Month: July 2013

  • D23 Expo Preview: Sorcerer Activities

    The D23 Expo runs from Friday August 9th through Sunday August 11th, but for the guests that signed up for the Sorcerer package, the activities begin on Thursday August 8th.

    D23 has now announced the activities for Sorcerer Guests during the 4-day Expo event.   Here’s a look at the Sorcerer activities (look for an upcoming post on the main Expo schedule activities I’m planning to attend).

    Thursday gives us a chance to shop at some of the Expo stores before the show officially opens.  Since some of the merchandise is in limited quantities and will sell out, this is a real advantage for collectors of some of the scarcer items.   Since I think my souvenir shopping is going to be mostly of the T-Shirt variety, I may not be taking maximum advantage of this.   (Then again, once I get there and see the merchandise I may find myself unable to resist).

    Shopping opportunities:

    • D23 Expo Dream Store (10 am to 6:30 pm)
    • Dream Store Silent Auction Preview (10 am to 6:30 pm)
    • Disney Store (2pm to 5:30 pm)

    Other Thursday activities:

    • Access to exclusive Sorcerer Lounge (9 am to 6 pm)
    • Exclusive Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives Tours (10 am to 6:00 pm)
    • Private Show Floor Tours (10 am to 6:30 pm)
    • Dessert Reception and Fireworks viewing (8:45 pm to 10 pm)

    During the main expo days, there are also a few Sorcerer events

    • Access to exclusive Sorcerer Lounge each day during Expo hours
    • Exclusive Walt Disney Imagineering reception, Friday 5pm – 6pm
    • Farewell reception, Sunday 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

    The special Sorcerer exclusives are a nice bonus, but the real benefit to the Sorcerer package is reserved seating for any of the panels and presentations … I’ve been making the tough schedule choices over the past couple of days and will share the choices I’ve made for my Expo experience in my next post.

  • Expo Anticipation

    This year I’ll be attending my second D23 Expo … for the first expo in 2009, there wasn’t a whole lot of information released ahead of time, and I decided to take a pass.    When I saw updates from the Expo as it was happening, I realized I’d made a bad call … there was some amazing stuff going on, and I was missing out!

    So for the 2011 Expo I was there for all 3 days.  I absolutely loved what I saw — but what I saw was only a small fraction of what I wanted to see.    Unlike most of the other D23 events, where a ticket guarantees you a seat at every presentation, an Expo ticket only grants you the right to stand in line to get into the presentations.   Many of the most popular presentations filled up well ahead of their starting time, so anyone showing up a few minutes before a presentation was not going to find a seat.    So, if you wanted to see a 2 pm presentation, you pretty much had to forgo any presentations at 1 pm and start lining up between noon and 1 pm for the 2 o’clock.   For the main arena presentations, typically held first thing in the morning, lining up outside the convention center 2 hours ahead of doors opening was pretty much the minimum … for a while on Saturday we actually believed we were going to be the very last people admitted to the Studios presentation (they cut off the line behind us, but later let through about 100 more people).

    So, this year I wanted to maximize my chances to see as much as I could … which means Sorcerer.   A very limited number of Sorcerer tickets are sold, and each ticket guarantees a seat at any presentation (it appears we will be asked to register for the presentations we plan to attend just before the expo, so that they’ll have an exact count of how many seats to set aside in each presentation).     It’s a pricey indulgence, but for a once-every-two-years event, with a lot of content that will never be repeated anywhere at any price, I thought it would be worth it.   I hope they prove me right.

    So I’m watching the schedule as it fills in on the web site (D23 doesn’t announce everything at once, but trickles out the content in the weeks leading up to the Expo).    Already I see some tough choices … Friday morning at 10 am is the Animation presentation, with John Lassiter, covering all the upcoming Disney and Pixar animated features.    I have to be there for that … but that means I’ll miss Dave Smith (Disney Archivist Emeritus) discussing the making of Mary Poppins, and the Imagineers discussing the Mystic Manor attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland.     If only I had a few clones to send to those other presentations!

    Things got a little more real this week when the Expo credentials arrived … it’s very exciting to have my tickets in hand, but seriously … couldn’t they have run this through a spell checker and found the correct spelling of Sorcerer?

