Can't Think of a Clever Title but we went to the D23 Expo!!! UPDATE 10/16 Final Thoughts

Great pics :thumbsup2
We will be there in DL in Jan 18 & was looking forward to TOT.:sad: Its one of my daughters fav rides! Have they changed the ride completely?

Wouldve loved to been there at the D23 Expo...my daughter loves the descendants.
 
So anyway...the Animation Panel.

I'm going to include pictures here. Our phones were all safely in their crinkle bags so these are all pictures I've found on the internet and then stolen.

So we get our seats and Alan Horn comes out. He's not very charismatic and was pretty boring and unmemorable. Then Lasseter comes out, and do you think he's going to be boring? Nope he has some assistants and a freaking t-shirt cannon. Everyone stands up and starts losing their minds. He's firing off t-shirts and all of a sudden my section extra freaks. I figure there has got to be a t-shirt coming our way but hell if I can see anything (I'm short). Brian actually ended up catching one! He is a good boyfriend so he promptly handed it over to me.

This was the picture I took out in the hall after the panel was over:

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And a picture of what was on the shirt:

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While I was unrolling the shirt I had a crazy hope that maybe Lasseter had signed the shirt since he only shot out about 6, but no such luck. Still very neat though.


Back to the panel.

We started out with images to a previously unannounced Disneytoon Studios' movie:

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The crowd reaction seemed pretty impressed by the animation, and I was too. It looked very real. The movie is going to be about the future of aviation. At the end of footage we see the plane going into the edge of space. At that point we see that the plane has eyes (like the vehicles in the Cars and Planes franchises). I swear you can hear the excitement go out of the crowd. Now, not me because I really loved the first Cars. But yeah, the audience was really into this until they showed that the planes have eyes. I'm still excited about it, the animation was gorgeous. This one should be in theaters April 2019.

Aside: my stupid fit bit kept flashing the screen on whenever I clapped. I was freaking out that the roving guards with night vision goggles roaming up and down the aisles were going to think it was a phone so I quickly took it off and stuffed it into my bag.

Next up it's time for Frozen 2! Lasseter did a very funny bit about all the names that Frozen 2 will not be using. Such as Melted and lots of other funny names. He said they don't have a name yet and then he introduced Kristen Bell to talk about the new Christmas short Olaf's Frozen Adventure.

Kristen came out and said she was just going to show us one of the songs. The clip started to play and then all the sound promptly cut out. They had me going for a little while, but after a few seconds Kristen was like well, we don't seem to have sound so why don't we just bring out Josh Gad to sing Olaf's part.

This was very exciting for me, I've loved Josh Gad since Book of Mormon. He was sooo good live and the song was hilarious. It made me excited for the short, which I was not before.

After the song there was a bit of riffing back and forth between Gad and Bell about how Gad was a little confused about Bell because her name made it sound like she should have been in the Beauty and the Beast live action with him but he doesn't really remember her being there...

Gad was getting all the good ribs in, he also pointed out that the new short is called 'Olaf's Frozen Adventure', not 'Anna's Frozen Adventure'.

The songs for this 21 minute short are not written by the same song writing team as the movie, Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson wrote them. I think the songs will be good because I really enjoyed the song we got to hear from Gad. There were tons of little snide/innocent remarks from Olaf. Like when he was singing about hanging socks by the fireplace he says oooh, that sounds safe.

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They announced that Frozen 2 will be released in November 2019. Little aside, I still remember watching the original Frozen on it's release weekend. It was snowing (how ironic) and there were only a few of us in the theater. That changed.

I believe the show stopping Wreck It Ralph 2 was next up. I'm pretty sure it has a great title 'Ralph breaks the internet', because the clip they showed kind of already broke the internet. Directors Moore and Johnston came out and introduced Sarah Silverman, who voices Vanellope. I'm kind of shocked Sarah Silverman did a Disney event like this, let's just say she usually does not have the most appropriate mouth but she kept it clean here.

She introduced a clip that shows her and Ralph traveling through the internet. They meet up with a character called Yeeees (yes) who I already know is going to majorly annoy me). They traveled to the 'Oh My Disney' hub (head, meet hammer). Then the most incredible clip happens where Vanellope sees Disney princesses parading by and she wants to go 'mess with them'. She sneaks away from Yeees and Ralph and breaks in. She quickly realizes that she doesn't want to mess with them, she wants to be included.

Chaos ensued in the audience.

If anyone was outraged, I couldn't tell over the gales and snorts of laughter. People could not keep it together. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some bladder accidents.

There were so many jokes in here, I could not believe this was a Disney sponsored thing. So self aware and hilarious. This was one of the highlights of the panel.

After the panel, they said they had a fun fact for us and said that all of the princesses' original voices had returned (which obviously isn't true as I don't think the voices of Snow, Cinder and Aurora are alive, but they didn't mention that. Would have been a downer).

