Lightspeed to Endor! Star Tours Week Is Here!!

Picture, if you will, yellow words scrolling by on a black screen.  You know you've seen this somewhere.  You sense something.  Words you've not seen since...

Not so long ago, in a Park not so far away...

For a while when visiting, we had one attraction that we needed to ride every single time we were there: Star Tours.  The idea behind Star Tours was very simple.  We had one destination we were planning on going, the forest moon of Endor.  Oh, many was the time we wished we could swing with the Ewoks, ride our Speeder Bikes through the forest trail, and maybe if we had time destroy the shielding system around the second Death Star.  Those were some good times for sure, even if we never did make it to that blasted moon.  "Rex" did his best, and we're eternally grateful for it.  If you never got to ride the original attraction for yourself, we're pretty positive it will live forever on sites like YouTube.  We'll even throw it in here for good measure if you haven't ever seen it.

Then it went away.  It was a dark time for our empire.  We walked by the building and saw the construction taking place.  The doors were closed to us and the tours stopped.  But we always held out hope that another would rise from the ashes, bringing balance to our trips to The Parks...

And then word came down from on high.  The Masters had spoken.  The team of Disney and Lucas were readying an entirely new experience for us and brand new tours for us to take.  No longer tied down to one tour for all eternity, there were now to be fifty-four possibilities for us to explore.  We can't choose for our ourselves which one we're going to get, but who are we to quibble about such a minor thing?  From Kashyyyk to Coruscant, Hoth to Naboo, and Tattooine to Geonosis, we'll now have chance to be randomly shot into space and fly whereever the Force may take us. So don't be disappointed if you packed your scuba gear hoping to fly to Naboo, and ended up on Hoth. It's a short back in line and you can do it all over again, never knowing what you're going to wind up with.

We've been excited about this week for months!  Ever since the attraction in its last iteration closed down so that they could begin it anew, we've been champing at the bit for it to be all finished, opened, and waiting for us to ride.

We've been able to ride a couple of times now, but there's just something about knowing that it's officially open (and not going anywhere anytime soon) that we've just been pining for.  Yep, that's us, geeky fanboys (at least where "Star Wars" is concerned) to the extreme.

We've been waiting and planning for this week for so long, in fact, we've decided to dedicate an entire week on our blog to both Star Tours, and "Star Wars" goodness.  Not only will we be dedicating our articles to our favorite attraction every day, but we also have a big surprise coming up we'll be announcing on opening day, June 3rd, so you'll want to check back here then for sure to see what we have up our sleeves for the attraction's official opening.

Not only do we have articles and surprises up our sleeves, we're also issuing a challenge to ourselves and to anyone else out there willing to step up to the plate and take it.  We plan on being in The Park all day on June 3rd to ride Star Tours.  The challenge is easy.  See how many times we (and you if you'd like to take up the gauntlet) can ride it in one day.  We're not entirely sure how this will all work out yet, but we plan on being there as early as we can be that Friday, ride it over and over and over again, and report back here on how many times we ended up riding it in what amount of time.  Sounds fun, right?  If you're going to be in The Park yourselves that day and want to participate too, you can!  Just keep track of how many times you ride it, how much time you spend in The Park that day, and let us know!  We'll be happy to post your results right alongside ours if you do.  Can you stand it?  Can we stand it?

We plan on doing a lot of tweeting, blogging and reporting on our status (and quite possibly how many times we've tossed our cookies) all throughout the day on Friday.  You can follow us on Twitter if you're not already @DaysInThePark, and keep coming back here throughout the day for new updates and status reports.  Maybe even a picture or a hundred!  We know that we've played the game quite a bit differently than many others blogs.  We've held our tongues about all the little details, pictures and what-not from the attraction so that people won't have anything spoiled too much before opening day, but rest assured, when this thing is officially opened, we plan on blowing the roof off of the speeder!  We hope you'll be around to see and read it all. 

Now that we've filled you in, when do you plan on shooting through the stars yourself?  Where in the galaxy would you like to fly?

Above all else remember, the Force will be with you, always...