Saturday, June 27, 2015

Star Wars Weekend at Disney's Hollywood Studios Day 2

The second day of our Star Wars Weekend was going to be spent at more add-on/reservation-only experiences: The Rebel Hangar Lounge and the Jedi Mickey's Star Wars Dine at Hollywood and Vine.

We started the day in Epcot since our first reservation was a bit later in the afternoon. Our Epcot time was spent riding the headliners in Future World, enjoying a few drinks (except La Cava seems to have changed some of their margarita recipes for the worse), and having lunch at Via Napoli. We finally had a chance to enjoy the new musical act in Morocco and recommend spending some time watching their performance.

We walked to The Studios from Epcot and made it on time for our first reservation: The Rebel Hangar. This is a new bar/lounge experience designed for Star Wars Weekends in the Backlot Express. The theme is a catina on a rebel outpost on Sullust - where Nien Nunb is from (disneyfoodblog.com does a better job capturing the details and they took pictures of the menu with backstory). The usual counter service was still available, but the dining section near Jedi Training Academy was closed off in order to house this experience. When we arrived at the podium we were immediately escorted to a nice corner table with a statue of Luke in his pilot outfit decorating the table. From time-to-time characters wandered around. While there we saw a cantina band member, a Jawa, and Ezra and Sabine from Rebels. For whatever reason, the Rebels characters only visited one table.

Our waitress was ever-present, but never rushing us. I think they wanted you to take your time and enjoy, but also did not want to miss the opportunity to turn a table. We both ordered speciality cocktails for the first round so we could complete our Star Wars Glow Cube collection. Between in-park drink kiosks and The Hangar we had pairs of Death Stars, X-Wings, and Falcons.

For food we tried the pork wings (Thermal Detonators) and fries (Pilot's Pommes Frites). The pork was tasty and a good size for one to enjoy and the fries were darn good. The garnish on the fries was a flat bread with a picture of Chewy.




The Rebel Hangar was nice. The Studios could use a few more lounges since Tune-In is now crowded at all times of the day. Having a Star Wars overlay was great, but really not a priority over having a comfortable place to take a break while in the park.

A few hours later we took part in Jedi Mickey's Star Wars Dine at Hollywood and Vine. This is a buffet character dining experience in the restaurant that regularly features the Disney Jr. characters. Needless to say we've never dined here before because 1) we don't care about Doc McStuffins and 2) We typically avoid the buffets. When you enter the restaurant you are sent over to meet Jedi Mickey for a photo opp. After that we went to our table (and tables are packed in) and got the orientation from our server. We hit the buffet and found a few OK salads, veggie offerings, and entrees. While dining we met with Stormtroopers Donald, Leia Minnie, Darth Goofy, and Ewok Chipmunks. There were a few themed desserts - like Jawa cookies and Blue Milk soft serve. Overall this wasn't a horrible food experience like the Sci-Fi breakfast from the previous day. However, our bill for the meals and one drink each cost more than our superb meal at The Brown Derby the previous night (and no Zellwood corn to be found here).



After dinner we ducked into the Tune-in Lounge for some Dad's Lemonade to enjoy while we waited for another showing of Symphony in the Stars fireworks. This time we chooses a spot much further from the main stage so we could try to get more of the panoramic experience. We shot video from this location and the Premium Package location we had the night before to create the video below:


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