They announced Elsa would be voiced be Idina Menzel, Mulan by Ming Na Wen, then Anna as Kristen, so she came out to wave at us again. She took over and said Paige O'Hara will be voicing Belle again, so surprise surprise, Paige walks out. She then introduces Jodie Benson as Ariel and it went on and on while the audience lost it.

(Here, I stole the names from a different blog and am copying and pasting them here:

Auli‘i Cravalho (“Moana”), Kristen Bell (Anna in “Frozen”), Kelly MacDonald (Merida in “Brave”), Mandy Moore (Rapunzel in “Tangled”), Anika Noni Rose (Tiana in “The Princess and the Frog”), Irene Bedard (“Pocahontas”), Linda Larkin (Jasmine in “Aladdin”), Paige O’Hara (Belle in “Beauty and the Beast”) and Jodi Benson (Ariel in “The Little Mermaid”))

I'm kind of thinking they should have ended with this presentation, the audience was at such a fever pitch. Maybe a good thing they didn't though, the audience was at such a fevered pitch we probably would have all stormed out of there and burned some couches on the expo floor (I lived in a big college town, burning couches is just what excited people do, right? It's normal).

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That's one lucky snowman.

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Aside: during all the clapping and cheering I was still tightly clutching my Lasseter t-shirt. No way was I letting go of that for a few hours.

Next we talked about Toy Story 4, which I'm really not all that excited about. I felt Toy Story 3 was just the perfect ending to the story. I trust Lasseter, but, I mean, Pixar did give us Cars 2. Let's not mess up the Toy Story movies, ok?



Josh Cooley, who directed the short Riley's First Date took the stage. Lasseter let us know that he was no longer going to co-direct with Cooley, Cooley was taking the director reins completely. This announcement was met with some lackluster clapping so as not to hurt Cooley's feelings. I mean, come on Lasseter, no one is going to cheer the fact that you're having less involvement with anything.

We were then showed a pretty funny behind the scenes look of what goes in day to day life at the Pixar studios. Sigh, why can't I work there?

Toy Story 4 will be released on June 21, 2019.

Next up was the Incredibles 2. If audience reaction was any indication, this is the upcoming movie people are most excited for.

We got to see a short (which I believe is on the internet now) about Edna Mode and her contributions to the fashion scene. Lots of famous people were filmed for the short like Heidi Klum, Kendall Jenner, Zac Posen and Rachel Zoe. It reminded me of Zoolander. But most things do.

Then the voice of Edna, Brad Bird (he also happens to be directing Incredibles 2) came out on stage. He then introduced Mr. and Mrs. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter), Violet (Sarah Vowell), Dash (newcomer Huck Milner) and Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson). Once again, Samuel L is another one I'm shocked came out to a live Disney event. Good thing no snakes showed up. Dash did get a voice change since they wanted a young boy to continue to voice him.

Brad Bird revealed that this movie would focus on Elastigirl. With that being said, we were treated to a clip of Bob staying home with baby Jack Jack. It was a pretty funny clip where Jack Jack fights off a thieving raccoon. I enjoyed the clip, but I also don't know where they are going with Jack Jack since they revealed that he has pretty much every super power in the book. He'll never be able to grow up on screen because he'll be unstoppable.

Next up was something I was excited to hear about, a brand new original Pixar film! Dan Scanlon came on stage, he directed Monster's University.

Scanlon told a touching story about him and his brother. They lost their father at a very young age and they never even knew what his voice sounded like until an aunt found a recording with their father saying hi and bye. This inspired him to create this new film.

The untitled film is set in a suburban fantasy environment. So basically, characters like you would see in Lord of the Rings or any true fantasy movie like trolls, orcs, elves and even unicorns! We saw some concept art of unicorns eating out of trash cans. They are this society's rats/scavengers and are everywhere and a nuisance. These creatures used to practice magic a very long time ago. But magic was hard. Slowly magic started to die out as technological advances replaced them. So their world is kind of likes ours in that they have cars and washing machines. They just live in giant mushrooms instead of our boring houses. So our 2 main characters are brothers, they also lost their father at a young age and they begin to rediscover magic as they set out to spend one day with him.

Now, afterwards I was shocked to hear a lot of people on the internet laughing about this concept and making fun of it. I think it sounds tremendous and you know what, you guys weren't there so I don't value your opinion, you didn't see/hear the pitch. I am very excited for this movie. The best Pixar movies are the ones who have a lot of heart and emotion behind this. I don't think this one will disappoint.

Now it's time for our show stopper: Coco.

This movie seems to be getting lackluster enthusiasm (hence the inclusion of the Frozen Christmas short to be played before it), but I am very excited.

