Still, it wasn't over quite yet and we were determined to enjoy our last breakfast with the group. This one would be taking place in Steakhouse 55. Once we arrived I realised this was the perfect place to close our trip. Many of the photographs on the walls featured Walt with a whole host of other famous people Walt met or entertained throughout his life. From what I understand of it, if the American Dream was personified, Walt really was it.
I went for the traditional breakfast again this morning, with copious amounts of coffee. I truly didn't want to be saying goodbye to any of these wonderful people and it was making me a little down. Coffee was my coping mechanism, hoping it would give me an extra boost. As everyone else arrived it seemed that I wasn't the only one feeling this way.
The breakfast itself was great food and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Throughout the breakfast we were sat alongside Michael and Summer-Rose, our incredible Adventure guides. They were both amazing, knowledgeable, helpful, friendly and had great senses of humour. I think both of them were the epitome of brilliant Disney Cast members, I only hope that one day our paths of adventure will cross again. I insisted that we had to get a picture with them once we had finished eating.
Once we sat back down, Michael surprised me once again. All week long he had been carrying the collectible pins that they give out in a cool little Stitch character pouch. I had joked earlier in the week that he better keep an eye on it because Stitch is my favourite. He handed me the pouch and said, "it's yours".
Already feeling a little emotional, I was on the verge of tears and gobsmacked; he had remembered my favourite character. It was such a small thing but it was so kind and thoughtful. It summed up how I felt about the whole experience with Adventures by Disney.
Now feeling a whole whirlwind of emotions, it was time to say goodbye, particularly to those who would not be attending D23. For some, their whole adventure had come to an end and they would be heading home. I was grateful that we still had another whole week of excitement to enjoy. Many of those people are on my Facebook so we have been able to stay in touch. I hope that one day we can meet some of them again, which is quite likely, considering we were all such fans of Disney.
Already feeling a little emotional, I was on the verge of tears and gobsmacked; he had remembered my favourite character. It was such a small thing but it was so kind and thoughtful. It summed up how I felt about the whole experience with Adventures by Disney.
Now feeling a whole whirlwind of emotions, it was time to say goodbye, particularly to those who would not be attending D23. For some, their whole adventure had come to an end and they would be heading home. I was grateful that we still had another whole week of excitement to enjoy. Many of those people are on my Facebook so we have been able to stay in touch. I hope that one day we can meet some of them again, which is quite likely, considering we were all such fans of Disney.
Holding back the waterworks we made our way out of the hotel and bumped into Goofy who I hadn't had the chance to get a picture with the day before. There is nothing like a picture with a Disney Character to put a spring in your step. Especially considering our next task was to check out of the Disneyland Hotel and move all our baggage over to Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel.
It was definitely a challenge manoeuvring three full size cases, two cabin cases and our other bags that was for sure. Thankfully, it wasn't a ridiculously long walk between the two hotels. Upon arrival, we were not able to check-in quite yet but were able to deposit our cases into the holding room so that we could go and get going on the next stage of our trip. D23.
Now I will add here, that I am not going to break down the three days into separate parts and will keep it all in one. This is mainly because a lot of the events blur into one and also, because we opted not to queue for hours attending panels so it would be easier to summarise various elements of the convention.
For those of you who do not know. D23 is the Official Disney fan club and every two years they hold their own convention at the Anaheim Convention Centre. The convention is a hugely attended event with a reported 100,000 people attending this year. Throughout the event there would be specific panels which came with surprises and announcements. Whether your Disney love is the Parks & Resorts, Animation or Live Action, there was a panel for it with many of the announcements made being completely new news confirmation of an internet rumour. Each of the panels was effectively a presentation on a particular subject featuring hosts and special guests involved in that project. This weekend was probably the most exciting time to be a Disney Fan.
It was definitely a challenge manoeuvring three full size cases, two cabin cases and our other bags that was for sure. Thankfully, it wasn't a ridiculously long walk between the two hotels. Upon arrival, we were not able to check-in quite yet but were able to deposit our cases into the holding room so that we could go and get going on the next stage of our trip. D23.
Now I will add here, that I am not going to break down the three days into separate parts and will keep it all in one. This is mainly because a lot of the events blur into one and also, because we opted not to queue for hours attending panels so it would be easier to summarise various elements of the convention.
For those of you who do not know. D23 is the Official Disney fan club and every two years they hold their own convention at the Anaheim Convention Centre. The convention is a hugely attended event with a reported 100,000 people attending this year. Throughout the event there would be specific panels which came with surprises and announcements. Whether your Disney love is the Parks & Resorts, Animation or Live Action, there was a panel for it with many of the announcements made being completely new news confirmation of an internet rumour. Each of the panels was effectively a presentation on a particular subject featuring hosts and special guests involved in that project. This weekend was probably the most exciting time to be a Disney Fan.
