Walkabout The World - A Disney Podcast - A Walkabout on Star Wars Day May the 4th [ep 012]

Episode Date: May 9, 2021

Hello Traveler! This week we venture to a galaxy far, far away on the unofficial/official Star Wars Day, which is of course May the 4th. From special Star Wars dessert treats, to strolling around in Batuu in near record temperatures, and ending the day watching a lightsaber group meetup, you get to hear it all.  This is an episode that evolved over the course of the entire day, because we arrived early, and left after park close. For the first part of the day, you can join me and my family as we explore and then join a friend from touringplans.com for some treats and air conditioning. Later in the day, Producer Josh joins us as we (mostly) succeed in taking part in the lightsaber group meetup festivities.  Connect with us at @WalkaboutWDW on Instagram, and find our producer Josh at @TheSteele.

Thank you for watching! Well, hello, traveler. Bright suns. And you have no idea how bright the suns are. But bright suns and welcome to Walk About the World, your weekly intergalactic expedition through one of the parks or resorts of Walt Disney World here in Orlando, Florida. And today we are in Disney's Hollywood Studios

in Star Wars Galaxy's Edge because it's not just any day. It is the 4th of May. May the 4th, as it were. And May the 4th is often said as May the 4th be with you. And it is kind of the official, unofficial Star Wars holiday. It is far more official than unofficial now. Used to be more of a fan event,

but these days, Disney Lucasfilm really gets in on the action, really promotes it. Has merch that they release, and all kinds of things, and so we thought, let's hang out in Star Wars Galaxy's Edge today, and see what we can see with our ears.

See if we can partake in some special events. I have a very good bit of information that a fan event is happening right at park close tonight. Some really good people that are part of a Star Wars Saber Discord group are going to meet later. And for the day, you know, you just never know. There may be some things that we can get into. Maybe some of them unannounced. Like, I have no inside information, but I'm hoping that at some point we can get into some

events that may happen spontaneously. I'm hoping beyond hope that Disney might walk out a cool character or two here and there but in general soaking up the May 4th vibe you know that's what we do for those of you that have been

part of Star Wars weekends back in the day ooh here's Kylo Ren and a couple of stormtroopers but for those of you who were here during Star Wars weekends this is so familiar because loads of

people here dressed up in some Star Wars outfits. Some of them are going like full cosplay. Others are doing like the Disney bound Star Wars character thing. And it just has a kind of that Star Wars weekends atmosphere, which I really, really miss. So it just makes me happy. Big smile on my face today. In general, Star Wars fans in person are some of the best, some of the best folks that we know. And so the plan for today, as you already know, that's cool. The plan for today, as you already know is sorry i just passed c3po and r2 disney bound which is really cool but we are going to walk and talk we are going to pop in and out

one of our good friends from touringplans.com is here. We're going to meet up with her later and sample some treats. I don't know what the treats will be. I think one of them involves some mousse because there's a lot of mousse going on in Disney treats these days. But we're going to meet up with her. scanned a QR code and entered a virtual queue for a merchandise store that they have open today for special May 4th merchandise. I don't know if we'll actually snag any of it. We may, but at least we'll go in the store, take some pictures. Again, for those of you that have been here during Star Wars weekends,

we used to have a place called Darth's Mall. You guys remember that? M-A-L-L, Darth's Mall. I like a good pun. So we are by the Millennium Falcon docking bay up and to our left. And it is a fairly crowded black spire in Batuu today.

However, it is supposed to be record-breaking temperatures, or near-record temperatures today. And so I'm guessing when this really gets cranking here in a little while, I think it's supposed to be near 96, I kid you not. Even for us Florida locals. In early May, that's a lot to take, travelers. That's a little bit too bright suns, even for the likes of us. But once this really gets cranking, I'm betting that the crowd will thin just a bit as people seek shelter. So what we're going to do, I'm going to meet up with some folks and we'll play the day by ear.

But we are staying until park close. And it is early in the day right now. It's going to be a full day. It's going to be hot. But it's going to be fun. We'll post some stuff on our stories. Which of course you will have seen long before this episode airs. But welcome to May the 4th.

And I will catch up with you in just a minute. We're currently setting right across from the entrance to Rise of the Resistance. Under no shade whatsoever, but... Standing right next to a really cool piece of Star Wars... Star Wars-y equipment. That makes some cool sounds, and I wanted to record some of it so I'm gonna I've already seen some 501st folks walking around what is that you may ask 501st Legion Star Wars costuming group used to do used to be a part of I should say many of the parades that they used to have here during Star Wars weekends anyway Anyway, I want to be quiet. Let's listen to some as this, so put a microphone here. I'm going to go. Can you feel the heat traveling?

