Title: The Lost Files: D23 Expo
Description: A Jessiestudio Trip report
Description: A Jessiestudio Trip report
Jessiestudio - March 4, 2010 03:26 AM (GMT)
In honor of the D23 Birthday Party this Friday here is the first section of the D23 Expo coverage from last september. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed putting it together. So now lets begin.....
Day 1 - Wednesday
I hopped off the plane a Long Beach Airport, a personal favorite thanks to how you can hop off the plane right on the tarmac here. It was already fairly late so we, my dad and I, got our luggage and headed right for the Park Vue Inn.
(Not an actual picture of mine)
The hotel was certainly not the most luxurious hotel in the area but its prime location (55 seconds from the Esplanade!), free breakfast, and really reasonable rates made it a good choice for this trip. We unpacked and headed to bed, tomorrow Expo would open at eight for D23 Members and we wanted to be their nice and early...
Day 2 - Thursday
Ok, so we woke up Thursday bright and early hoping to be amongst the first few people into the Expo, boy were we in for a surprise. Apparently people got in line as early as 5 and we didn't even get to to the ACC until 7:30. luckily the ACC is set up to allow a large holding space outside of the main showroom floor so we were able to get our lovely wristbands and guides and then wait in line where it was fairly warm.
We got into Expo at around 8:15 and I was astounded at all the medium sized and heavily themed booths they had open along the entry side walls and all with a variety of purposes including selling discounted Expo Park Tickets, selling DVC timeshares, or designing scrapbooks online. Sorry no pictures of these :( .
We quickly purchased our tickets for the parks which were actually designed with the D23 logo and a picture of Baloo on them and then started looking around. We quickly found our way to the center area of the show room floor where a giant D23 welcome center greeted us along with a collection of smaller booths designed to look like hot air balloons, but each with a different company division being the focus here.
Looking at our time schedule we decided to head over and check out the line for Bob Iger's opening event in the arena which was on the opposite end of the showroom floor from where we had started. I had wanted to explore more of the expo but I'm glad that we went to check out the line because it was already huge! In traditional Disney zig-zag format the line wove it's way up and down the massive queue area and only 10 minutes after we got in line had already doubled in size! After waiting in line for what seemed like forever, we reached what we thought was the theater but not the case. It was actually just the holding room for the theater which Disney had turned into a Camera/I-pod/Cell phone/ and overall any electronic check in device where they collected anything you might be able to use to pirate their prized material. We checked in our devices and then were let into the theater.
The show was running a little late :whistle: but, we got in and sat down in almost the perfect seats that seemed to be the equivalent of the middle of the movie theaters. Iger opened the show with an intriguing opening speech and then surprised the audience with the first 1/3 of PatF. The movie was still in production so some of the scenes were not fully colored yet it was still breathtaking to see what to me is still the best part of the first film in what will hopefully be Disney's new renaissance. After tha Anika, the voice of Tiana, sang Down in New Orleans, both parts, live on stage which was nothing short of astounding especially considering she had been suffering from bronchitis and her voice still sounded flawless.
Iger then closed out the speech with one more surprise, a stay in the Dream Suite! One lucky guest who had obviously been in line amazingly early seeing as he was seated in the very limited floor seating, won the stay and it was touching to see that his father had actually worked at Disneyland prior as a sweep when he was a young man. Then there was an intermission and then the Disney Legends ceremony took place. It was cool to see all the character voices come up and accept their speeches with the full costumed characters right next to them, Iger and Tom B. from DWTS MC'd the even and I must say they were both fantastic at the job.
It took them seemingly forever to hand back our electronics and after that we hurriedly ran up to catch the next show we wanted to see, the Beauty and the Beast Panel. Now I'm not sure if you all knew this or not but the expo was not just one big show room and an arena on the side It actually spanned three whole floors of the ACC with all its exhibits and the Panel was in the WD Studios Theater located conveniently on the third floor....
On escalator down one more left to go.
We got to the event with plenty of time to spare and got to pass by an “actual animator” from PATF drawing some amazing sketches and were also given some PatF “voodoo cards”, which are now available on the Disney Movie Rewards, on the way over.
The Panel itself was really cool it involved some noteworthy animators, directors, and Paige O'Hara
the voice of Bell Herself. Some highlights of the even were a discussion over the Beast's rainbow bottom and his name which I ended up forgetting by the end of the day when I went to write it down, but apparently nobody else did either as I can not seem to find it anywhere online! Oh and how could I forget getting to see the “Bell” Sequence in 3-D as part of a preview of B&B's upcoming 3-D release.
Next up? A Little showroom floor browsing before the ABC's of Disney began at 3:00,
Consumer Products: Toys!