Queuing
The rumours about queues were certainly not unfounded. The first day we arrived around 10am and queued for around 90 minutes. Each subsequent day the overall queue time was shorter. When we first arrived it actually looked horrific and took us a good ten minutes to even find where to join the queue.
It was nice to see the Cast Member Doug, who we met on the Disneyland day of our ABD. He recognised us too and gave us a high five as we passed him in the queue on all three days. Moments like this helped the queue pass by quickly.
All of the panels and major stores as well as the various exhibitions had very long lines involved. For instance, the Live Action panel actually saw people sleep out overnight in line to guarantee their seat!
As much as we are enthralled by Disney, we couldn’t face extreme queuing like that so we had opted before we even arrived that we would just play it by ear and not spend hours and hours queueing.
Announcements
The major announcements that really appealed to me were from Parks and Resorts. As I have mentioned, we had opted not to attend any of the panels, because of the queues. We were happy to hear the announcements just like everyone else who couldn’t get a seat, usually via twitter. There was a palpable buzz around the convention floor when it was announced that there were a whole raft of changes coming to Walt Disney World, including the addition of the Tron Rollercoaster to the Magic Kingdom, which can currently be found in Shanghai, and the Ratatouille attraction from Disney’s Hollywood Studios park in Paris coming to Disney’s Epcot. I don’t need to list out all of the announcements of course, the internet is awash with them but I am personally most excited about the Tron Coaster.
Communication
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| Me playing a Fix-It-Felix Arcade Machine |
One of the things that irked me a little throughout the weekend was the communication from the people working there. It seems there was possibly three different groups of people involved, Disney Cast Members, Convention Centre Staff and Security. The answer to your question would very much depend on which person you spoke to. It made trying to plan anything a little difficult because it was never clear what the procedures were and so on. One of the key examples of this I will cover in e shops section. Further to that, each day seemed a little different in terms of procedure. It was like they were immediately acting upon the previous days learns and while it is good to try and fix the issues right away, it was a little confusing when you think you finally understand how it works and then it is different the following day.
This became particularly relevant when it came to finding smoking areas. All throughout the Friday we had gone to a particular location outside. Come the Saturday this had changed and the security guard at the door was very rude about it and didn't tell us that we couldn't go out there until we were trying to come back in. He then accused us of ignoring him as he claimed he tried to call us back before we went out. If he did try calling us back, the fact that we were out there for 15 minutes and he didn't think to stick his head out and continue trying to get our attention was by-the-by it would seem. Of the three us, none of us heard or saw anyone calling us back.
That's not to say that all the staff and cast members were terrible. Some of them were absolutely wonderful Disney Cast Members.
Shops
Within the convention there were three major shops; The Disney Store, much like the mall and high street stores, The Dream Store, consisting of products relating to the Parks and Resorts and Mickey’s Of Glendale. Unfortunately, we did not get to visit The Disney Store but we did visit the other two. Each of the stores had very long lines to get in to the point that you could get fast passes, or store passes to visit the shops! To begin with, we thought that the fast pass was the only way you could get into the shops, partly because of the lack of communication and mis-communication. At times the line for the store-pass was reportedly 3 hours long! |
| In the queue for the Disney Dream Store |
Ironically, we found out from another cast member at the Dream Store that there was actually a stand-by line too. We were quite lucky because at the time there was a major panel taking place and the standby line had dropped down to about 20 minutes so we decided to wait. Why would anyone queue up for the store pass if the stand-by line was only 20 minutes? This conveniently shorter cue was probably not a good thing as it meant we spent a fair chunk of cash and for the first time ever known to humankind. IT WASN’T ME!!!! There was an incredible ornamental figurine based on the Fantasmic! show with Mickey pulling the sword from the stone to defeat Maleficent in dragon form. The fire surrounding the battling duo lights up and everything! As it is our favourite show in the parks and because it featured Marc’s favourite character, he decided he had to have it. A side note here, the box was so big that we had to put it in its own suitcase!
Mickeys of Glendale is actually a store that can be found at the Imagineering Campus for the cast members. Members of the public do not usually get to go in here unless you are on a tour or the like. We would have been able to visit the store when we were at Imagineering ourselves but the whole store had been relocated to D23. Thankfully, because of that, they had given us all a fast pass entry so that we didn’t have to queue up to get in the shop. I managed to buy a whole host of Imagineering goodies, including t-shirts and stationery for work. I could probably have spent a whole lot more too.
Mickeys of Glendale is actually a store that can be found at the Imagineering Campus for the cast members. Members of the public do not usually get to go in here unless you are on a tour or the like. We would have been able to visit the store when we were at Imagineering ourselves but the whole store had been relocated to D23. Thankfully, because of that, they had given us all a fast pass entry so that we didn’t have to queue up to get in the shop. I managed to buy a whole host of Imagineering goodies, including t-shirts and stationery for work. I could probably have spent a whole lot more too.