It has to be binary suns out here today. There's no way this much heat could come from one of them. I'm going to do a check. Let us see. It feels like 95 right now. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So we are going to...

We are going to keep going I know not where but I'll catch up with you whenever we get there so we have taken refuge in where are we? Backlot Express Backlot Express and

super Star Wars Weekends vibes where you escape from the heat are we? Backlot Express. Backlot Express and super Star Wars Weekends vibes where you escape from the heat. And by the way, it's a balmy 91 or something already and so it's for real today. And we got the chance to

chill and get a gift of a Darth Vader drink thing. It's a Darth Vader head, but it's a drink holder. Thanks to our awesome friend Chrissy at Touring Plants. And she's going to say hi. See, she just said hi. It's a Darth Vader stein.

I think that's the right word. And some drinks and fries because you've got to hydrate and nutrate on a day like today. Now we're going to relocate back to Galaxy's Edge to Docking Bay 7 for another treat of some sort. So we'll see you there. We are in Docking Bay, and we are eating. What is this we're eating? I think it's called an oi oi puff. Not quite sure.

See that way if it's wrong you can blame her. I have no idea. But Chrissy got us a treat. Look how big it is. And it's and what is in this creature? Looks like strawberry goodness. We'll have to read about it

strawberry mousse i think so with um with what looks like green moss on the top of it i think if you want to mclaren you know what school bread is it looks very similar to the outside of it it has like the pastry outside and there's cream in the school bread. Okay. It is a Celebrate Black Spire Day Raspberry Cream Puff Passion Fruit Mousse. Let's try it. Okay. It also has the chocolate, looks like Galaxy's Edge coin on top, edible coin.

It does. Some type of raspberry something on top. Edible coin. It does. Some type of raspberry something on the plate. The moss is really throwing me though. Or the seaweed or something. Anyway, go ahead. Go ahead. Dive in. What's he got?

Hmm. So thoughts? Very puckery. Puckery? Very puckery. Puckery makes one pucker. Pucker. We're slowly dissecting the puff. I'm seeing a head shaking.

It's not my hair. It's moose. It's enormous. Right? Yeah. And as we know, Disney's all about the moose these days. Yeah.

No, feel free to dive in, because my daughter Chaney is a huge moose fan. That is a lie. She's not, but... But I's not, but I'm going to taste it here in a minute. I'm taking the mask off. I'm going to taste the moss. What is this? What is that? Matcha? Matcha? Yeah, it's just cake. Oh, okay. It's just green cake? Did you try it with the...

It's not very sweet. It's not like one of those super sweet. And it's a good value for $6.49. Judging by the look on Chaney's face, she loves it. What is it? What are you thinking? It's not very sweet. And the mousse, I honestly don't know what mousse is made of, but it almost tastes like cheesecake with passion fruit filling.

Okay. It's just an overwhelming amount of mousse compared to the outing pastry. So if it was more equal parts, it would be better. You have a little bit of shell and a whole lot of moose. Not my favorite. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Now, what are we going to do next?

I literally have no idea. But we'll get into something. See you in a second. Okay, so what have we done? So far, my little group just went for a bit of refuge and calories at Pizza Rizzo, which I can tell you, the refuge was better than the calories. Rizzo is not Remy. Remy's food, that may be doable.

Rizzo's food, well, he's a rat. So, yeah. And so now we're back in Batuu. I have no idea what this is. I'm right around the corner from the Droid Depot, and there's some pipes coming out, and some really cool ambience over here. When I say cool, it sounds like...

I don't know if these are the galactic toilet flushing but I thought it was interesting enough to stop for a little while definitely uh sorry I'm not mature. You know this already. Now, you tell me if that sounded like just liquid. Right here. Easy, easy. So, now it could be this is a trash area and that's a Dianoga and they're thrashing about.

I'll take some pictures of this area so we can see if we can find out what that actually may be. But, at this corner, that's where we have the Coca-Cola droid. He's right across from us. And where we have the Coca-Cola droid.

He's right across from us. And then we have the little collection of a little collection of speeders. And it looks like Ray and Chewy are out. Let's just wander over

here and see if we can get Ray and Chewie. Hi. Hi. So over here there's a little collection of speeders. And Ray is climbing up the stairs, going up top. A bunch of Star Wars fans assembling to see Rey in action. Chewie's down by the speeders.

Chewie's down here seeing what he can see I think Ray is patrolling for the first order Chewie's down here looking in the tool shed, it appears. Ray's up top. So if you haven't been, this area near the speeders has stairs and a gantry way, two-level gantry way up top. And Ray and occasionally Stormtroopers stand up here and do their thing.