Director Lee Unkrich introduced a lengthy clip from the movie. We were then treated to a great performance. Anthony Gonzalez, who voices Miguel, the little boy in the movie came out to sing 'Remember Me' which was written by the Frozen song writing team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. After he sang a few lines Benjamin Bratt, the voice of Ernesto de la Cruz, joined him on stage to continue the song.



Then dancers came out on stage.

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Then they started coming up all the aisles and orange confetti (made to look like the bridge to the underworld in the movie) started to fall.

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I thought it was pretty epic. Once the song ended we all started to file out and were treated to a Coco poster on our way out the door.

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If anyone is interested in this poster, we have 2 and we will never put up 2. So let me know. You'd have to pay shipping, of course. I love the poster.



So anyway...that wraps up the Animation panel. I'll go ahead and say here that it was my favorite of the large panels (Legends, Live Action, Parks and Resorts). I loved a lot of the smaller panels I saw but they were epic in different ways. This panel just had so much energy and I'm so glad we got in.

Next up I'm going to do a short post to wrap up Day 1. We still had one more panel and another shopping experience to get through! I will say now, there was no recording allowed in our next panel so you probably haven't heard much about it!
 
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Great pics :thumbsup2
We will be there in DL in Jan 18 & was looking forward to TOT.:sad: Its one of my daughters fav rides! Have they changed the ride completely?

Wouldve loved to been there at the D23 Expo...my daughter loves the descendants.

Hmm, TOT. The outside looks the same, it just got an aesthetic change and has some sci - fi looking pipes and decorations added. The lay out inside is exactly the same. The lobby is now the collector's lobby and has all those display cases I posted pictures of. There are still separate pre-show rooms like before. In the pre-show room, make sure you are not standing next to the door that lets you into the next queue. We did that the first time and you cannot see the Rocket animatronic very well. Try to stand where you enter the room.

The actual ride has been changed for the better, at least in my opinion. The DL version had just one ride drop sequence, whereas WDW's was randomized.

I actually enjoy the ride itself better at DL now. The drop sequence is randomized and during the ride you get to stop and watch scenes of the Guardians. It is longer than it was before. There are way more drops. And there are also randomized high energy songs that play during the ride.

So, I'm not sure if your daughter will like it more, but I definitely thought it was a lot more fun than the old one.



Aw man, hopefully next time I'm there myself. I'm thinking about a 2019 expo trip.

You definitely should, you would have loved it. I'm already counting the days until the next one. I'll be there.
 
The animation panel looks awesome! That is a really cool shirt your BF caught.

I can't wait for Wreck it Ralph 2 and Incredibles 2. I am also excited for Coco. I think it will be a sleeper. The animation in it looks stunning.
 
We were all on a high from the Animation panel. Most of the group decided to split up and go our separate ways. 3 of the group from the ABD went off to walk the show floor. Stephanie went trotting off to do our shopping at the Disney store. The other 4 of us decided to go down the hall and get in line for the Park Stars panel. We arrived just as the previous panel was loading so we ended up being the third group in line. I don't think we actually even thought to check the Gold line, or maybe it didn't have one. I don't remember.

Along the way I saw another of my favorite costumes:

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Speaking of costumes, we didn't attend the Mousequarade costume contest that went on earlier, but I did see a picture of the winning costumes:

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We got our spot and Brian and another guy went off to search for food and walk the show floor. Stephanie soon live messaged the group and started to show us what was left in the Disney store. There actually was not a lot. She said a lot of the shelves were bare. A cm in the store was very amused at her showing us the store and had to wave at us. I ended up not really wanting anything that was in there. Stephanie got some lithographs, the other couple in our group got some Star Wars cantina Dobz and stormtrooper tsum tsums and the other members of our group who had split off also wanted a stormtrooper tsum tsum set.

Everyone soon came back up and joined the group. Brian found us a decent, but over priced deli sandwich to share for dinner. It was a really good thing we'd got in the standby line early, because after the Sorcerers, stage pass and gold members went in there was very little space left. I felt really bad because we had a full room of people in the standby queue and even more outside. There were a lot of people wearing head to toe Figment gear.

I doubt any more than 5 lines were able to get in and get seats. So it was very lucky that we'd lined up early. I think this panel was in one of the smallest panel rooms. We were not allowed to record or take pictures. Even though I did take one picture before they announced that:

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The panel was pretty interesting, there were 2 story imagineers there and they started off with a joke about the panel not being about Park Starz the vinyl collectibles.

They talked about all the different park original characters' roles in their attractions and how the story would suffer if there were no original characters.

They talked about a lot of POTC characters and the roles they played in the story. My favorite was the skeleton pirate steering the boat, he was labeled as I believe the 'workaholic'. The pirate wearing all the hats was the over achiever. Surprisingly enough they did not mention the redhead, even though I think she is the most popular POTC character.

