Disneyland plus D23 Expo July 11 - July 17

While serving him his second drink (was their non-alcoholic special) the girl bringing the drinks spilled her entire tray on my friend! Not only did it have the sugary lemonade drink but it also had a cup of milk. The way it was handled was also disasterous. For the most part they tried to laugh it off. My friend had to actually ask for napkins so he could try to clean himself up so he didn't have to leave dinner. It took far more time then what seemed right for a manager to come talk to him. It wasn't until he decided to get up and go try to wash some of it off of him that our waiter and the girl who spilt the drinks on him started to move. The manager caught him on his way back from the bathroom and asked what they could do. His response was for starts some new clothes. So the manager ran off to get him shorts but forgot to ask what size so came back and asked. The found him a pair of khakis but because of the parade couldn't get him a new polo shirt so he got a no string paper for the polo shirt. The worst part of it all was we didn't realize he had gotten the full cup of milk as well until he started to smell while trying to finish dinner. Unfortunately they an hour of their park time because they had to go back to the hotel shower and change before coming back for Fantasmic. This also cut our time together as we had planned to ride a ride between dinner and Fantasmic. My friend didn't make a big deal of it but I was very close to speaking to the manager. It isn't often we get to be in Disneyland together so that lost hour really cut into our bonding time.

Wow! They should have bent over backwards to try and make it right! I think I would have went to guest relations at the Chamber of Commerce. I mean, accidents happen, but the way it was handled doesn't sound right at all. He should (if he hasn't already) send guest relations a message to let them know, and that he wasn't happy with the way things were handled.

We rode Malestrom and oddly had no clue it can be a wet ride now! I rode it on my own now problem the night before but when my fiancé and I rode it this night at the final drop into the water and loading area our entire car of 6 (or is it 5 however many fit) got soaked. To make matter worse the CM decided to pull our car off the track because they were worried we wouldn't be able to unload quick enough since the car before us took awhile to load and it would create a back log or stop. So we sat there for 5 minutes soaking wet. Not fun and not happy and again CM laughed it off. They offered to let us reride be we wanted off. My fiancé was not looking to get soaked a 2nd time.

After Malestrom we rode Star Tours and Buzz then took the monorail back to DTD. Tomorrowland ended up being our best friend this trip haha.

Which ride? :)
 
Wow! They should have bent over backwards to try and make it right! I think I would have went to guest relations at the Chamber of Commerce. I mean, accidents happen, but the way it was handled doesn't sound right at all. He should (if he hasn't already) send guest relations a message to let them know, and that he wasn't happy with the way things were handled.



Which ride? :)

I keep doing that haha. I meant Matterhorn. Got to go edit that. Good catch. (on the wrong ride name).

I will let him know to email guest relations. One reason he was kind of miffed was he was wearing a 90 dollar tennis polo that was white. He doesn't think the pink lemonade is every going to fully come out. When we got the no strings they said up to 50 dollars. I know they tried to eye ball what it cost and get him something similar. Since we never got to meet back up I don't even know if he got a new shirt. I think we all would have been happy had it not been played off as a no big deal thing.
 
@wilkeliza Man, I so want to decipher that...ours was much lighter, I only caught it with the mid-morning light that last morning. We were never in the room that late during the Expo.
 


Ok so after we figured out the Fantasmic! wrist band situation we headed to the hotel dropped our stuff and then headed out to meet our friend in Disneyland. Our friend moved form the east coast over to the west coast so we don't see her nearly as much but this year thanks to 2 major conventions we have seen her at those.

It was fun to hang out in a situation we all weren't super rushed in. We did Star Tours first which was pretty fun with our group since everyone is a massive SW fan. We headed to buzz next because the wait was low and our space mountain fast pass just started. I slaughtered everyone on Buzz and the 2 Disneyland locals were impressed. My score wasn't even that high for me and my fiance went on to brag at how good I am at the shooting games. Next up was Space Mountain. I put the DL version as superior to the Disney World version. We were at the front and oh boy is it a crazy ride especially when you are kind of exhausted from being at a convention all day. I love how the music really makes the ride something special. It felt like we kept getting faster and faster until we reached the end.

