait long, and the food was very tasty and very plentiful, and afterwards, we went down to the beach to watch Wishes. It was really beautiful, and a great way to end a terrific day!