Home

[never2old]

Hello,

I was wondering, how exactly does it work now with the Stars 'n' Cars parade in the Studios? Is it still a parade and they stop at the end for pictures? I keep seeing photos in twitter of the "Stars 'n' Cars meet and greet", last time we saw it the parade was only a simple (and rather disappointing) parade!

But now I'm wondering whether we should try to see it again....

Does anyone have any recent experience?

[nathalie]

No, the parade is gone.

It is now 2 sets, and both sets use 2 cars (10-15 minutes inbetween the sets, and different characters), they drive up to the center thing, and a rope is being put out in the form of a huge circle, and you must stand behind the rope.

Then all characters are in the center, and they will "meet everyone" going in a big circle.

Only did this once, and hated it.
We didn't even saw half the characters because they were "stuck" on the other side, and some also just ran passed us and moved along.
People standing in the front row wanting to get all characters, will probably not move one bit, so if you're on 2nd or 3rd row ... good luck.

[never2old]

Hmm that sounds bad... So you need to stand in the first row, and in the right place... Think we'll give this a miss

Thanks nathalie!

[nathalie]

As said, I only experienced it once, and was very unsuccesfull in total, (and I only wanted Emile really, lol, but he was on the other side the entire time of the set) and I don't think you can ever know, which side they are going to start.

I've heard from others who were very succesfull and managed to get (almost) all characters, I honestly don't know how, haha!

[pialykke]

I really don't like the sound of this...!!!! We're giving it a go this Friday though.... So will let you know how we get on....
There are a few videos on Youtube (one of them is 8 minutes-ish and shows you quite well how it works now)...
I liked the meet & greet before the parade they were doing in spring, where the CM's would do proper queues for each character - at least then you could bypass the ones you had already met, and just go for your favorites or those you hadn't met yet...... This way, you just gotta hope for the best I guess.....
Meeting characters is a huge thing for us, so we want to make the most of it naturally.... Gutted they have changed this!!!

[lea2124]

when we were there in aug we saw it twice. the first time we did rubbish and got no autographs or photos but the second time we did what all the others did and pushed our children to the front! (obviously I was right behind them and we were in the right place at the right time) the CM really home in on children rather than adults and we managed to get loads of great photos the 2nd time with autographs.
but yes your right the characters sometimes didn't even get to the other side of the circle. we didn't get to see Minnie at all but on a plus we got a fab photo of Jasmine and Aladdin with my son (daughter, 3, was so amazed we were so close to Jasmine that she got freaked out and ran off! lol)
will see if I can add the photo of Jasmine, Aladdin and my son
good luck
Louise xxx

[attachment deleted by admin]

[polar vixen]

Does anyone know if there's any provision made for children with disabilities during this?  There's no way my boss with asd could cope with this,  a rooted of area or anything?

[never2old]

That's a great picture lea2124!! 

I'll have a look at the videos, but it does sound like you could be unlucky and hardly meet anyone, not sure my little girl would understand why some characters are not coming to see her... And I hate the pushing thing, I've had to do it a couple of times with my little girl because the other guests were giving me no choice, but it really ruins the experience for me... I rather go and meet the characters where they have a proper queue, or in a character meal.

@pialykke, let me know how you find it!! We're be going in a couple of weeks (also during the week) so I guess the crowds will be similar...

[RockNRoller]

@pialykke, let me know how you find it!! We're be going in a couple of weeks (also during the week) so I guess the crowds will be similar...

I may be able to help here, we go the last week of November every year and looking back at photo's from previous Cars and Stars events the crowd has always been 3 deep even at that time of year. There was always a crowd round the area where the cars park up and characters get out and walk around too.

[nathalie]

Does anyone know if there's any provision made for children with disabilities during this?  There's no way my boss with asd could cope with this,  a rooted of area or anything?

There is a special place roped off for people with EAC's.

[polar vixen]

Phew!  That's a relief, thought I was going to have to rule it out completely!  Thank you!

[littlebitofpixiedust]

If you don't try you'll never know! I'd give it a whirl who knows you may meet some of your favourites?
We did if for the first time early October and met loads! Minnie,Minnie,Pluto,goofy,Ariel,Aladdin and jasmine, daisy,Donald,chip and dale, tigger, stitch probably more still I'd have to go through my photos. But of the top of my head that's what I can remember.
However it was extremely quiet when we visited for example crush coaster was never above 20mins que! Never seen this before. So maybe we were lucky as there was less crowds? Hope you enjoy your trip!

[Fluffymilly]

We went on friday and sunday and its a good place to guarantee meeting characters without having to queue. they start roping off all around the stage area only about 15 mins before the "parade" and it really makes no difference where you stand. There was only one actual car with Minnie in it and all the other characters walked! they stayed for about 15 minutes and typically you can get 4 autographs/photos in that time. We saw Emile, Remy,Rabbit from winnie the pooh, Genie, Gepetto, Pinochio, Jafar, Donald, Daisy, Woody, Lilo, Stitch, Minnie, Goofy, probably more but you get the idea! its hardly a spectacular parade but if you like to collect autographs/photos then its pretty painless! It's totally random where the characters choose to go and they dont manage to get very far round the circle of people but if you are lucky and fairly nimble then you can sometimes change your place in the circle if its not too busy!

[cazspence]

Does anyone know if there's any provision made for children with disabilities during this?  There's no way my boss with asd could cope with this,  a rooted of area or anything?

There is a special place roped off for people with EAC's.

Where? We never saw this and were not told of it when we got my eac. Only the area for dreams. We were only there a week and a half ago.

[polar vixen]

Yeah there wasn't one when we were there last week either