And here's an inside walkabout secret detail behind the scenes. I hold the microphone backwards where it has the screen facing outwards and everybody thinks it's a GoPro and very carefully gets out of my way. See, you learn things being a veteran in-park podcaster of 11 episodes. But this is cool. Chewy's making a repair to a very ancient speeder.

I don't think he's going to have much luck. I love the details. It looks for all the world like a piece of a lawn chair strapped to this speeder. It may be. Alright, let's keep moving. Sounds like it's starting up in there. Nah, maybe not. I didn't think he was gonna have any luck all right back in a minute The The Yeah!

Here we go! Let's go! The I'm going to go to the other side. The The The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-Milano-San Francisco line. The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-San Francisco line. The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-San Francisco line. The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-San Francisco line. The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-San Francisco line. The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-San Francisco line. The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-San Francisco line. The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-San Francisco line. The train is now departing for the San Francisco-Milano-San Francisco line. The We are at the end of a very long, very hot day.

Hot day. And who wanders in but some guy named Josh. Hi, Josh. Hello, Josh. Except he was smart enough to work first and then come over. Some guy named Josh. Hi, Josh. Hello, traveler. Hello, Jeremy. Except he was smart enough to work first and then come over. Although, he did walk all the way from the very beginning, the very entrance of Epcot, all the way to the Skyliner and then over here.

Because why? I wanted to run to it. Yeah, but why did you have to walk from Epcot? I made a 40 Oh like technically why? Yeah yeah yeah Oh because I There were no reservations For the studios

So I had to Get an Epcot Park up here Because you can only Park up after you show up At your first park After 2pm Yeah

So where we are Is right in front of the aluminum fountain millennium falcon uh docking bay is behind us a large large but like not a large but diffuse crowd of people is around us and a meetup of sorts is happening shortly. I'm not sure imminently, but shortly. A Saber, a Saber, I was going to say Saber Guild, but that's a separate thing. It's a Discord group of folks who show up and do Saber meets and they meet up in front of the Falcon. Now what I don't know is if we will be booted before that happens.

I'm hoping if we're nice little boys and girls, we can just sit here and watch the festivities. But the person that I talked to earlier that's with the group said that they may usher us out for crowd reasons before they start. We'll see. Either way, we're going to find out. Can we at least make the sound? Oh, most definitely.

And also, what happens when you gather like 150 nerds at one time? Are they all making the sound? I bet they're making the sound. So, end of day report for you guys. And here it is. So, first off, not one single special different aircraft, or spaceship coming in. Not one special, different, unique thing today, all day, that I know of. And that's a bummer.

Man, I just, I thought for sure they would work something in. Not even a cupcake or anything? Well, okay, so they have, like, a little bit of, like, May the 4th merch. But, like, in Galaxy's Edge, that I know of, nothing. No quick, even brief Mandalorian sighting or Grogu sighting on the balconies or anything. Everything was just normal playbook today, which I thought was kind of strange, but maybe it's still COVID, right? It probably is. Yeah, they just didn't want to, like... In regular times, I feel they've been close.

It's not an example. They don't have the weekends. Yeah. Yeah. I hope for a little more of the Star Wars weekends. I thought maybe they would play some of the Star Wars weekends music when we walked in. Totally didn't. So...

Bring back the hoopla. Yes. Yes. Yes. Hyperspace hoopla needs to come back. Probably won't. And we're not the news podcast, but also they did release a model of the Halcyon Star Wars hotel battle cruiser thing over in One Man's Dream. I took a look at that.

It was kind of cool. And they've also released a video today with the new slash real, air quotes, real lightsabers that look incredible. I have no idea how they've done this, but if you've seen it on Instagram, Josh DeMauro, the president of the parks, put that out there this morning, and apparently it's going to debut on the Cruiser.

We don't know if it's going to be only on the Cruiser. Did you see the blueprint? Are you serious? Yeah. No. It's kind of like a tape measure with LED lights. So, like on the rolls? What happened? So, like, unrolls?

Pretty cool. Imagineers are always thinking, baby. It's pretty cool. I want one, so, like, I don't know. It's probably going to be, like, 500 bucks. If we can even get them off of the Battlecruiser. So, anyway, as Josh slowly digests his Ronto wrap, I'm going to chill here and watch the crowds.

May give you a little bit of park noise here in a few. And see what happens with the old Sabre meetup. See you in a few. So it is now, what is it? It is now 8-12. The park is closed, air quotes. And we have a man on the street report from my family who endured all Haitian to come back here and break their way back into Batuu.