They spoke a lot about the Food Rocks characters at Epcot, I think they were one of the imagineers' favorites.

They also pointed out something I had never noticed, which was that the mom, dad and dog from Carousel of Progress were in a futuristic scene of World or Motion. The imagineer talked about how he saw that as a little boy and was so impressed that the COP family made it into the future.


They spent a decent amount of time talking about characters in overseas parks like Chandu and Duffy and his entourage.


We talked about Sonny Eclipse, Figment, Orange Bird and had a phone call from the bird in Miss Adventure Falls. That went on for a bit longer than it could have, and I wonder if they were just trying to promote him because he was the newest original in park character.


It was really interesting and they ended up doing some trivia and prize giveaways at the end, but you had to have a raffle ticket and those were never handed out to the stand by line.


At that point the convention was closed for the day. We slowly walked out and our group split up. Stephanie was headed out to meet other friends for drinks but Brian and I knew we'd have a very early morning for the Live action panel the next day so we got into bed and ordered a pizza.

One of Stephanie's friends had visited the Disney Dream store and got the rest of us who wanted them a D23 droid:

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So just as a wrap up:


What we actually ended up doing


9 am MOG store

9 am store pass for Disney store

10 am line at Disney Music Emporium for wrist bands for Moana and Giacchino signings

11 am-4:30 Animation line and panel

4:30-7 Park Stars line and panel


So obviously, not near the amount of stuff I had on my original list, but we still got an awful lot done. I was pretty pleased. I'd crossed my must do store off the list, we'd seen the Animation panel which was so much fun. I did enjoy the Park Stars panel, but it would end up being down near the bottom of the list for panels. It was interesting and fun, it just didn't have near the amount of epic moments that the other panels did.

The end of day one was just the beginning. Saturday was going to bring many ups and downs.
 
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Saturday

2 hours and 41 minutes of sleep


Arrival time: 3:10 am




I fell asleep around 9, but then Stephanie came back around 11 and woke me up and then I couldn't fall back asleep for a long time because I was too excited.

We wanted to get there by 3:30 am. However, I woke up a little before 2 and checked my phone. I had received a text from one of our friends who we were going to meet up with for the Live Action panel. He said that he'd been reading social media and it sounded like the line was almost capped and that we needed to go immediately.

I leaped out of bed, flipped on the light and shouted 'The line is going to be capped we need to go NOW!'. To the other's credit, they both jumped out of bed and chaos reigned for the next 10 minutes as we all got ready and made sure our bags were packed. We practically jogged from the room and were approaching the convention center just as we saw our friends come out of the Hilton.

We made it inside the doors and were at the security line by 3:10.

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If you arrive early enough the security is inside, if you arrive later the security lines are outdoors.

I forgot to mention on my report from Friday, when you entered you could pick up a program and a complimentary bag.

The cute front:

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and ugly advertising back:

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These were just piled up and you could take one as you walk by. With anything that is given and not supervised, I'm pretty sure people just took handfuls of these bags because I believe they ended up running out and not everyone got one.

We made it through security and headed downstairs to the basement. There was the line up for the floor, then there were three sections for the Live Action panel, A B and C. B is the middle section and it was already full. All the gold spaces were filled so we had our choice of A or C. We decided to go down to C and spread out and got our space in line. This is where the minimalist camping mattress really came in handy. Instead of sitting on the cold ground we got to sit on the mattress. I also had my Donald cape blanket with me and that was much needed as it was freezing down there.

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Some of the rest of the waiting area:

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Space camp:

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Here was Saturday's schedule:

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Initial Wants Before Arrival

10:30-12:30: Live Action Panel
12:45-1:45: Signing Jeremy Fulton (Disney artist)
1:30-1:45 pm: Signing Ashley Eckstein (Voice of Ahsoka and creator of Her Universe)
2-3 pm: Auli'i Cravalho signing (Moan's voice)
3-4 pm: Pete Doctor signing
3-4:30 pm: Parks and Resorts Panel
5:45-6:45: Duck Tales voice actors signing
6-7 pm: A Kiss Goodnight with Richard Sherman and Floyd Norman

There was a large open space in front of us, in between us and the gold section of A. This space was reserved for the people who had wristbands from the Animation Panel chaos from the day before.

Anyway...it was a good thing we bolted out of bed and arrived early because they ended up closing the line a little before 4 am. They allowed a standby line to form outside of our barrier.

We spent some of our time walking around and checking out everyone's weird sleeping arrangements. Lots of people had those banana boat type blow up things to sleep in. Others just had sleeping bags and some people had chairs, others had nothing at all.

Up near the front of the queues there were a few TVs and they rotated through a bunch of Disney movies while we were there.

Here is the best part of the best movie I've seen lately:

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After a while Stephanie volunteered to go get food. This was the food line:

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They had one food stand and one drink stand which were usually always swamped and ran out of food early.

