EndorExpress.net is your one-stop destination for everything Themed Entertainment.
Who are we?
With a team of eight international dedicated journalists, we bring news from all corners of the leisure and entertainment industry.
EndorExpress.net was started on August 31st, 2002 by Kris on Geocities as VLPS’ Star Tours Page. A tribute to the 1987 collaboration between Disney and George Lucas.
The site became popular quite fast, so the site moved to a series of different hosts, but was rapidly outgrowing each server. March 2003 Kris joined Belgian Star Wars collective BeJedi. Followed by our first editors, who joined the site.
A year later, July 2004, Kris joined the Rebelscum.com team, and the site got reincarnated as SWStarTours.net.
This proved to be a real accelerator as the site remained to grow each day, both in content as in visitors.
After this period of growth, it was time for the final rebranding, and EndorExpress.net was born.
Our main focus has been, and will be Star Tours. However, the story continued, with Indiana Jones, and other related properties. Thus we decided to cover everything that excites us in the current Themed Entertainment industry.
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Staff & Contributors
Kris Van de Sande
Founder, Editor-In-Chief & Photographer
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Being a Star Wars fan since the first seconds of a taped VHS copy ofThe Empire Strikes Back, Kris never lost much of his enthusiasm for the intergalactic saga. This continued when he learned his way on the internet. From the huge range of places, organisations and characters to pick in the saga, it was a tiny travel agency in the universe that got his attention and love.
That travel agency turned out to be Star Tours, the popular Disney Star Wars attraction. In 2002, he created a small Geocities website, that grew exponentially, and ultimately evolved in EndorExpress.Net, the premier source for Star Tours on the internet.
Kris works as an internationally published and award-winning freelance photographer in the entertainment and leisure industry.
Follow @krisvandesande
Follow @krisfrombelgium
Brian Curran
Managing Editor, Researcher & Photographer
Location: California, USA
A lifelong Star Wars and Disney fan. Brian grew up in California where his family would often make trips to Disneyland. In 1987 he took his first “Trip to Endor” and doesn’t pass on a chance to go back! Brian reported from Star Wars Celebration 4 in Los Angeles and most recently the D23 Expo in Anaheim for the site.
David Yeh
Senior Reporter & Photographer
Location: California, USA
As a long time fan of all things Disney as well as Lucasfilm, David found his second home at Disneyland: The Happiest Place on Earth, where both worlds could be found together in one place. He began contributing to the site as merely “the toy guy” as someone who collects, you guessed it, Disney and Star Wars collectibles.
His first major story for EndorExpress was an interview with Star Tours and Indiana Jones Adventure composer Richard Bellis. That experience led to interviews with Tom Fitzgerald and Marianne McLean of Walt Disney Imagineering and most recently composer Michael Giacchino.
The majority of the time David can be found covering the day-to-day activities at the Disneyland Resort in California.
Alex Newborn
Researcher & Editor
Location: Alabama, USA
Alex is a lifelong fan of the original Star Wars trilogy and everything Disney, so his obsession with Star Tours comes as no surprise. He wrote the Star Tours article in Star Wars Insider #104 (and the Star Wars Holiday Special in Insider #106)
Alex has visited Walt Disney World in Orlando once per decade of his life (70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s). He rode Star Tours twice on one fateful day in 1991 and rode it four more times in October 2007 with his wife and two sons. “Actually,” says Alex, “I spent so long in the queue videotaping everything, they rode it an additional time without me, so they almost caught up to my total.”
Alex turned 40 in January 2010, and reports that his family has already begun pestering him for the ‘fifth decade’ trip.
Alex is always looking for more rare Star Tours audio and video clips.
Paul Hruby
Senior Reporter
Location: California, USA
Paul has been obsessed with Star Wars ever since being dragged by a friend to see a new movie where “things blow up in space!” Since then, he has been collecting and customizing Star Wars figures and ships. His other love is Disneyland and he looks for any excuse to go. He enjoys the atmosphere and rides the parks is famous for. Finally, he enjoys weekend excursions to Endor but wishes that Disney would finally install an experienced pilot droid so he could actually GET to Endor for once.
Nick Parker
Reporter & Photographer
Location: Florida, USA
Been a fan since he was born, Nick grew up with the prequels and the clone wars, but HIS very first Star Wars movie is as Star Wars, before it was called A New Hope. He not only got to love Star Wars, but to LIVE it. Nick was opening team attractions at Walt Disney World for the Star Wars launch bay in Disney’s Hollywood Studios! He spent his shift battling with lightsabers or helping those join the resistance or the first order. A avid collector of black series and his favorite, the lightsabers.