Stalls
Along with the three major stores there were also countless Disney partner vendors like Funko and Sphero in attendance. These were more often than not, selling the products that they had created. A particular favourite of mine was Sphero. To explain what they are I have lifted a little bio from their website:‘Sphero began the connected play revolution in 2010 by creating something unlike anything - and we never stopped. We fuse robotic and digital technology into immersive entertainment experiences that ignite imagination and defy expectation. Optimized by data and powered by fun, these ever-evolving experiences are changing the way the world thinks about play.’
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| Lightning and Me! (NOT the toy!) |
They created the incredible BB-8 toy that was launched for the release of Star Wars The Force Awakens. More recently, they had released the ‘Ultimate Lightning McQueen’. Now I am the first to admit that I am not the biggest Cars fan or even a massive fan of the character either, but the remote control car that they have developed is insanely good. It is like playing with your very own animatronic version of the character. He interacts with you and when he does talk his mouth actually moves. His eyes move around his windscreen (via a digital screen) whilst this is going on. Like in the movie, he lifts and drops on his axles, giving him a full range of movement as well as being a very snappy RC toy. Finally, he will also sit and watch the films with you and react to scenes in the movie. Of course, technology of this kind does come with a price tag but I genuinely believe it is worth every penny. This may actually be the coolest toy ever created! It was probably way out of my price range, especially for a toy, so I was incredibly touched and surprised when Marc disappeared off to the bathroom and came back with one as a gift for me. He said he could tell how much I loved it and I really, really do. I have always liked remote control cars and this is just next level awesome!
Along with the major vendors, there were also lots of smaller companies, each of them selling various Disney related collectibles, apparel, gifts, toys and souvenirs. If you are attending D23 you probably love Disney and if you love to shop, I strongly advise that you save up accordingly.
Food
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| Incredible Deadpool costume! |
We had heard terrible rumours about the standard of food available and also the queues to get said food but to be honest we did not experience either. The food was typical of a convention centre or arena in that it was fairly expensive but it was nice enough. We didn’t actually eat very much whilst we were there and besides, with the odd sandwich or so we couldn’t really pass judgement. It seemed that there were plenty of options available.
The Dis
One of the fun things we also got to do was hang out with the Dis team a little more as they had a stall for the weekend. They were going to be reporting on all of the weekend’s events and announcements from the various panels. They put on several shows throughout the weekend which went out live on YouTube. We were actually able to sit in and watch a couple of the shows going out live which was fascinating to watch. It was also amusing seeing the number of people passing the booth and rubbernecking to see what was going on and who was on camera. Sitting there felt like we were somehow a part of it. It was great to meet another member of the team, Cory, who is just awesome and so down to earth as well as Michael who is the incredibly knowledgeable Disney historian on the Connecting with Walt series of shows. All of these people were so friendly and welcoming!Marty Sklar
This deserves its own little section because it was probably the biggest moment of the weekend for me. I’ll start out by telling you who Marty is as I know many people do not know! Marty was the International Ambassador for Walt Disney Imagineering. He had formerly been the Vice President of Concepts and Planning for the company before being promoted to President then Vice Chairman and Principle Creative Executive.Marty was hired by Disney in 1955 to create a 1950’s themed newspaper titled, The Disneyland news. After graduating, he held responsibility for a lot of the parks publicity and marketing and then in 1961 he was transferred to WED Enterprises (as it was known then) where he worked on attractions for the 1964 New York World’s Fair including Its A Small World. Marty went on to supervise the design and construction of Disney’s EPCOT, Tokyo Disneyland, the Disney-MGM Studios, Disneyland Paris, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Disney California Adventure Park, Tokyo DisneySea, the Walt Disney Studios Park and Hong Kong Disneyland. He was also the only man to have attended the opening of every single Disney Park opening!
He was honoured as a Disney Legend in 2001 and also served as president of Ryman Arts, a non-profit organisation providing art classes in painting and drawing for those who want to find their way in the arts. His importance in the Disney heritage is summed up perfectly by a former Disneyland International Chairman, Jim Cora when he said, "He understands the Disney way, because he learned it at Walt's knee. He is the keeper of the keys, the conscience, the Jiminy Cricket for the organization."
To say that Marty was a hero of mine is an understatement. Along with Tony Baxter and Joe Rohde, he was one of the main reasons I wanted to pursue a career in storytelling and theme park attractions. I had read countless books and watched countless documentaries that featured Marty talking about his work.