Disney Store:
A Whole new spin on Playhouse Disney:
After browsing the toys section for a little while we got in line for the ABC's of Disney which were also hosted by Tom B. Some highlights of the event were seeing Courtney Cox and 3 of the stars from ABC's “new” comedy line up talk to the audience, Tom, and each other all about their new shows Cougar Town, Modern Family, The Middle, and Hank, seeing the future dancing with the stars champion perform a special D23 members only Dance, and watching Derek and Cheryl dance together in a carefully choreographed routine that had to fit on the awkwardly shaped D23 Arena Stage.
The showroom closed at 5 and it was already passed 4 by the time we got let out. Itching to use our Park passes and trying to beat the floodgates of people that we were concerned would arrive after the showroom closed we headed over for our first night of the trip at the parks.
Having just been to the AAC the April/May before for the ICDC I decided that the fastest and most enjoyable way to get to the parks after any even in that area was to cross Katella and enter DCA through DGC a resort that I had been itching to show my Dad since he had never been inside it before. I will post some pictures of the Resort in a Different Post later. Once inside the park we made a B-line for my Dad's favorite attraction, Soarin' Over California. Then a quick ride on GRR!
And then over to Disneyland park to avoid the closing rush. We then made the fatal mistake of riding Splash Mountain, which normally wouldn't have been a bad thing except for my dad forgot he had his phone in his pocket and it got soaking wet. He tried it off and it seemed fine but little did we know that it certainly wasn't. Here's just a few shots from around the park that afternoon/night.
After the park closed at the early off season time we decided to walk down through Dowtown Disney and then Through DGC to get to the Target and pick up some snacks to eat.
We then grabbed a bite to eat at the Coco's another personal favorite of ours, Cinnamon Roll French toast = Yum! Nice and stuffed and loaded down with groceries we headed back to hour hotel and tried to get some sleep.
*Note: Some of these pictures were taken at moments later then posted but have been posted as an earlier or later section so as to relate to the moment when they played the most significance and because others I don't remember when I took them...
Day 1 - Wednesday
I hopped off the plane a Long Beach Airport, a personal favorite thanks to how you can hop off the plane right on the tarmac here. It was already fairly late so we, my dad and I, got our luggage and headed right for the Park Vue Inn.
(Not an actual picture of mine)
The hotel was certainly not the most luxurious hotel in the area but its prime location (55 seconds from the Esplanade!), free breakfast, and really reasonable rates made it a good choice for this trip. We unpacked and headed to bed, tomorrow Expo would open at eight for D23 Members and we wanted to be their nice and early...
Day 2 - Thursday
Ok, so we woke up Thursday bright and early hoping to be amongst the first few people into the Expo, boy were we in for a surprise. Apparently people got in line as early as 5 and we didn't even get to to the ACC until 7:30. luckily the ACC is set up to allow a large holding space outside of the main showroom floor so we were able to get our lovely wristbands and guides and then wait in line where it was fairly warm.
We got into Expo at around 8:15 and I was astounded at all the medium sized and heavily themed booths they had open along the entry side walls and all with a variety of purposes including selling discounted Expo Park Tickets, selling DVC timeshares, or designing scrapbooks online. Sorry no pictures of these :( .
We quickly purchased our tickets for the parks which were actually designed with the D23 logo and a picture of Baloo on them and then started looking around. We quickly found our way to the center area of the show room floor where a giant D23 welcome center greeted us along with a collection of smaller booths designed to look like hot air balloons, but each with a different company division being the focus here.
Looking at our time schedule we decided to head over and check out the line for Bob Iger's opening event in the arena which was on the opposite end of the showroom floor from where we had started. I had wanted to explore more of the expo but I'm glad that we went to check out the line because it was already huge! In traditional Disney zig-zag format the line wove it's way up and down the massive queue area and only 10 minutes after we got in line had already doubled in size! After waiting in line for what seemed like forever, we reached what we thought was the theater but not the case. It was actually just the holding room for the theater which Disney had turned into a Camera/I-pod/Cell phone/ and overall any electronic check in device where they collected anything you might be able to use to pirate their prized material. We checked in our devices and then were let into the theater.
The show was running a little late :whistle: but, we got in and sat down in almost the perfect seats that seemed to be the equivalent of the middle of the movie theaters. Iger opened the show with an intriguing opening speech and then surprised the audience with the first 1/3 of PatF. The movie was still in production so some of the scenes were not fully colored yet it was still breathtaking to see what to me is still the best part of the first film in what will hopefully be Disney's new renaissance. After tha Anika, the voice of Tiana, sang Down in New Orleans, both parts, live on stage which was nothing short of astounding especially considering she had been suffering from bronchitis and her voice still sounded flawless.
