68 Soap Stars, 2 Theme Parks, and Thousands Trying for Autographs

A Super Soap set- up in front of the Chinese Theater at Disney- MGM

Universal Orlando countered back this year with its own NBC Soap FanFest. The Soap Fans at Islands of Adventure were just as avid at wanting to get the autographs of their Soap Stars. Islands of Adventure had an impressive turn out for their first year. Disney- MGM Studios had enough of a turn out to close the parking lot for a while.

ABC's soaps include: One Life to Life , Port Charles , General Hospital and All My Children . NBC has two Soap Operas: Days of our Lives and Passions . The Super Soap Weekend included 32 stars from ABCs four soaps, while the Soap FanFest includes 36 stars from the two NBC soaps.

Queue in Port of Entry area at Universal's Islands of Adventure

Autographs and pictures are definitely the key to these weekends. The fans are willing to wait long times to guarantee they accomplish their missions. In most cases, a one hour wait was the minimum amount of time that fan was going to have to wait and some were willing to wait as long as three hours.

Queue around Disney- MGM's Echo Lake for signings

The two parks did a good job of doing many similar things, but they also did some unique things. A fan in either park had two chances each day to get a star's autograph. Disney- MGM Studios set up 14 different spots for autograph signing, while Islands of Adventure had one in each Island for a total of seven (that includes one for Port of Entry and one special signing at the Toon Extra Store set up for signing specific merchandise only).

New York Street signing area at Disney- MGM

The 14 spots at the Super Soap Weekend meant that each Soap star had a session all by themselves, giving more fans the opportunity to get an individual autograph. At the Soap FanFest, the sessions ranged from a single Soap star up to four Soap stars signing during the same time. This gave fans an opportunity to garner more autographs in a shorter amount of time.

Juliet Mills, Jesse Metcalfe, Molly Stanton from Passions

Theme Park fans need not despair, during these time weekends, though they are crowded in one sense, the attractions themselves do not get the majority of the visitors, so in one sense, it is a great time to go to the parks for the rides and attractions. Islands of Adventure, though, I'm sure the crowd wasn't as great as at Disney- MGM Studios, did seem to incorporate the crowd much easier than Disney- MGM Studios.

Peter Reckell and Melissa Reeves from Days of our Lives

Each of the Theme Parks also had a "talk show" featuring the stars. Super Soap Weekend had their ABC Super Soap Talk Show in the ABC TV Theater (home of the Doug Show in the Disney- MGM Studios) and Soap FanFest had theirs in the Toon Amphitheater in Toon Lagoon. The Soap FanFest version was a "live" version of Access Hollywood . This gave the fans a time to learn more about the stars and to see more of them in a single setting.

Q&A session in Toon Amphitheater at Universal's Islands of Adventure

For a non- Soap Disney fan like me, I just go to see whom all I can see and to gather the photos that are available. Getting an autograph or standing in line for photographs doesn't interest me. But I must say that this year, I did take a camera with me, and that was fun to see what kind of photographs I could take.

McKenzie Westmore from Passions

Islands of Adventure set up the queues and signing tables with a space with photographers in mind, so it was usually easier to get an up close photo with as little interference as possible. The logistics of the same at Disney- MGM Studios didn't always easily allow for it, but there were spots - intentional or not.

James DePaiva from One Life to Live

I really felt sorry for the stars, having to constantly deal with the yells from the crowd. Those taking pictures were constantly yelling their names trying to get them to look that way. You could tell that it didn't really bother the stars and that they seemed use to it, but when you sat back and just looked at the situation as a whole, it was funny what the crowd would do, but the stars constantly acted professionally.

Linda Dano from One Life to Live

Linda Dano, currently on ABC's One Life to Live, really showed class when I went up to take a picture. This particular spot for the Super Soap Weekend had a great vantage spot to take photos. I easily got up front after waiting my turn. And almost like clockwork, without any encouragement from me, she smiled right into my camera as soon as I lifted my camera up to my eye. Funny, I wasn't really ready yet, since I hadn't seen what it looked like through my viewfinder yet, but since she gave me the pose without any encouragement, I snapped the picture. It actually turned out quite good for a night shot.

Nancy Lee Grahn from General Hospital

Since I like to gather the pictures that they hand out, I really liked how the Soap FanFest at Islands of Adventure accomplished it all this year. They had a place available starting in the late afternoon where you could go and get them all. Not only did they have this set up, but they actually informed their employees this was going to happen and allowed the guests to know this fact. This has been a major pet peeve of mine for the Super Soap Weekends at Disney- MGM Studios. Disney's information controlling attitude makes it hard to find out if they are going to do it at all, not alone when and where they are going to do it. For some reason, after making it extremely easy for the past three years, if not all four prior years, Disney decided not to hand them out in a mass collection this year.

NBC Soap FanFest

Passions Stars:
Juliet Mills
Molly Stanton
Jesse Metcalfe
Kim Johnston Ulrich
James Hude
Tracey Ross
Rodney Van Johnson
Eva Tamargo Lemus
Ben Masters
McKenzie Westmore
Galen Gerin
Lindsay Korman
Travis Schuldt
Brook Kerr
Donn Swaby

Days of Our Lives Stars:
Matt Cedeno
Alison Sweeney
Bryan Dattilo
Arianne Zucker
Austin Peck
Julianne Morris
Lauren Koslow
Drake Hogestyn
Deidre Hall
Kevin Spirtas
Patrika Darbo
Kristian Alfonso
Peter Reckell
Joe Mascolo
James Reynolds
Renee Jones
Melissa Reeves
Jay Johnson
Kirsten Storms
Jason Cook
Nadia Bjorlin

Super Soap Weekend

All My Children Stars:
Mark Consuelos
Kelly Ripa
John Callahan
Cameron Mathison
Esta TerBlanche
Michael E Knight
Rebecca Budig
Josh Duhamel
Susan Lucci

One Life to Live Stars:
Catherine Hickland
Kamar de los Reyes
Erika Page
David Fumero
Erin Torpey
Jason-Shane Scott
Kassie DePaiva
James DePaiva
Linda Dano
Hillary B Smith

Port Charles Stars:
Lynn Herring
Jon Linstrom
Julie Pinson
Thorsten Kaye

General Hospital Stars:
Rebecca Herbst
Jacob Young
Coltin Scott
Wally Kurth
Nancy Lee Grahn
John Ingle
Sarah Brown
Jacklyn Zeman
A Martinez

All photos taken by Kenny Cottrell

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