Unbelievably, I’ve never been to Star Wars Weekends at Hollywood Studios.
I plan to change that in June (Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from June 6 - June 29, 2008).
Lots of Star Wars characters will be there and each weekend a few special guests will be on hand. Here’s the schedule:
All 4 weekends:
- Celebrity Host, Warwick Davis (”Wicket the Ewok”)
Weekend 1: June 6-8
- Jeremy Bulloch (”Boba Fett”)
- Daniel Logan (”young Boba Fett”)
Weekend 2 : June 13-15
- Peter Mayhew (”Chewbacca”)
- David Prowse (”Darth Vader”)
Weekend 3 : June 2-22
- Amy Allen (”Aayla Secura”)
- Matthew Wood (”General Grievous”)
Weekend 4 : June 27-29
- Dave Filoni (Director of the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
- rumored Jeremy Bulloch (”Boba Fett”)
Since I am normally on stage at Disney’s Animal Kingdom on Friday and Saturdays, I’m going to have to get out there on a Sunday next month. It is, after all, the biggest event in the galaxy!
I have noticed that I probably should enunciate the “buh” sound when saying “bye” to guests as they exit the park. About 90% of the time when I say “bye”, they say “hello”.
I could take this a couple of ways:
- They just saw me so they were nice and gave me a greeting
- They thought I said “hi” so they responded in kind
It just sounds funny to me to hear a backwards conversation.
“Bye!”
“Hello.”
I should learn some more salutations.
Today, Earth Day, is the 10-year Anniversary for the opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I wish I could personally wish you a happy birthday, but I’ll have to send it virtually. I’ll see you Friday though!
One thing I’ve learned a lot about is that DAK isn’t just about being an attraction. It is also about doing good with the earth. That’s why it opened on Earth Day.
Also, the animlas there are not “on display”. They are taken care of and studied. Check this discovery out:
Dr. Jackie Ogden, vice president of animal programs, was part of the pre-opening team for the Animal Kingdom. She told News 13 she is very proud of everything they have accomplished over 10 years in studying and contributing to the welfare of animals.
“We have a very extensive elephant communication program where we actually put big collars on the elephants that are out at Kilimanjaro Safari, and we are able to hear these low-frequency vocalizations that elephants make. We actually found two vocalizations that no scientist had ever found before. Very cool,” Ogden said.
Happy Birthday, DAK!
Not all stories I will post here our mine. If they aren’t I’ll be sure to tell you. For instance, here’s a story I learned about this morning from TheBostonChannel.com:
A family from was staying at Disney’s Animal Lodge Resort last week. While cleaning up, they accidentally threw away the wife’s engagement, wedding and five-year-anniversary rings.
Back at the Wilderness Lodge resort, executive housekeeper Drew Weaver realized that trash from the [family's] villa hadn’t reached the industrial-size compactor yet. He and seven other volunteers donned protective clothing, emptied a parking lot bin and waded through bag after bag of rubbish to find the rings. And they did.
Needless to say the rings were returned, the family was happy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the family returned to Disney again because of this.
Thanks to BrainsOnFire Twitter feed for the tip.
In the first 10 years of Disney’s Animal Kingdom being opened, there have been 68 births (not counting minnows, frogs, snakes, fleas, ants, and other uncountable animals). Here’s the list:
Yesterday I was back on the bridge at Disney’s Animal Kingdom taking photos. While I was there, many people were leaving the park so I was waving goodbye as people walked past me to leave.
One little boy, maybe he was 4, was riding in his daddy-powered stroller. When the boy saw me, he asked me,
Is it hard to work for Disney?
Since daddy was on the way out, the last syllable “ney” was inquisitively asked once he was past me. But he wanted to know the answer because he was hanging his head out of the stroller keeping his eyes locked on me.
I have to say I wasn’t ready for that question nor that speed for an answer. I could have answered, “work? This isn’t work!” or “who wouldn’t like to work for a mouse?” or “it’s a real magical experience”.
Instead all I got out was something like “of course not!”.
Maybe next time.
I heard one of the saddest conversations late one day as a family exited Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It was one of those things that seems like it happens in slow motion but takes several minutes to finally register.
2-year old boy holding a dinosaur toy: “Robots?”
Mom: “Yes. They are ALL robots.”
Boy: “Robots?” (now sadder, lower tone, slower enunciation)
Mom: “YES! Everything here is fake.”
It was no surprise that at this point the mother was walking faster and the boy was now walking slower.