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The breakfast sandwiches actually weren't the bad. But the tater tots made me feel sick so I ended up pitching them.

We had an awful long wait. We passed the time by reading, staring at the ground, watching the movies (Rogue One, Moana, Beauty and the Beast) and one of our friends brought his nintendo switch so we took turns playing Mario Kart.

Probably around 9 they started to make announcements about putting phones away and handing the bags out. We were idiots and put the phones in the bags when they said to, and then waited about another hour or more to get our seats.

They load these big panels sooooo insanely slow. They started in the middle section and started loading the gold people very slowly. Then they started the golds from either side. We probably picked the worst section since we had the Animation panel wristbands with us.

Even though everyone in my section arrived starting at midnight, they loaded the wristband people before us (they started to arrive around 7 am). Even though lots of us in the section had asked the volunteers who said we'd load first. My section was getting very worried at this point. It was after 10 and they were loading all the wristband queues before us. The other 2 sections were almost cleared out at this point. We had heard stories from previous years that the big panels shut the doors at start time and if you weren't inside you weren't getting in.

It took FOREVER to load the wristbands. They finally got to us and tried to start loading from the front (as you would logically do). Except for some unfathomable reason they had lined up our section starting at the back. The people in the back who had arrived around midnight were understandably concerned about this, and went to speak to the people running the loading several times. But of course they started at the front anyway, and to our credit everyone told them to start at the back and they finally did. At this point it was about 10:20 and the panel started at 10:30. We had about 5 minutes when they didn't take any of us and started loading the stand by people down on the opposite end. There was about a riot at this point and people were shouting at the loaders. We were all afraid we weren't going to get in.

This was very nerve wracking. I did not want to have waited since 3 am and get shut out. Finally our line started to move. We ended up getting inside with about 2 minutes to spare.

I really don't understand why they wait so long to load the large panels. Especially the morning one, everything should have been set up from the night before, there weren't really any props or embellishments on the stage, the stage is bare and there are a lot of large screens and then the chairs.

We didn't have the greatest seats, and some stand by who came in after us actually got much better seats. I don't really understand that either, but hey, if there isn't illogical chaos it's not the D23 expo.

Anyway...on to the panel which I will start immediately in the next post.
 
Live Action Panel

* once again, no phones were allowed so I've pulled the following pictures from the internet

Alan Horn comes out and shows a sizzle reel of upcoming movie clips. Then he announces all the live action divisions of Disney:

Marvel Studios, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd.

Sean Bailey, the president of production for Disney comes out. He introduces our fist movie: A Wrinkle in Time.

Ava DuVernay is directing. She had a fantastic energy.

Ava said that she got her first choice for all the characters. So out comes Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, Oprah and Mindy Kaling and the young Storm Reid. Mindy ends up fan girling and giving away that Benedict Cumberbatch is back stage. Chris Pine got us all to cheer for Wonder Woman. They announce that we are getting a free teaser poster for the movie and Oprah starts into 'you get a poster'! 'and you get a poster!'. Everyone went wild but I never really watched Oprah so I was like meh, that's nice.

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Then they played the teaser. It looked pretty good, I'm not wildly excited but I'm sure I'll see it in theaters. I read a Wrinkle in Time when I was young but for some reason I never obsessed over it the same way I obsessed over a lot of other books.

After the trailer Sean Bailey introduced a movie I'd never heard of: the Nutcracker and the 4 Realms. The director is Lasse Hallström and stars Misty Copeland, Mackenzie Foy, Morgan Freeman, Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Ellie Bamber and Miranda Hart. It is slated for release November 2018.

Dance is going to feature heavily in this movie and they brought out Lil Buck who did a very weird (but good) dance for us. He is going to play the Mouse King and they will incorporate his unique dance style.

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I was not really too excited about this movie and I think the majority of the crowd agreed, judging by the lackluster response.

From what I could see from the concept art and the few clips we got I just don't care for the style. It is more Tim Burton/live action Beauty and the Beast style. And I just never really liked that type of style.

Next up: Mary Poppins Returns!

The crowd was really excited about this one. Rob Marshall, the director, came out closely followed by Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins). I appreciate Emily Blunt saying that she didn't even want to re-watch the original because she could never be Julie Andrews, so her Poppins will be more her own. She is also drawing heavy inspiration from the book Mary Poppins, who is a lot different than the way Andrews played her.

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One interesting fact they told us (which I'm sure you've all already heard) is that there is a table that was used in the original Mary Poppins. After filming, the table went to live at Club 33. Marshall asked to use it in the new film so Club 33 lent it out to them.

Now it's time for the teaser. They sweep a huge curtain near to our seat section aside and there is an entire orchestra back there. They start to play a song from the score while the teaser trailer plays.