Anyway, while I was visiting the Ryman Arts stall, and looking at some of the incredible artwork, one of the attendants there mentioned that Marty was also doing signing of his books. He was away having a break at that moment but he would be back in a short while. My excitement level went stratospheric as we wandered around for what felt like hours, passing by the stall every so often until he had returned.
When he returned I was first in line to meet him clutching hold of two of his books: ‘One Little Spark! Mickeys Ten Commandments and The Road To Imagineering’ and ‘Dream It! Do It! My Half-Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdoms’.
I am struggling to put into words how incredible it was (and not cry remembering) meeting Marty and being able to talk to him. I thanked him for his contributions to the Disney Parks and Resorts and how much joy I had gained from visiting the attractions that he had been instrumental in. It took every ounce of my being to not come across as a crazy stalker or to cry all over him. Both of which had a distinct possibility of happening. I was also able to tell him about my dreams for being a storyteller like him and one day working with Imagineering. He had probably heard this thousands of times over the years and yet, he was still encouraging and kind and even left a message in one of the books saying “Dear Mark, make NEW sparks!”. I left that stall in an incredibly elated and emotional state and I am not ashamed to admit that I was crying with absolute joy. I had hoped for many years that I might get to meet Marty and this was certainly not one of the examples of the saying that you shouldn’t meet your heroes.
Sadly, just two weeks later, on July 27th it was announced that Marty had passed away. I look at those two books and the pictures from that day with a whole wave of emotion and pride that I was able to share my story with him and talk to him. Of course, I am one of thousands that had been able to thank him for everything he did but I am honoured that I am one of those thousands.
So that is my summary of D23 and with the weekend coming to an end, it also meant that there were going to be some more goodbyes. Many of the Dis team were going to be heading back to Florida on the Monday morning so we made a point of wishing them well for their journey home. Again, thank heavens for Facebook and Twitter so that we can stay in touch with them!
As it was his final night there, Pete had also invited us for a dinner at the Storytellers Café in the Grand Californian hotel along with Steve. It is a beautiful setting for a restaurant and the food was divine. I am quite fond of a buffet dinner because it means I can try a whole host of different foods from different cultures and this certainly did not disappoint.
After food, we headed into Downtown Disney for a spot of last minute shopping (for them) and then rounded off the evening with a few other people from the ABD trip that we had bumped into. Unfortunately, Trader Sam’s was ridiculously busy so we headed over to the bar at Steakhouse 55. It was a particularly poignant drink and with everyone feeling very tired it was particularly bittersweet when it came to saying goodbye with Pete, Steve and Sean getting into their Uber. All I could hope, as that Uber taxi pulled away, was that I will get to see them again someday soon.
I am struggling to put into words how incredible it was (and not cry remembering) meeting Marty and being able to talk to him. I thanked him for his contributions to the Disney Parks and Resorts and how much joy I had gained from visiting the attractions that he had been instrumental in. It took every ounce of my being to not come across as a crazy stalker or to cry all over him. Both of which had a distinct possibility of happening. I was also able to tell him about my dreams for being a storyteller like him and one day working with Imagineering. He had probably heard this thousands of times over the years and yet, he was still encouraging and kind and even left a message in one of the books saying “Dear Mark, make NEW sparks!”. I left that stall in an incredibly elated and emotional state and I am not ashamed to admit that I was crying with absolute joy. I had hoped for many years that I might get to meet Marty and this was certainly not one of the examples of the saying that you shouldn’t meet your heroes.
Sadly, just two weeks later, on July 27th it was announced that Marty had passed away. I look at those two books and the pictures from that day with a whole wave of emotion and pride that I was able to share my story with him and talk to him. Of course, I am one of thousands that had been able to thank him for everything he did but I am honoured that I am one of those thousands.
So that is my summary of D23 and with the weekend coming to an end, it also meant that there were going to be some more goodbyes. Many of the Dis team were going to be heading back to Florida on the Monday morning so we made a point of wishing them well for their journey home. Again, thank heavens for Facebook and Twitter so that we can stay in touch with them!
As it was his final night there, Pete had also invited us for a dinner at the Storytellers Café in the Grand Californian hotel along with Steve. It is a beautiful setting for a restaurant and the food was divine. I am quite fond of a buffet dinner because it means I can try a whole host of different foods from different cultures and this certainly did not disappoint.
After food, we headed into Downtown Disney for a spot of last minute shopping (for them) and then rounded off the evening with a few other people from the ABD trip that we had bumped into. Unfortunately, Trader Sam’s was ridiculously busy so we headed over to the bar at Steakhouse 55. It was a particularly poignant drink and with everyone feeling very tired it was particularly bittersweet when it came to saying goodbye with Pete, Steve and Sean getting into their Uber. All I could hope, as that Uber taxi pulled away, was that I will get to see them again someday soon.
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