Because they were headed back here after 8 o'clock. Just a bunch of rebels that's right and the uh the the people were all lining up over here for the saber meetup and they did not want to let our crew by but they they made it um I thought it was going to go that time. No. As usual, you think it's going to go, and it's not going to go. I've been waiting on that piece of recording for, like, ages anyway. I mean, it's not going to happen. Is there anyone that's on the attraction right now?

No, ma'am. We're waiting on the Sabre people. Okay. So we're actually clearing this area for anyone that's not taking a part of the photo. So if you want to be a part of the photo, you can join the group, and they'll split you up into which group to be for the photo. So, new developments have arisen. The park ops people came and cleared us out of our lovely little perch. Hang on a second. I think we have a trash cart coming in.

That right there is called ambient sound, folks. But they cleared us out of the area in front of the Falcon, but after a little bit of polite moaning and crying, they said we could sit over here across from Oga's Cantina, and we can still see the group. Hang on, beverage cart coming in.

Really? Ouch! Sorry. That even hurt my ears. So they have brought in a crowd of, I'm guessing, 100? Maybe 100, I think 100, 150. 50. 50 at a time, Heather says. We'll try to get some good photos for you.

We saw Adam the Woo walk by, recording. Who is he, you ask? YouTuber. You probably know him. So right now they have this crowd of saber folks. White, green, yellow, purple, red, blue. A bunch of them. It's actually really cool. I hear yelling. Oh. Now the screaming and waving up sabers.

And that was Ashley and David appearing in front of the crowd. Who totally didn't know that was happening. That's fun. So did I mention who Ashley and David Eckstein were? I'm sitting here blabbing. I never know. So Ashley Eckstein is the voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. And has been a mainstay

of Star Wars fan outreach for years. She started the Her Universe Company, which is Star Wars, and it branched out, but it was Star Wars-themed apparel for young ladies and ladies. Starship coming in but she for many years was here for Star Wars Weekends super amazing super nice, humble

person, she lives in the area and so apparently she's popping in for these photos to the delight of all the Saber folks alright, looks like we're queuing up another bunch over here to the delight of all the saber folks. Alright, looks like we're queuing up another bunch over here to the right.

This is actually a really great spot. Oga's right here to our right with the little stone arch across the way. With the falcon framed by the arch. Ah, there it is. The saber celebration. Once again, producer Josh has gone behind... It's not enemies, though. Is it behind friendly lines? Is that a thing?

I don't know. Daring the wrath of park ops to go get photos. Falcon taking off again. Or attempting to. It won't make it. Hi, Ashley. Hi, Ashley. It's been so long.

How are you? We're great! It's been so long! How are you? We're great! Oh my gosh! It's been so long! We missed getting to go to Star Wars events and seeing you. Oh my gosh! I missed seeing you guys so much! Oh my gosh!

I thought you were too. Were you here all day? No, that was not all day. Today was hot. It was? It was a bit warm. Wow! The place was amazing.

Thank you! I loved your hat. Thank you! I loved your hat. I loved your hat. I loved your hat. I loved your hat. I loved your hat. I loved your hat. It was a bit warm. Thank you. Thank you. See you guys.

I told you how nice she was I don't know if you listeners heard much of any of that but that was Ashley interacting with my wife and daughters who have met her a great many times and she's always super accommodating and friendly

the fact that she didn't recognize us after five years with our masks on. I don't even understand that. I wouldn't even recognize you guys. Maybe it's just all four of us together. Maybe. Maybe. And she had the decency not to ask why I was holding a Tribble.

Incoming. While we were here earlier, sitting near the Falcon on the ground, a youngling came over and nearly stole you. Dear listener, nearly stole you away. You, nearly stole you away, you would have gone off and become a plaything.

I mean that in the purest sense. You know, like the Andy, the Andy type of... I also didn't have a mask on like a bad boy because I was taking a drink and then I started recording so I am breaking all kinds of rules and here comes this same guy with a camera running his posterior off no doubt going to kill himself.

Like a Greek marathoner of old. And here he comes running again. This guy is amazing. Like he's got a camera on a tripod running by, like, at breakneck speed. Like, at a dangerous speed. I'm not sure what to make of this. Whatever he's being paid, he should be paid more. Okay, it's been a long day, but hopefully you guys have enjoyed this intergalactic, blazing, binary suns, roasting, Star Wars adventure of a day.

Yeah, I got nothing. I'm dead. Did you have a good time, John? I had a great time. It was a great night. Look us up on Instagram at WalkaboutWDW. Look up Josh at The Steel with an E. Tell us what you like, what you don't. We'd like to hear more about what you like than what you don't. But tell us if you'd like to have us seek out and explore an area of the park.

And with that, there's a great big beautiful tomorrow and a giant saber group going by. Have a good night. May the 4 fourth be with you See that was the way to end it. Anyway, bye guys Thank you.