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I am pretty disappointed at this time because I realize Lin Manuel Miranda is not coming out. I really thought he would. I know I shouldn't have got my hopes up but I did.

After the Poppins footage Bailey starts to show all the animated movies that have been converted to live action...Maleficent, Cinderella, Jungle Book, Pete's Dragon, Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast.

In quick succession he announces that Mulan is in pre-production, he confirms the Jungle Cruise with Dwayne Johnson and then we get a cast announcement for Aladdin. Mena Massoud is officially Aladdin, Naomi Scott is Jasmine and Will Smith is the genie (which I'm kind of not sure about, I'm a fan of younger Will Smith but I haven't liked him lately, also, who wants to bet he gets a role for his weird son in the movie too).

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Next up we get a short video message from Tim Burton aboard Casey Jr. about Dumbo and they wheel out the life size maquette of Dumbo. The Dumbo maquette was insanely cute and ended up being life like but still resembling the cartoon Dumbo. But once again, I'm not a big fan of Tim Burton's style ever since he discovered CGI so I'm not holding my breath for Dumbo.

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Up next...The Lion King!!

They just went ahead and played the whole opening sequence, which looked like it a shot for shot match to the original cartoon. People were losing their minds over this. And it really did look amazing and like real animals were acting out the Lion King. This by far was the biggest crowd reaction. When the clip was over Jon Favreau came out.

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Now it's Star Wars time!

I had heard the rumor that there was not going to be a new trailer, which turned out to be true. I wonder what is going on with that...It's the end of August and the movie comes out in December and we still only have a teaser. Hmm.

Rian Johnson comes out (Kathleen Kennedy was not there, she was off in London fixing the mess that is the Han Solo movie). Then we get some of the cast...John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro and Mark Hamill.

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We get to see some of Johnson's black and white photos from filming.

Boyega and Christie have some good natured ribbing and hint at a fight between their characters.

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So no trailer, all we get is a behind the scenes video and the pictures. And a cool picture of all the actors watching the behind the scenes footage.

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Up next is Marvel.

Kevin Feige comes out and starts talking about the 10th anniversary of Marvel as a part of Disney.

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This is the last presentation of the panel, so of course it has to be the piece de resistance. One by one all the following come out while the crowd goes insane:

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And the best part of all...we got an Avengers Infinity War trailer!! Which was supposed to be exclusive to us and SDDC, but of course the SDDC can't patrol it's audience so it got leaked from there.

The trailer looked very intense and worrisome for some main characters. Also, here is another cool picture of the actors watching:

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That is the end of the panel. Everyone starts to funnel out and we grab our Wrinkle in Time posters.

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So...my thoughts on the live action panel. I'm not sure if it was the lack of sleep, waiting over 7 hours or the no show of Lin Manuel Miranda but I wasn't really feeling it. We had no SW trailer, the Avengers trailer was awesome and so was the Lion King and Mary Poppins, but none of the other movies really wowed me. I dunno, it was actually one of my least favorite panels.

Part of our group split off to go get in line for Parks and Resorts but we had a wristband to meet Moana so we headed off in that direction next.
 
I finally noticed this TR - I'm now sure how I missed it before. I REALLY appreciate reading it, since we are seriously thinking of going to D23 in 2019. (You probably don't remember but I was following you on-line that Saturday as well.) I also have to say I also enjoy the DLR posts as well. I think I like DLR TRs better than WDW simply because we don't get out there as much.

I agree with your sentiment about Mission:Breakout. ToT is California was a pale version of the Florida one, and while I hope they never change the Florida one, I am perfectly happy that they changed up the one in California. (I think with GotG going into Ellen the ToT rumors are pretty well laid to rest for now.

Watching it from afar, I agree that the live action panel seemed a bit underwhelming. It seems like they relied mostly on bringing out celebrities, and while that's cool, I just don't think I would want to wait 8 hours in line for it. I am much more into seeing the animation panel and the parks panel next year. I'd much prefer the animation panel anyways. Hopefully in 2019 it won't be such a cluster.

I am not much of a merch guy, but we also went crazy at Mickey's of Glendale on the ABD trip. I would probably want to hit that shop. Was it the case that if you didn't go on Friday you were SOL?

One thing I'm curious about, if you are not trying to get into the big panels, what is the real advantage of getting to the convention at 5 AM versus say 7 AM? I am concerned that between my wife and daughter while they are huge Disney fans they may not be too fond of the "standing in line for hours" aspect of the whole thing. I mean, I am thinking when we come from the East Coast, we will be waking up pretty early anyways, so getting there early probably isn't much of a problem, but just wondering what the exact benefit is.

You kept mentioning the "Gold" lines. I assume that means D23 Gold members? Were you members, or were you just aware of it. Was there any real advantage to it?
 
