Memory 071 – Star Tours 2 (Or Is It 1)

Come and join us for another installment of the WDW-Memories podcast, where I try to make it possible for you relive your Walt Disney World Memories when you can’t actually be there.

** Stereo Audio, Binaural Audio **
Time: 35:14

It’s good to be home. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my 15 days in Florida, but sleeping in hotels or beds, or just beds that aren’t your own can really wear on you after a while. But I’m back in Kentucky now and glad to be back with you recording from my studio. But the good part about a vacation in Florida is trips to our favorite place Walt Disney World. And I got to spend quite a bit of free time at the parks and I’ve got some great audio. But today isn’t about my recent trips but is about a time now lost. Today we’re going BACK to Star Tours the original ride.

So last week I threw together a quick podcast with my first ride on the revamped Star Tours ride. It was a blast and I really like how the recording came out, but I also wanted to share with you some of my memories of the original attraction.

As always, this memory was requested by some of you the listeners. First, Michelle emailed me:

Do you have a recording from Star Tours by any chance? I was apart of the college program and I served as an operations member on the old ride and I absolutely love (and miss!) all the old spiels, sounds and music from the ride. I loved Rex and even the beginning spiel with the lady with the funny looking hair even though I literally listened to it about a million times a day when I worked there. I’ve been on the new ride just once and it was fun, but nothing will ever compare to the original.

I also received an email from Brendan, requesting the new attraction though, but he really highlighted why he liked it better:

I was wondering if you could possibly make a video or recording of the new star tours and I think it’d be really cool if you had multiple podcasts for all the missions that you do that were recently created. The reason I love this attraction is because I’m a huge Star Wars fan.when the ride first opened it was great.but I got a little tired of doing the same thing over and over especially with a droid that wasn’t from the original Star Wars. Now in the new version they have C3PO as the pilot more crowd interaction and other places that you can go to.

As always, I tossed the memory idea out on the social media world to see what everyone else thought of these attractions and I got the following responses:

On Facebook, Frederick said:

I haven’t ridden the new version yet, but I’m looking forward to riding it for the first time in August. Star Wars has been my favorite movie since I was 7 years old, but I thought the original ride was good but not great. I’m hoping this version will meet my expectations. I’ve always loved the queue! Thanks for sharing all of your memories.

I love this. I really enjoy the conversation we’ve got going here on these great versions of this attraction. Michelle, Brendan, and Frederick thank you for commenting and writing in. I’m going to love reliving these old memories with you. And yes, I did say memories. Because I’ve got the luxury of time since I’ve only got to revisit the old version, I think we’ll catch two rides on Star Tours, just for fun. So let’s begin, shall we?

Our first memory will take us back to 2001. I’m in Walt Disney World for a FileMaker DevCon (it’s a technology I used to work with) and every afternoon and evening I slipped away and went to the parks. Today I’m the then Disney MGM Studios. It’s a very hot summer day, but that doesn’t sway me as I’m sure it wouldn’t sway you either. I’ve only been in the parks for a little while now, but I’ve had lots of fun. As we join this memory, I’m just walking up to the attraction queue area. You’ll hear the ATAT walker firing its cannons, shooting that cool mist down on us. Our time in the queue area isn’t that long as the lines for Star Tours have already started to lessen as the attraction seems to be slipping in popularity. We’ll be at the boarding gate in no time and then off on our adventure.

The next memory will take us back to 2006 while I’m in the parks by myself. I was down in Orlando for work, and as I said before, my evenings were always in the parks. It’s a beautiful spring evening, and we’ll join up as I’m walking into the queue area again. We’ll again make it to the loading area pretty quickly and then onto our Star Speeder 3000.

Now, memory one is in stereo, but memory two is in binaural. Either way, I would suggest that you put your headphones on now.