Musical Tribute to Carrie Fisher - Star Wars Celebration 2017

Star Wars Celebration Day 1

Amos and I camped out overnight in the Convention Center. We were in a queue line waiting to get a wristband for the 40 years of Star Wars panel. No sleep. We were on cement floors. They even brought in a Deejay to play music from about 12:30am to 2am. They got everyone to gather up their stuff at 5am. Just after 6am they started giving out the wristbands. We then walked all the way around the hall and got back in the same queue line we were in before. Now we get to wait a few more hours before they take us up to the Stage for the panel. I sure hope it is worth all the wait.

At 10:30am they finally let us go to the Galaxy Stage on the 4th Floor. It was a crazy mad dash to the stage. We got to sit about 16 rows from the stage. But they had 3 large monitors to also view the panel better.

George Lucas was the main guest. He talked about the making of Star Wars and the cast. The other guests were Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, Peter Mathew, Ian Mcdiarmid, and Hayden Christensen. They were all great. They then brought out Mark Hamill. He was great reminiscing about the films. Then a surprise guest, Harrison Ford. The audience went crazy.  George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy talked about Carrie Fisher. It got a little emotional. Carrie's daughter Billie also talked about her mom.

When we thought the show might end, they opened a curtain and John Williams and the Atlanta orchestra had a very moving tribute to Carrie. It seemed we were all crying by then.

They even passed out Carrie Fisher posters as we left the hall. 

It was a good tribute to the first 40 years of Star Wars.

And yes it was very much worth the wait.

Amos waited to get his photo with Hayden Christensen as I waited to get into the Celebration Store. Amos beat me. He got his photo at Hayden before 4:30pm. I was stuck in line for store for over 3 hours. 

Universal Studios Theme Parks, Orlando

Amos and I had free tickets for Universal Orlando. So we took Uber and got to the parks at 8:15am. 

After we put our stuff in a locker,  we first went to the Hulk ride. I'll do any ride once. We even had to put everything in a free locker. No hats, phones anything metal. Of course my knees are metal but that was ok. It was a wild ride. Kept my eyes open the whole time. Felt a bit shaky after we got off. 

We then went on Spider-Man. Kind of like Transformers in California. But a lot better. Still feeling a bit quesy after this ride also. Hulk had not gotten out of my system yet.

We then went on King Kong Skull Island. A tram ride. They even had a single rider line, which we took advantage of. I think the tram ride in California was better for the Kong part of the ride. 

Next up Jurassic Park: River Adventure. About a 30 minute wait. We were in the 3rd row. So we did not get too wet.

Amos and I got in the single rider line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. It turns out what we thought was the single rider line was the normal line. It moved pretty good. The ride was another spin and turn you in all directions. I handled it a lot better than Hulk and Spider-Man. But still got a tad guesy.

After, we got some Butterbeer. A non-alcoholic butter cream icee. It was pretty good. 

We were on the Islands of Adventure park. We then went over to the Universal Studios Park. Amos wanted to eat first. We went to the Leaky Cauldron restaurant. I got the cottage pie combo and Amos the chicken sandwich.

We went to the Mummy ride. I wanted to go on because it is my friend Carlene's favorite ride. We went Single Rider and took a spin. A little better than the one in California. We walked around the rest of the park, stopping to see the Horror Makeup Show. The one in California is better. Especially when Carlene was the audience volunteer. I fell asleep during this one. As we were walking out of the park we stopped at the Chocolate Emporium for some ice cream.

We left Universal at 5:30pm.

Now headed over to the Orlando Convention Center. We are camping out overnight for the Star Wars Convention. Specifically to get a wristband for the 40 years of Star Wars panel. We got to the Convention Center at 6:15pm, we were about 400 people back in line. So we are golden for the panel. Now just need to sleep over night on a hard concrete floor. 

Amos and I in front of Hulk

 

Hogwarts

 

Butterbeer

 

Lunch

 

The Dragon

 

As we left the parks today