IMDISNEYMINDED: June 2014

If you were lucky enough to see the original Star Wars movie in the late 70's then you knew what a phenomenon the whole Star Wars franchise would become! The first movie was like nothing ever before and a generation of Star Wars fans were born.

There was one thing we knew as soon as we heard that Mark Hamill would be featured in the parade this past weekend was that we knew we had to be there. Luke Skywalker is where it all began. He is the epicenter of fandom. What a treat it was to find out the Billy Dee Williams would also be present in the parade.

The crowds began to line main street at Hollywood Studios 2 hours before the start of the 11:30 parade. It was hot, crowded and fun all in one.

Here are some of the images we caught of the excitement and splendor of the parade.

avintageposter.com

thedesignersnursery - Etsy.com

This is the 3rd 24 Hour event we've attended! The first was the Leap Year event. We didn't know what to expect and showed up around 8pm. It took us 45 minutes to get to the end of Main Street, not even near the castle. It was so packed we turned on our heels and headed out.

The second time was the Monster University event. We got there around 5:30 and stayed until around 9pm. It was so crowded we left again.

This time we were bound and determined to stay until 3am to at least say we were on Main Street in the wee hours of the morning. We got there around 4:30pm and by 10:30 we couldn't take another step! It was the hottest day of the year thus far topping off at 98 degrees. And there seemed to be even more people than ever before. The crowds were being ushered here and there and you could barely walk at one point.

It the truth be told, we're getting old...our bodies just couldn't take one more step! HA! So we trudged off to the tram to our car which was parked at the furthest point from the Magic Kingdom, of course and headed back to the hotel. We decided that even though we only live about 15 miles from Disney, we wanted to stay on property for the weekend so we got a room at The Best Western, Lake Buena Vista. We were on the 17th floor and had a spectacular view of all that is Disney below.

The view from our 17th story hotel room!

Steve sets his RunKeeper app on his phone before we go into every park or hotel or walking excursion on property to keep track of how many miles we walk. We walked 4 miles that day and into the evening, back and forth and back and forth.

Here are some photo mementos of the day. Enjoy....