I agree with your sentiment about Mission:Breakout. ToT is California was a pale version of the Florida one, and while I hope they never change the Florida one, I am perfectly happy that they changed up the one in California. (I think with GotG going into Ellen the ToT rumors are pretty well laid to rest for now.

Watching it from afar, I agree that the live action panel seemed a bit underwhelming. It seems like they relied mostly on bringing out celebrities, and while that's cool, I just don't think I would want to wait 8 hours in line for it. I am much more into seeing the animation panel and the parks panel next year. I'd much prefer the animation panel anyways. Hopefully in 2019 it won't be such a cluster.

I am not much of a merch guy, but we also went crazy at Mickey's of Glendale on the ABD trip. I would probably want to hit that shop. Was it the case that if you didn't go on Friday you were SOL?

One thing I'm curious about, if you are not trying to get into the big panels, what is the real advantage of getting to the convention at 5 AM versus say 7 AM? I am concerned that between my wife and daughter while they are huge Disney fans they may not be too fond of the "standing in line for hours" aspect of the whole thing. I mean, I am thinking when we come from the East Coast, we will be waking up pretty early anyways, so getting there early probably isn't much of a problem, but just wondering what the exact benefit is.

You kept mentioning the "Gold" lines. I assume that means D23 Gold members? Were you members, or were you just aware of it. Was there any real advantage to it?

No, I remember you saying in the Rumors thread that you were interested in going next time :) Welcome, don't be afraid to ask any question you have, I don't mind.

Yeah, I'm happy so long as they keep one version of the ride in a US park. I was sad about TGMR because that was the only version :( And I was one of those invisible people who always did ride it hahaha.

I've heard that this year's live action panel was very underwhelming compared to last years. Maybe some of the D23 veterans will chime in on that. So I wouldn't write it off completely, what I would do is take stock of what movies are in the pipeline around that time in two years and see if any interest you, maybe go off that. The only movie they announced in live action that I was not aware of was the nutcracker one.

I did love the Animation panel, there was so much excitement. We got a couple new movies introduced that I'd never heard of, they had the t-shirt cannon to get everyone riled up, not only did we get a lot of surprise guests but some of those guests actually did more than come out and wave (like Josh Gad singing). We got a lot of really funny clips like the Wreck It Ralph princesses and the Incredibles 2 Jack Jack raccoon fight.

I'm not sure how MOG held up for the rest of the weekend. Our other friends who were interested in that shop were actually about a half hour behind us in line, so I'm not sure I heard of anyone going later in the weekend. I will say though, if 2019 is the same as this past expo, you could do what we did and head to MOG very first thing and still get a seat for the Legends panel.

That is a good question about the 5 am vs. 7 am. We wanted to make it before 5 so that we could wait in the basement. Originally we thought the cut off for getting inside was going to be 6, but it turned out to be 5. If you arrive after they cut off the inside line, you have to line up outside. It can get very hot. If you are inside you have access to bathrooms, air conditioning (though it was freezing) and concession stands.

Also, if you did not get there early enough lots of people were stuck in lines around an hour + just to be able to get in. The first morning one of our friends and her group slept in since they weren't concerned about the Legends panel. They were lined up over by the DCA park. It took them an hour of slow walking in line just to get through security and be let into the building.

So if you want to be on the expo floor at a reasonable time after it opens, you just gotta be there early. If you wait too long to line up, you'll be outside in the sun and you more than likely won't be into the expo until an hour or so after it opens. It's ridiculous, but it is what it is.
 
So if you want to be on the expo floor at a reasonable time after it opens, you just gotta be there early. If you wait too long to line up, you'll be outside in the sun and you more than likely won't be into the expo until an hour or so after it opens. It's ridiculous, but it is what it is.

OK - that all makes sense. As I said, I am planning on us arriving in Cali the day before, so for the Expo we will still be adjusting to West Coast time, and will be able to get up and get out to the expo pretty early. However, the idea of standing/sitting in line for hours before the event even opens seems crazy, but if that's what has to be done...it's what has to be done. I just don't know about waiting for 4 hours in line before it even opens. Though I do get wanting to get in as close to 9 AM as possible. I can probably convince everyone 6 AM, but maybe not 5 AM!
 
OK - that all makes sense. As I said, I am planning on us arriving in Cali the day before, so for the Expo we will still be adjusting to West Coast time, and will be able to get up and get out to the expo pretty early. However, the idea of standing/sitting in line for hours before the event even opens seems crazy, but if that's what has to be done...it's what has to be done. I just don't know about waiting for 4 hours in line before it even opens. Though I do get wanting to get in as close to 9 AM as possible. I can probably convince everyone 6 AM, but maybe not 5 AM!

Yes, going from east coast to west coast for DL is always the best. EMH at 7 am? No problem, that is 10 am for east coasters.