Iger then closed out the speech with one more surprise, a stay in the Dream Suite! One lucky guest who had obviously been in line amazingly early seeing as he was seated in the very limited floor seating, won the stay and it was touching to see that his father had actually worked at Disneyland prior as a sweep when he was a young man. Then there was an intermission and then the Disney Legends ceremony took place. It was cool to see all the character voices come up and accept their speeches with the full costumed characters right next to them, Iger and Tom B. from DWTS MC'd the even and I must say they were both fantastic at the job.
It took them seemingly forever to hand back our electronics and after that we hurriedly ran up to catch the next show we wanted to see, the Beauty and the Beast Panel. Now I'm not sure if you all knew this or not but the expo was not just one big show room and an arena on the side It actually spanned three whole floors of the ACC with all its exhibits and the Panel was in the WD Studios Theater located conveniently on the third floor....
On escalator down one more left to go.
We got to the event with plenty of time to spare and got to pass by an “actual animator” from PATF drawing some amazing sketches and were also given some PatF “voodoo cards”, which are now available on the Disney Movie Rewards, on the way over.
The Panel itself was really cool it involved some noteworthy animators, directors, and Paige O'Hara
the voice of Bell Herself. Some highlights of the even were a discussion over the Beast's rainbow bottom and his name which I ended up forgetting by the end of the day when I went to write it down, but apparently nobody else did either as I can not seem to find it anywhere online! Oh and how could I forget getting to see the “Bell” Sequence in 3-D as part of a preview of B&B's upcoming 3-D release.
Next up? A Little showroom floor browsing before the ABC's of Disney began at 3:00,
Consumer Products: Toys!
Disney Store:
A Whole new spin on Playhouse Disney:
After browsing the toys section for a little while we got in line for the ABC's of Disney which were also hosted by Tom B. Some highlights of the event were seeing Courtney Cox and 3 of the stars from ABC's “new” comedy line up talk to the audience, Tom, and each other all about their new shows Cougar Town, Modern Family, The Middle, and Hank, seeing the future dancing with the stars champion perform a special D23 members only Dance, and watching Derek and Cheryl dance together in a carefully choreographed routine that had to fit on the awkwardly shaped D23 Arena Stage.
The showroom closed at 5 and it was already passed 4 by the time we got let out. Itching to use our Park passes and trying to beat the floodgates of people that we were concerned would arrive after the showroom closed we headed over for our first night of the trip at the parks.
Having just been to the AAC the April/May before for the ICDC I decided that the fastest and most enjoyable way to get to the parks after any even in that area was to cross Katella and enter DCA through DGC a resort that I had been itching to show my Dad since he had never been inside it before. I will post some pictures of the Resort in a Different Post later. Once inside the park we made a B-line for my Dad's favorite attraction, Soarin' Over California. Then a quick ride on GRR!
And then over to Disneyland park to avoid the closing rush. We then made the fatal mistake of riding Splash Mountain, which normally wouldn't have been a bad thing except for my dad forgot he had his phone in his pocket and it got soaking wet. He tried it off and it seemed fine but little did we know that it certainly wasn't. Here's just a few shots from around the park that afternoon/night.
After the park closed at the early off season time we decided to walk down through Dowtown Disney and then Through DGC to get to the Target and pick up some snacks to eat.
We then grabbed a bite to eat at the Coco's another personal favorite of ours, Cinnamon Roll French toast = Yum! Nice and stuffed and loaded down with groceries we headed back to hour hotel and tried to get some sleep.
*Note: Some of these pictures were taken at moments later then posted but have been posted as an earlier or later section so as to relate to the moment when they played the most significance and because others I don't remember when I took them...
Jessiestudio - March 4, 2010 03:27 AM (GMT)
Reserved for Friday
Jessiestudio - March 4, 2010 03:32 AM (GMT)
Reserved for Saturday
Jessiestudio - March 4, 2010 03:36 AM (GMT)
Sunday (Monday will be located in a DL Trip report seeing as Expo was already over and the day was only spend at DL park.)
VirtualMouse - March 4, 2010 08:28 AM (GMT)
Awesome! Can't wait to see more!
LadyDooley - March 4, 2010 02:19 PM (GMT)
aww, these pictures sooooo make me want to be there!!! All the cold weather hear and snow!!!
DISNEY TAKE ME AWAY!!!!
now show me more!!! :pixiedust:
DISNEY TAKE ME AWAY!!!!
now show me more!!! :pixiedust:
Doug - March 4, 2010 04:16 PM (GMT)
Very cool pics and nice trip report too! Can't wait to see more!
Jennings - March 4, 2010 04:19 PM (GMT)
Great report thus far, dude!
Keep it up! :yahoo:
Keep it up! :yahoo:
Jessiestudio - March 5, 2010 07:36 AM (GMT)
Thanks guys!! I'm at DECA State until Saturday, but i should be able to get the next day or two up by Sunday.
Scorsese - March 5, 2010 06:45 PM (GMT)
Great report, keep it coming! :D