Star Wars Weekends

While Disney Imagineers continue to help create the newest Star Tours adventure at Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts, plenty of Jedi, Wookiees and droids (oh my!) are gearing up for Star Wars Weekends, the annual celebration of all-things-Star Wars at Walt Disney World Resort.

And today you can start making your plans to journey to a galaxy far, far away and step into the Star Wars saga, as we officially announce this year’s event dates for the first time. Star Wars Weekends 2011 will be held at Disney’s Hollywood Studios every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from May 20-June 12.

The event features one of the galaxy’s largest gatherings of Star Wars characters all around the theme park, offering photo and autograph opportunities (I mean, c’mon – where else can you ask the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, for his autograph??? Just don’t ask him to smile for your photo). There are special Star Wars parades, trivia challenges, Jedi Training Academy, limited-edition merchandise and memorabilia, behind-the-scenes presentations, star conversations and more.

Star Wars celebrities make special appearances in talk shows and grand motorcades, and sign autographs throughout the weekend (here’s a tip: make sure you’re at the theme park first-thing in the morning to secure a spot in one of the celebrity autograph queues for that day).

We’ll announce a complete and more detailed Star Wars Weekends celebrity lineup soon, but we can tell you now about two fan-favorites returning for 2011.

Anthony Daniels, known worldwide for his portrayal of everyone’s favorite protocol droid, C-3PO, will return this year for Weekend 1 (May 20-22) and Weekend 2 (May 27-29). Trivia fact: C-3PO (or “See-Threepio” as many fans remember) is one of the few characters to appear in all seven Star Wars feature films.

Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Ahsoka Tano (pictured above), in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” will appear each weekend this year as Celebrity Host of a behind-the-scenes talk show entitled “Clone Wars: Behind the Force.” Ashley is no stranger to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Ashley, who grew up in central Florida, had one of her first show-business roles as a parade performer at the theme park.