From there we took a long path to adventureland for Dole Whips. I just got pineapple juice is I don't actually like Dole Whips.Main Street Electrical and the fireworks sure do make it hard to get between the lands. I kept thinking we could cut across at main street but we could not and just gave up and decided to sit on some chair we found near the hub. We should have realized where we were wasn't a great spot for the fireworks but where it was a great spot for was the Main Street Electrical Parade. I have a fond attachment to the parade because I remember watching it on the Disney channel late at night with my mom as a kid. They use to do the "live" from Disneyland late at night and the parade was apart of it. It was always one of the moments I would hear my mom say one day. So seeing the parade reminds me of my mom and makes me feel like although she never made it I finally made one day come for her.

After that we said our good byes and headed off to the hotel.
 
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Alright Sunday. Last expo day and last parks day :(

So Sunday the plan was to go to Disney Store if it wasn't too bad and get the Rescue Rangers Tsum Tsum and then to the coin jump and hope the line wasn't too bad then off to the panels. My fiance would meet up later as he had no real plans and wanted to sleep a little more.

Disney Store was quick and I was done in less than 15 minutes. I got to the Duck Tales line and it was so confusing. I was there at 9:18 (checking my Twitter stamps haha) and not one worker knew what was the actual end of their line! I assumed I was in the correct line because everyone else around me was in Duck Tales as well. The issue was the coffee line, the LuLaRoe, the plastic tsum tsum, and this line all kind of got squished together in that poor planning of that area. Looking back it felt like forever in line but I was done by 10:15. The lady in front of me was having a fit over possibly missing the first Alan Menken show. She couldn't understand why we weren't allowed to chose the time we wanted for wrist bands and the workers just said you can wait for the time to come up but you have to wait in the standby line to do that or take what they are offering us now and come back earlier in the slot. She was peeved by the idea of missing anything else. I simply told her hey having priorities and choosing to miss something to do this was apart of the expo and I would have to miss the women in imagineering panel to be able to do the slot they were handing out. After she held up the line I was finally able to get a wrist band and head out of the mess.

At this point my fiance and I met up. I must have wandered the floor a tiny bit because I had a hand out from one of the vendor booths but I can't remember the first walk around. We headed up to the Tangled the Series panel even though it wasn't a show we watch because we love all the actors and actresses who would be chatting and thought it would be a good glimpse to see if we wanted to jump in at some point.

This panel was good and bad. The moderator was boring as all get out but Zachary Levi made up for all of that. I wish they would have just let him host the panel haha. I loved the banter between him and Jeremy Jordan and it was definitely a fun panel. I will admit I cried when they showed the very rough clip of how Rapunzel and Pascal came to be the best of friends. Pascal is on my top of favorites and man is that episode going to be hard. After talking about the show they took audience questions. I will admit though I'm not a fan of audience questions in panels. They are always just incredibly awkward. This group ranged from internet fueled rumors that may or may not have been spoilers (i.e. not even asking a question and just talking about one characters parentage), asking if Flynn had romances with random character from previous episodes, to questions not even pertaining to the show the panel was about. I also don't like they hey will you do this for me type of things. Like the actors/actresses are puppets that you can command to do whatever.

After the panel we headed to the lounge to grab our credentials for Fantasmic!. We again were held up by someone fighting with a CM. The CM needed the passes we had gotten from Parks and Resorts if we had gone. I guess this person wrongly assumed there was some special sorcerers only preview and that we would be getting something super special at 10pm (where they got that information who knows!) so kept demanding to be given a wrist band. After a bit the CM kindly asked if she could come back later so they could speak about it with a manager and so that she could help the rest of us waiting in line. I got my wrist band then went to go grab some water while fiance got his. At that point is when I looked up and there was Zachary Levi. I tried to get a picture but was not nearly aggressive enough (never am in these types of situations) and by the time he was free his handlers were rushing him off to the signing tables downstairs. He was very sweet to all of us though and it was a fun surprise.

After all that it was time to go back for my jump. Fiance and I split he went to the Hercules panel and I did my thing. The jump. They kept quoting an hour wait in the wrist band line but it was only 40 minutes from entering to jumping to getting my video. The jump was fun but I left with a pretty nasty lump and bruise. Since it didn't take the full hour like expected I realized the free coffee line was moving and I needed some caffeine. I assumed it be like a cappuccino because of the printing but I was pleasantly surprised it was cold brew ice coffee! I grabbed my Mickey coffee snapped a pick then sipped it as I walked the floor. My leg didn't hurt but oh man was that lump starting to get bigger and darker. My fiance was in the Hercules panel and so again I walked around the exhibitor portion of the hall. I stopped by and said hi to Steve and the rest of the team who wasn't filming at the time. Then headed upstairs for our Sorcerer's meet and greet. I loved how it was done and how easy it was. No need to be aggressive this time they came to each table chatted a little, took photos and then moved on. It was lovely and both Jeremy Jordan and Eden Espinosa were so sweet. Right before this they gave us some gold member gifts, a pin and a fidget spinner. From that short rest it was off to the Voices of Disney Parks.

