So Long, Star Tours

Star Tours, the Star Wars-themed ride at Disneyland just closed as the attraction goes through a renovation that will take a couple of years.  One of the engineers give his recollection of designing the ride here.  I'm old enough to remember when the "Better Living Though Chemistry" ride from Monsanto was first installed in that location when Tomorrowland was remodeled in 1967.

Star Tours was always fun for the kids to ride - they are both big fans of the movies, and one of our most exciting moments at Disneyland involved that ride.  In 1997 we were there one Friday night with the family and the kids wanted to ride Star Tours.  My wife and I decided to stay outside and wait for them to finish.  They were about 9 and 6 at the time, and I reminded them that they'd come out in the store and from there they'd need to turn left and come out to where we were sitting.

It was a busy night in the park and we waited and waited but the kids didn't show up.  I finally went to the entrance to see how long the line was and found it was only about 15 minutes and they should have been out quite awhile ago.  Where'd they go?   My wife had all kinds of terrible thoughts going through her mind, but having worked there I knew the urban legends about kids being kidnapped were unfounded.

I started checking around, couldn't find them, and went back to the ride operator and asked her to call Lost Children.  Sure enough, that's where they were.

They had come out of the ride but in the crush of people had missed us.  Fortunately, my daughter had the presence of mind to find a security guy and tell him their problem.  He took them over to Lost Children where they hung out for about 20 minutes until we found them.

So, while many people will remember their thrilling journey to Endor, I'll remember frantically looking around trying to find my kids, and the look of relief on my son's face when his parents found him.