Gary X
Reporter, Photographer
Location: Colorado, USA
Known to the rest of the civilized world as Gary Price, Gary X is one of the foremost collectors and experts on autographs from the Star Wars films. He is the founder of Wattographs.com, having splintered it off from the highly popular Autograph Central website in 2000. His Star Wars autograph expertise (and second-to-none rolodex of Star Wars actors) found Topps Trading Cards calling on him to help get the 25 signers for their Evolution card set. Gary X is also the author of the forthcoming Collecting the Autographs of Star Wars: A Reference Guide. He is also recognized as a “super collector” contributor to the Star Wars Super Collector’s Wish Book by Todd Carlson, providing autograph pricing and articles. Gary X handles most site content, celebrity signings and non-database-related programming. He resides in the Denver, Colorado area.
Contributors
Dennis Van Tiel
Web Designer
Dennis keeps EndorExpress running and optimised on all your devices.
Kit Molaison
Motion Designer
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Younger then the original Star Wars trilogy but regardless a huge fan, Kit Molaison got his first taste of Star wars from the Empire Strike Back NES game, from that he fell in love the movies, and began a massive collection of Star Wars memorobilia, he may possibly be the only perosn two have all three of the Star Wars Special Edition 600ML Pepsi bottles from 1996 still sealed! In 2000 Kit ventured to Disney World with his parents and blasted off for a trip to Endor, which began the love affair with Star Tours. When he went back home to Hoth, er Canada, Kit wanted to ride it again and again, and in the age before Youtube this was not possible by any sort. Finding an audio file of the ride he used his memory and various screenshots to make a flash cartoon version of the entire experience. At first the cartoon was crude but eventually his skills got better and the cartoon is almost shot for shot a perfect recreation of the ride (Well, as real as a cartoon can get anyhow) Kit lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with his wife and daughter, and has yet to return to a Disney Park for RX-24’s Wild Ride.
Disclaimer & Terms Of Use
Copyright
On this page you can find all legal info about endorexpress.net (http://www.endorexpress.net) formerly swstartours.net. First of all, this web site is neither affiliated with nor endorsed by The Walt Disney Company or Lucasfilm Ltd.
Now, what is copyright?
Copyright is a protection that covers published and unpublished literary, scientific and artistic works, whatever the form of expression, provided such works are fixed in a tangible or material form. This means that if you can see it, hear it and/or touch it – it may be protected. If it is an essay, if it is a play, if it is a song, if it is a funky original dance move, if it is a photograph, HTML coding or a computer graphic that can be set on paper, recorded on tape or saved to a hard drive, it may be protected. Copyright laws grant the creator the exclusive right to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute, perform and display the work publicly. Exclusive means only the creator of such work, not anybody who has access to it and decides to grab it.
Source: whatiscopyright.org/.
This means that everything that is shown on this site, is the property of its creator, which depends on what you are looking at. Because this is a so called “fan-site”, the entire site focuses on one subject, Star Tours! That makes it actually extra tricky, as that franchise is owned by both The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Money & Costs
Access to this web site is free and public. We are not making any money out of this service. EE.net is run by a small group of dedicated fans with a passion for Disney and Star Wars.
Links
All hyperlinks on the Link page and in the Site Partner section lead to other websites. We are in no way responsible for content posted on those sites. If you find anything inappropriate, please contact the crew.
Content
All the text is written by the crew of EE.net, unless noted differently. Hereby it is illegal by international copyright law to duplicate any content without any written permission from the crew. You can also contribute articles, news, pictures and more. For this you can contact the crew, and full credit will be given with the publication.
Images
All images on the site are the property of EE.net, unless noted otherwise. However, the things that we display belong to their respective owners, which in most case are The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm Ltd. Images are shown for entertainment and educational uses only. If you want to use one of our images, check out the Image Use Policy (below).
Please note that pictures and images found on this site might be yours. Mostly this comes from images sent in and added to the site under “Fair Use” policy. If you want credit, or want the pictures removed, please contact the crew.
Image Use Policy
We receive a lot of requests to use images and information from EE.net. Please be aware that the images are original, valuable to us and we reserve all rights. Free use is granted only under the following conditions and within the following limits.
If you want to display our images on your site, certain rules apply. First of all, a link is much more appreciated then just copying the image and displaying it on your site. If you however feel that using the image on your site is crucial, feel free to contact us.
If you mail us with your inquiry, please tell us following information:
- Site URL (The address of your website)
- Site Subject (What your site is about)
- Context (Why do you need our image)
- Image (What image you want to use)
We prefer that you post either a link or a thumbnail, linking to the EE.net image/gallery page. Use is limited to non-commercial sites only.
Privacy
No registration is needed to visit this website. We however may track cookies for statistics purposes. These are completely private and can’t be used to identify visitors.
Updating “TOU”
We reserve the right to change or remove this info at our discretion. If we decide to change our privacy policy we will post those changes here. We encourage you to visit this area frequently to stay informed.