Just take a book or talk to people in line around you. But definitely bring something to do. If it's look on your phone bring portable battery chargers. You could always consider going earlier than the wife and daughter, depending on what they want to do. They can have a perfectly fun expo not going to any of the big panels and getting there later. At some point in the morning the hour long wait to get inside does go down. A lot of the smaller panels you can walk up about 45 minutes ahead of time, or right when it starts. There are tons of things on the expo floor to look at. A giant room with nothing but non-Disney vendors (selling Disney stuff, of course, just not sponsored by Disney) and Disney podcasts (the DIS had a booth). There was a giant pavilion for Marvel, Disney Animation and Pixar, Imagineering, Archives, Music Emporium and a few more I never made it too. There was a Lion King on broadway virtual experience, there was a giant display of Disney fashion, there was the Oh My Disney center stage that had talks, drawing demonstrations, bands and interviews going on all day that you can just walk right up to. Trust me, if they just walk around the floor all day and don't do any panels they could have a wonderful time and be perfectly entertained.

Oh, and I forgot to answer your question from before, yes I am a Gold member. This year's expo had some seating reserved for Gold members (which was something new, so no guarantee they'll do it next year). So let's do an example. I saw the Lion King panel on Sunday. They have 3 queues, the gold member queue (it is gold member plus one guest, family memberships get more people), then the standby and a line for the stage pass (stage pass is like fast pass). The person manning each line has a clicker counter. Once the gold line is at capacity Gold members have to go to standby. I believe it loads Gold members first, then stage pass then standby. I was able to utilize the gold line for a few panels. The Park Stars panel I either forgot about gold line or they didn't have one (it was on the smallest stage).
 
Oh I know there's plenty to do, and if we are coming all that way we definitely will go for all 3 days. Lucky for me, both the big panels I REALLY want to see are the afternoon ones - Animation and Parks & Resorts. Live action would be fun, but NOT willing to wait 8 hours for it. You certainly had the right attitude and one I would like to take...have a few "must dos" and then just see what we are able to get into. It's almost a shame that you CAN'T possibly see even half the stuff going on, but I guess that the way it accommodates so many people.

One more question - as a party of 3, can one person hold a place in line and the other 2 go off to look around? We often use this type of thing when we can.
 
Oh I know there's plenty to do, and if we are coming all that way we definitely will go for all 3 days. Lucky for me, both the big panels I REALLY want to see are the afternoon ones - Animation and Parks & Resorts. Live action would be fun, but NOT willing to wait 8 hours for it. You certainly had the right attitude and one I would like to take...have a few "must dos" and then just see what we are able to get into. It's almost a shame that you CAN'T possibly see even half the stuff going on, but I guess that the way it accommodates so many people.

One more question - as a party of 3, can one person hold a place in line and the other 2 go off to look around? We often use this type of thing when we can.

That really is the attitude you have to have. Plan as much as you can, but pick your must dos and then try not to be disappointed. Though, as you'll see in the next installment of my report Saturday morning/afternoon really did not go that well for us.

Ask as many questions as you want :) I'm not getting too many comments and it's boring if it's just me talking to myself writing installment after installment. Well, I get bored with that anyway.

Yes, one person can hold a space...however...

We were kind of nervous about doing that while in the basement waiting space. We had wrist bands once you enter the space and you just show the employees at the gate and they will let you back in. So we came and went, as many as 4 of us left with 1 person holding our spot. We got food, went to the bathroom and walked around. However, I was always too nervous to leave the downstairs holding area and go upstairs. I was never 100% sure I'd be allowed back down, and you never know when the line will start to move.

For all of our music meet and greets, Moana and Giacchino, we had people come and go to get food and do other things and that was fine as well.

For the Park Stars panel that Friday night, we has two of us holding down our spots and the other 3 went all over the place. So for the most part, once you get established you can come and go. Just be aware that the line can start to move at any time and the expo is a big place so I'd be wary of everyone being able to make it back.
 
Ask as many questions as you want :) I'm not getting too many comments and it's boring if it's just me talking to myself writing installment after installment. Well, I get bored with that anyway..

I think that DLR trip reports tend to not get as many followers as WDW trip reports. Also, I've noticed on TR posts I might get 1000 views for a new post, but only 1 or 2 comments, so I think a lot of people like reading TRs but don't like to post replies much. I agree it's much more fun to get replies. (I admit even worse is trying to write at PTR. They are inherently pretty dull, and sometimes I wonder why I bother, but it's still fun to share.)

Anyways, I can tell you I am at least ONE person that is enjoying your TR, so please keep going with it.
 
I am reading along but don't get much chance to comment

That's ok! Thanks for letting me know you're reading, I hope you're enjoying it :)

I was hopeful to get the next installment done before I leave to go camping on Thursday. If not, I'll still continue it will just be next week.
 

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