I was talking with a family who had a 2-year old boy. He began to tell me a story so I got down on my knees to listen.
“At, at home, uh, my friend and me have swords.”
“You do? What do you do with them?”
“We play swords.”
“Oh! Of course. Are you pirates?”
“No, we don’t have pirate stuff. Just swords.”
I mentioned earlier that I put “Simpsonville, SC” on my nametag in hopes of having more conversations with people.
It’s working.
Last week was Spring Break for much of South Carolina and a lot of them came to Disney. I met and talked with several families from towns not far from where I grew up and cities where I still have family living.
I’ve also been able to talk to several people wearing my alma mater’s apparel. And joke with my fans of our rival. It’s fun.
I couldn’t get my taxes finished yesterday so I decided to have a little fun last night and open a new blog. Yeah, I don’t have time for this but thought it would be fun. Instead of posting all my Disney stories here, I’m now posting them and much more at On Stage Stories from Disney.
I just used a simple wordpress.com theme and put in some of my stories. I’ve done this idea several times before — sort of spinning off a niche-blog.
When I first started blogging, this, rob’s place, was THE place I did everything. Over time I started writing about marketing and eMinistry. So I spun all of that into a new site just for that topic. Recently I’ve begun posing about LOST at dailylost.com.
Now I’m going to do the same for Disney. So My Disney Channel is located at DisneyStories.wordpress.com.
But don’t worry, I’ll still post something here to let you know about what is new over there. Or just subscribe over there too!
This past weekend I got to open DAK. I was out on the bridge before 8 AM. Even though the park opened at 9, some people were let in to go have breakfast at Tusker House.
The park is beautiful early in the morning and absent of lots of people! The light is low, soft, and it gives a nice glow on the lush greens.
Around 8:50 it was like the flood-gates were opened as people were pouring into the park and across the bridge to Discovery Island. But they stopped at the bottom of the path because it was roped off.
People lined up and surrounded me on the bridge and at 8:57 a float came to the bottom of the path with Minnie, Pluto, and Goofy (Donald may have been there but I couldn’t tell). They did a little thing to welcome everyone to the park — and they were looking for Mickey.
Then all of a sudden, Mickey began to ascend in front of the Tree of Life! Once he got up to the base of the leaves, he declared the park open and everyone else poured onto Discovery Island to enjoy the day.
Seems appropriate that mice and dogs open an animal kingdom.
First, you all know I’m working part-time at DAK, right? And you know what DAK is, right? If you answered “no” to both, then let me make sure we’re on the same page: Yes, I am on Fridays and Saturdays as a PhotoPass Photographer; and DAK stands for Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I thought it would be fun to capture a few observations here for your reading pleasure.
- So far I’ve been on the bridge that leads to the Tree of Life. At least a couple times an hour I hear someone say, “Is it real?”
- A guest reported to me there was “a non-poisonous snake on the walk path”. I reported it but was thinking, “Sir, this is the Animal Kingdom”, but in a nice way of course.
- There is grass at the bottom of the Tree of Life. I’ve only seen birds in there. Yesterday I saw a kangaroo. I had no idea DAK had a kangaroo.
- Lots of people leave when it rains at 6:00. But a lot more leave at 7:50 when it closes at 8!
- I haven’t been on every ride yet, but the safari is awesome! I was 10 feet away from a giraffe’s head, a couple yards from a wildebeest and a black rhino. And I saw a hippo run out of it’s pond and run across it’s area. Never seen a hippo run — they are fast for their size.
- It’s fun meeting people from all over the world. Some I work with and some of our guests are some of the friendliest people I’ve met.
- There is a vine-draped tree woman named Divine in the park. She’ll surprise you if you don’t notice. I’ve seen her by the Rainforest Cafe a few times. If you get to see her, stop and watch her. Amazing!
- I like it when kids look at me knowing I’m part of Disney because their eyes are wide and their smiles are huge when they see me in costume. They are cute. One little boy was ready to share his popcorn with me.
- On my second full day working at Disney, I probably had what will be my all-time crazy story. A group of at least 8 adults came up to get their photo taken. They all still had about half of their alcoholic drinks sloshing in their cups. Two of the women asked if they could kiss me. They told me they get a point for every kiss on the cheek. Stunned, I let two of them kiss my cheeks at the same time. Then another of them asked me, “Can I kiss you on the lips? I get 2 points for that.” At that point I made sure they saw my wedding ring, politely refused, and asked them to line up for the photo. Instead of asking them to say “cheese”, I almost asked them to smile and say “inebriated”!
