Day 14 - D23 Expo
Beep - Beep - Beep - goes the alarm clock. I open my eyes and think "Wow, what a great dream that was...hang on a second, that wasn't a dream...it was all true!"
It is day 3 of the Expo, Saturday morning, and the crowds are expected to be greater today. There's talk of a sell out of the 20,000 tickets, based on word (internet?) of mouth about the previous day's star-studded event. Knowing the deal (being hardened D23 Expo attendees by now!) we headed out early to the convention centre. Once again, I got in line to get our allocation of pins, and Della headed off to check out some stores at the Collector's Forum as well as see what the crowd was looking like for the first Arena session of the day - Jay Rasulo's Parks and Resorts update.
Having got the pins, I catch up with Della and we do a walk around of the floor again - catching up with a few friends along the way from the NFFC, as well as visiting Miceage, LaughingPlace, MousePlanet (I had a long chat with David Koenig - author of the Mouse Tales books).
Gerard sends me an SMS to say he is in the line for the Parks presentation, so Della and I head over there and see both Gerard, and Wayne and Jennifer a fair way in front of us. The line is pretty big and people are sitting down awaiting for it to move. Today, they tell us they are not confiscating the electronic equipment - so that was pretty cool. We begin to shuffle forward and soon enough, we are going through the doors and into the Arena where we caught up with Gerard again.
The session is due to start at 11am, but it was running late, despite not having to declare our cameras. But eventually, Jay Rasulo comes out on stage. Once again, we get a great opening video montage (no live orchestra this time though
) but it was still excellent. Then Jay comes out and starts with a pretty big announcement - he says that he is "aware of rumours going around the internet about a big Fantasyland expansion in WDW and I don't know how they get started, but these rumours are absolutely...true!" Crowd goes wild...
We see lots of the concept art of the expansion and are walked through the various new Princess-themed areas - it looks pretty cool (if you are into Princesses that is).
Jay also talks about Hong Kong, the cruise line, Hawaii resort, Adventures by Disney, the DCA expansion - with an Imagineering animatic of the Radiator Springs Racers attraction (that was cool). But when he gets to Disneyland he says there is some bad news - that in October 2010, Star Tours will be closing
Then, Imperial Storm Troopers take over the stage and Darth Vader comes on screen and Jay clarifies that they are making Star Tours II and it will open in 2014. Darth Vader said that wasn't good enough and that it had to be completed by 2011 - a timeline to which Jay Rasulo agrees! I turn to Della and said "we'd better get on over to Disneyland and ride it again before it's gone!" Next, we are told to put on our 3D glasses to see a sneak peak of the new attraction - a scene from the pod-race in The Phantom Menace. We are then told that we'll get an exclusive Star Tours II launch day poster when we leave the arena!
The presentation finished at about 11:45 and we shuffled out and got our posters - all of us Aussies got the Yoda poster, although there were Darth and C3P0 posters too. They are each individually numbered, so that was pretty cool.
For the rest of the day, Della and I decided we wouldn't do any more presentations - not because they weren't great - but because we hadn't actually covered the whole Expo floor yet (believe it or not!). We decided we do a complete systematic review of everything at the Expo! One of the highlight stands I haven't mentioned yet was the Disney Technology area - which included an ABC-TV outside broadcast van, all their TV camera equipment etc that you could check out. Plus they were also demonstrating 3D HDTV - which is awesome. 3D HDTVs go on sale in the US next year and ESPN will begin 3D sports broadcasts and Disney will release 3D Blurays next year. They had a 3D camera set up at the stand pointing at us, and it looked really funny seeing us in 3D on the big TV set. The stand also had Disney video games, the new realistic Buzz Lightyear figurine, and lots of other nifty gadgets! We also got a photo with one of the bug-floats from the Electrical Parade.
Every now and then, we'd see people walking around the Expo with these awesome Tiana bags and Snow White bags - at first we thought they bought them somewhere, but the Jennifer found out they were giving them away at the Disney Store stand. So for the last three days, Della had been stalking that stand in the hope of getting one - so much so, that the lady who ran the store would wave to Della every time she went by! Apparently they only gave out a handful at a time at set times of the day (different time each day). Della had tried making friends with the woman, giving her the "we've travelled all the way from Australia" sob story...but she would never budge. It was a bit like the Year of a Million Dreams promotion - you always saw people with the free stuff, but never got any! Anyhow, we made another pass - and once again, no luck - but we did win some Hotwheels Cars toys that were pretty cool - I got Doc Hudson and Della got Lightning McQueen.
As we toured the stands, we run into a few other famous people - Marty Sklar was walking around, as was Kagami-san (head of the Oriental Land Company who we'd met last year), Margaret Kelly (Tinker Bell), Paige O'Hara (Belle), and Eddie Carroll (the current Jiminy Cricket).
It was getting later in the day and we decided we had better go upstairs to the D23 Auction items viewing room. All the items were on display up there, and there were some great collectibles. When we saw them in the catalogue before we left Australia, it was hard to imagine what they looked like - but up close, some of these things were enormous - especially the artwork! While we were upstairs, we took some time out to look over the balcony...only to see hoards of people walking out of the Expo floor carrying Tiana and Snow White bags...nuts, we'd missed them again!
We then went onto the roof of the convention centre to get a bite to eat, and while we were there, we ran into Wayne, so the three of us sat together to compare notes from the last three days, before Wayne had to head to the Arena for the Expo. We followed shortly after and found seats in the spectator section. While waiting for it to begin, Maynard came in and sat behind us, so we had a chat about the Expo. Then - a guy by the name of David Garibaldi came on stage - he is best described as a rock and roll painter! He put up a large blank canvas, got the music turned up and pumping, and began to paint right in front of us. He was basically throwing paint at the large canvas and splashing it around and we are thinking "what is this?" But in twenty minutes, he'd painted three large paintings - a Sorcerer Mickey (upside down no less!); Walt Disney; and traditional Mickey! That was cool to watch - these were then becoming the "secret D23 lots" at the auction.
The Auction was great fun, Imagineer Alice Davis was there; five of the original Mouseketeers came out parading the couture Mickey ears; things were being sold for ridiculous prices; and Gerard managed to win the vintage Fantasia programs (way to go Gerard - don't forget to bring them to the meeting!). Della was yearning for an early night (these Expos can take a lot out of you) so she left early, but I stayed behind to see if Gerard could win the Hat Box Ghost figure (it was enormous!!). He didn't win it
So that's Day 3, I headed home to find Della checking out all her loot and drinking a hot chocolate she'd picked up at the cafe at the Tropicana hotel. It is now late Saturday night and it was time for sleep - the final day of the Expo is tomorrow - and that means it is John Lasseter's turn to take the stage. Could he out-do Mr Cook? Could we finally get our hands on those Tiana and Snow White bags? Let's wait and see