This panel was not originally on our list but since the meet and greet was during the first Alan Menken we decided why not! I am so glad we went. It was a lot of fun to hear the voices that truly make the park special. Also hearing some of their stories and how they got their jobs were awesome. The room when they started the Spanish spiel of I think the trams was electric. So fun to be around other real die hards.

After this we went back on the floor and fiance got one of the D23 Expo special editions Sphero Spidermans toys. We also got the box signed by the voice actor which was fun. We grabbed some burgers and then went to Alan Menken to finish off our 2017 expo.

The Alan Menken was the best way to finish out the amazing weekend. I almost cried when he started singing Suddenly Seymor and then all the talk of his original writting partner Howard Ashman and how emotional Alan Menken was just gets to you. Also so glad he sang Proud of Your Boy for Howard Ashman as the song is just beautiful. I'm so glad it has gotten a life in the Broadway show.

After that the expo was over and we headed up to the Sorcerer's farewell reception. There was cake and champagne and we toasted the year. They announced 2019 (had already made it onto twitter since the reception was running slightly late) and then our final gift. We were given keep sake tickets and a pixar pin. We didn't eat cake but it looked good and then after picking up our stuff went back to the resort.
 
Sunday night at Disneyland was something special. We met up with our new friend from the expo and decided we would do the night together. I realized I didn't charge my mophies the night before and my phone was almost dead so broke down and finally bought a fuel rod. Never again will I carry mophies at a Disney park. Fiance has had a fuel rod for over a year now and uses his all the time but I was loyal to my mophies. He just pops the dead fuel rod in for exchange either in the morning on or way to a park or in the evening before we leave so he always has a fresh one. Why it took me so long I don't know. After getting the fuel rod we split for a moment. He headed with our friend to Adventureland to get Indy fastpasses and I headed to Starbucks for some fuel. Thankfully the line wasn't too long. I got a nice drink and a Main Street Electrical Parade pastry. I took note on how much better Disneyland is at attraction and entertainment specific food. It kind of made me want to buy these specialty items over the every day Disney cupcake or apple.

I quickly walked over to Advenuterland and we sat chatting about the expo and our weekends and life until it was time for our Indy FP. The ride is always great and is still one of the best attractions in the US. Next up was the classic Pirates of the Caribbean. We got to briefly saw the pirates part of Fantasmic and seeing it left us all very very excited about our 10:30 viewing. I have never seen the Disneyland version and could not believe the glimpse I got. Pirates was fun as usual. Glad I got to say We wants the red head one more time. From there we decided to go ride Winnie the Pooh. Not 100% why 3 grown adults decided to ride it but hey why not. The ride was a 0 minute wait and so we each got our own row in a honey pot. They oddly were going to stick all of us in the same row even though no one else was in line. I filmed the whole thing to show my little cousins who love watching ride videos so it was fun to know we were the only people on the ride and since our friend was taking photos too I knew I wasn't disturbing anyone.

I ran to the bathroom and we realized the Fantastic line was already forming so got in it. We met an awesome family from Utah who was given the run around about where they should go with an ECV so we let them get in line in front of us since they had been in line and a CM told them to get out of it and go somewhere else just to get there and be told to come back.

I'll come back and post photos and full thoughts next but let me just say the Disneyland Fantasmic is one of the best night time shows I have ever seen. It really puts our Fantasmic to shame.
 


@wilkeliza I meant to drop back in and completely spaced: Disneyland 10K prep and organ donation prep, my mind is a sponge!

I completely agree with your Tangled panel thoughts, all of them! :rotfl:
 
Oh that's interesting about the coin jump, I didn't know you could get a wrist band! We just never made it over there. At one point we were in line to meet Ashley Eckstein and all the Duck Tales voice actors came to jump into the coin bin to take some promo pics.

That's so awkward about the Tangled panel taking audience questions. None of the panels I went to did that. I've been to plenty of other con panels when they let the audience ask questions and there is always, always at least one super cringe worthy person who you just want to punch.
 

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