    IMG_3614

    I think the things I’m looking forward to most at this point are the evening concerts .. Friday night we get “Broadway and Beyond”, featuring current and previous cast members of Disney Theatrical Group’s Broadway productions.    Then on Saturday, Alan Menken and Richard Sherman take the stage together for the first time … I saw Menken perform at the Destination D: 75 Years of Disney Feature Animation event and it was a highlight.    I’m sure this will be an equally memorable evening.

    If you’re at the Expo this year, look for me and say hi … and comment below with what you’re most looking forward to at this year’s Expo.

  • The D23Expo apps are available

    The D23 Expo apps for iPhone and Android are available for download today from the respective app stores.

    Check the schedule and presenters, adding interesting presentations to your calendar.  Check out the vendors in the Collector’s Forum and other shopping opportunities (Dream Store, Mickey’s of Glendale, and more).   Maps of the facilities, FAQ, trivia, even a scavenger hunt.

    iPhone:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/d23-expo/id658929476?mt=8

    Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.disney.d23_goo

  • I love it when a plan comes together

    Sometimes the stars align just so, and something magical happens.    This may just be one of those times in my life.

    Almost a year ago, tickets went on sale for the 2013 D23 Expo.   Since I’m planning on writing a lot more about the Expo over the next 3 weeks, I won’t go into anything about it here, other than to say buying the tickets put a stake in the ground as far as my schedule … I knew exactly where I was going to be on August 9-11 of 2013.

    I bought those Expo tickets while I was training for my first ever runDisney race, and my first run over 5K – the Tower of Terror 10 miler, in late September of 2012.   That race led me to try another — the WDW Half Marathon in January 2013 — and that in turn led me to sign up for back-to-back races over the upcoming Labor Day weekend — the inaugural Disneyland 10K on August 31st, followed by the Disneyland Half Marathon on September 1st.   (The two races together comprise the Dumbo Double Dare challenge, and doing the Disneyland Half during the same calendar year as the WDW Half earns me the Coast-to-Coast Challenge medal, so I’ll be sporting some serious bling come Labor Day.    I hope I can stand up!

    That’s another topic for future posts, but once again, I’ve got a firm schedule commitment, again in Anaheim, this time for Labor Day weekend.

    Now, at the same time I’m making all these plans for Anaheim, I’m also thinking about a cross-country move — to get closer to family and friends, primarily.   It’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for several years, but with real estate in the tank recently it wasn’t feasible to sell my house for enough to make it worthwhile.    But recent recoveries in the market changed the equation … I talked to my Realtor and we decided to give it a shot.   The house went on the market, and 8 days later it was under contract.    The market was stronger than I realized.

    I followed this up with a trip to Atlanta, I called it a house hunting trip but honestly I would have been satisfied just to eliminate a few areas from consideration and narrow the focus somewhat.   Finding neighborhoods, and not necessarily “the” house, was my goal.    But again, things went better than expected, and by the end of last week I was under contract on a house there.

    Now is when the timing falls into place beautifully.   I need to be out of my house here in early August, but the house I just purchased is under construction and will not be ready until mid-September.     So I’m homeless for most of the month of August.     But, I do have a few prior commitments in Anaheim … so you can probably see where this is going.

    Early in August, the movers will come in, pack up my house, and roll away.    I’ll board a flight for Anaheim and enjoy the D23 Expo.   And then …. I’ll stay.    My job affords me the luxury of working from anywhere I can get an internet connection, so it’s not (exactly) an extended vacation.    I’m hoping to find a nice coffee shop or similar location to use as my office for nearly four weeks, while every evening is a chance to enjoy the Disneyland Resort at a leisurely pace I’ve never experienced.   I’ll need to keep up my training … a lap around the resort perimeter is just about the length of my daily runs, anyway, so that shouldn’t present much of a problem.   After the Dumbo Double Dare on Labor Day weekend, I’ll fly to Atlanta, where I’ll stay with family for the last couple of weeks before moving in to my new home.

    I’m really looking forward to living — however briefly — in Anaheim.    The Expo should be amazing, I’m hoping just to finish the races upright, and the time in between should be a great chance to get to know every little nook and cranny of the Disneyland resort.

    So, Disneyland friends — any suggestions?    Where’s a great place to set up with a laptop and get work done while still being part of the magic?   What are the places to see and things to do when you’ve got more than just a couple of days to run through the parks?    Anything else you’d recommend for a short-term Anaheim area resident to make sure not to miss?