The Jedi Training Academy

Here is the first of the videos that I promised to share with you, some footage from the Jedi Training Academy at Disney's Hollywood Studios!

This was not a totally new experience for us, as Alyssa was chosen to participate in the show back in August 2009, when there was no sign up procedure like there is now. (You can see her battle Darth Vader in flip flops here.) And to be honest, I much preferred it the old way. In my opinion it made for a much magical moment, but I can say that because my kid was picked, and I didn't have to deal with the tears that would have come if she hadn't been! I understand why they changed the procedure... It was, and is, a very popular thing, and there were probably a lot of dissatisfied families chewing on guest relation's ears about how their child(ren) didn't get to participate. But now it has just become another line on the touring plan.

We didn't really plan on doing it, but it occurred to me that we could while we were making our way over to Star Tours: The Adventure Continues (fabulous rennovation by the way, but we'll save that for another day). It was our 2nd rope drop at Hollywood Studios this trip, and it was my wife's turn to make the Toy Story Mania FastPass March. We told her we would meet her at Start Tours after she braved the crowd, and since we had time, we stopped by the sign up for Jedi Training Academy. We were not the first people there, but we got our ticket to return and were on our way, knowing we would be back in a couple hours.

So when the time came I noticed that there were A LOT more kids in the show now! I think there were 12 kids on the stage, and another 12 on the ground in front of the stage! How would they be able to get all of these Padawans (Star Wars knowledge) to battle Darth Vader in the

time they had set aside?

Enter Darth Maul... So it turns out, that the kids on the ground level actually face him to complete their training. It seemed like the older kids were the ones that would face him, and it made sense, he was creepy lookin! Smaller kids could get freaked out!

So even though I wasn't able to get that classic shot of Alyssa dueling against Darth Vader, I was able to get some new footage of her fighting the most feared dude from Episode One! No not Jar Jar Binks...

Enjoy the video!