Jedi Training questions

[123LuckyMom]

We'll be at DHS next week. DD will be less than a month shy of her 4th birthday, and DS is 7. Both of them are Star Wars crazy, but DS is very character and plot line knowledgable. If we run to sign up for Jedi Training at rope drop, will we get a place in the 9:40am show? Will they let DD participate, too? If only DS gets to participate, I just won't try for it. It's not worth the jealousy and potential tears, especially since there will be quite a few rides DS will be able to ride and DD (whom I'm praying will scrape by the 38" mark) will not. If my kids are not among those being trained, is it worth watching? Is this worth doing rather than racing to Toy Story Mania so we can ride twice without long waits (We have a fastpass at 10:35-11:35am)? I'm trying to set up a touring plan, and we've never done the Jedi Training before, so if I pretend it doesn't exist, my kids will never know they've missed it. We'll probably be back to WDW in 3 or 3.5 years, but I don't know if either will be as into Star Wars then as they are now.

[jench]

On our trip, they did not let 4yo DS do it. He is also very knowledgeable and answered all of the questions right, but then they asked how old he was and they said sorry, no (we weren't trying to sneak him in or lie at all, we thought maybe there was a chance they would let him in if he showed he knew his stuff & was more a mature 4yo.) His 6yo brother still went on to do it. I took DS2 to get his face painted like Darth Maul to make up for that and the fact that he couldn't go on Star Tours either, and he LOVED it. Totally stuck in character all day (gave lots of menacing looks) and that's one of the things he still talks about almost 3 years later. (We have been back since then and they both did it that time.) If you are Star Wars fans, I would definitely try to do it! The show is fun even if your kids are not in it, you just have to wait for each of the kids in it to go through the battle.

[TwinFoxes]

We did Jedi Training at Disneyland, and I'm wondering if it's changed. It was first come, first served. No questions or being chosen (other than "will you be able to perform on the training platform, in other words, will you get stage fright). The ages were 4-12. That was it. I just looked on the WDW site, and that's pretty much what it says. I do think they will not let your three year old participate. Three and under get into the park for free, so I have a feeling they're strict about letting paying kids do it.

Both my girls did it, and looooooved it. And it was pretty cute. If they hadn't signed up they would have not wanted to watch, or rather we would not have wanted to listen to them say they wanted to do it over and over again. :)

[123LuckyMom]

We did Jedi Training at Disneyland, and I'm wondering if it's changed. It was first come, first served. No questions or being chosen (other than "will you be able to perform on the training platform, in other words, will you get stage fright). The ages were 4-12. That was it. I just looked on the WDW site, and that's pretty much what it says. I do think they will not let your three year old participate. Three and under get into the park for free, so I have a feeling they're strict about letting paying kids do it.

Both my girls did it, and looooooved it. And it was pretty cute. If they hadn't signed up they would have not wanted to watch, or rather we would not have wanted to listen to them say they wanted to do it over and over again. :)

I don't know about Disneyland. From my research, WDW used to choose kids at random from the audience, but now there's a mad rush to sign up. I've been going to Disney World every three or four years since I was really young, and I remember the days before fastpass and ADRs and lines to meet characters at specific locations. I really loved being able to just wander around encountering characters. Then, when you were hungry, you'd go to a restaurant and find out how long the wait was. It was rarely more than 30 minutes. The original fast passes were great! They really helped with avoiding long lines. Now, I have to plan every ride and every meal on every day of my vacation months in advance!!! I hate it. It's stressful!

Okay, end of rant. Where do we go to get the face painting done?

[TwinFoxes]

I don't know about Disneyland. From my research, WDW used to choose kids at random from the audience, but now there's a mad rush to sign up. I've been going to Disney World every three or four years since I was really young, and I remember the days before fastpass and ADRs and lines to meet characters at specific locations. I really loved being able to just wander around encountering characters. Then, when you were hungry, you'd go to a restaurant and find out how long the wait was. It was rarely more than 30 minutes. The original fast passes were great! They really helped with avoiding long lines. Now, I have to plan every ride and every meal on every day of my vacation months in advance!!! I hate it. It's stressful!

Okay, end of rant. Where do we go to get the face painting done?
My first time was in the mid-90s. FP had just started. I did like it that way. We have not been since the magic bands started. DL still has the regular paper passes, so you don't have to plan so far in advance. I hear what you're saying. I like trip planning, but after awhile it's onerous.

[anonomom]

DD did Jedi training when she was a little bit over 4 9(IIRC, 4 is the minimum age). She was able to participate just fine, but afterwards she told us she was really scared and wished she hadn't done it. Even though she knew, intellectually, that Darth Vader wasn't real, he was still pretty scary when she had to "fight" him.

[belovedgandp]

We were there just over a year ago - first week of February 2015. We were there at rope drop. The mob literally split in two - to the right for Toy Story and to the left for Jedi Training. Our whole family went straight there. All the kids had to be in line with us, but all they did was ask for name and age. Then we had 10, 7 and 4. All three did it and were great. The sign-up went super fast and the older ones were still in the second train for the Rockin' Coaster and the younger ones had no wait for Woody and other characters.

I would not waste time just watching the show for entertainment. It's cute enough, but if you have Star Wars crazy kids you will be asked why they are not up there.

They were filling the shows in order for the day earliest to latest. We were able to request a later time because it worked in our schedule better, but counting on being in the first handful of families for one of the first two shows would be risky.

[123LuckyMom]

Thanks for all the input! I redid my touring plan to participate in the 2:40 Jedi academy, so we'll run to sign up at rope drop and hope we can get that show and that DD can participate. I also have a plan for being in the first group or not going at all. We have a fast pass for Toy Story, so we may not run there first thing.


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[ahisma]

Last year, we did rope drop for the Jedi sign up, did Toy Story without a FP, then used our FP to ride Toy Story a second time.

[123LuckyMom]

Just an update. We're on the last day of our trip. We were on time to sign up for Jedi training, but DS decided he wasn't interested. We did watch part of the show, and there seemed to be quite a lot of standing around waiting on the part of the participants. DS was unimpressed.


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