D23 Expo Trip - Day 1

Day 1 - Travel and Pins

So after hearing so many good reports on the 2009 edition of the D23 Expo, when they announced afterwards that it would be a bi-annual event I started to think about attending.

After the pain and events of last year (see previous trippies) both myself and my wife have taken the attitude of you only live once so go for it, So at the start of the year I decided that if I could save enough to pay cash for this trip then it should be a go'er.

By April I had enough put away to book flights and a hotel and to purchase the Expo tickets before the price rise in June. I was able to get an economy flight and 5 nights in the Marriott for £1,200.

Fast forward to Thursday 18th August and the alarms goes off at 6am, Bags are packed and off I go, as this would be a solo trip. The taxi picked me at at 8:30, and with little traffic on the roads (even the dreaded M25) I was dropped off at 9:15. Check-in had been done the day before including my boarding pass, with at the time me having an aisle with only the Window seat in that 3 being used, so maybe a chance of a spare seat next to me. Would this be the case when I was boarding.

Terminal 5 is a lovely open airport but due to the lack of traffic I had a couple of hours to twiddle my thumbs, but finally it was 11 and I took the shuttle train to the new C gates, British airways were efficent and called us in row order which as I right at the back of plane was fine by me. Though I did see a women shouting at the staff as they tried to convince her that her carry on was too big and would need to be checked into the hold but it was a Louis Vuitton (or a rip off) that she would not let out of her site. I walked on quickly and hoped that she would not be near me especially as she was also failing to control the 3 children she was with.

I got to my seat to find that there was someone already in the middle seat so no luck there, but was then moved forward a few rows to allow a mother and her child to sit together.

The flight was long but unremarkable, but LAX seems to be huge as the plane took 20 mins between landing and actually getting to a gate. Then a quick call home to tell my wife that I had landed safely and the route march to Immigration with the video playing the Illuminations music, they opened up some additional immigration desks so that was quick, bags arrived and then out into the main arrival hall. I had book a Super Shuttle to take me to the hotel, and I found the guy in a blue jacket and checked in with him. He said that it would be 15mins so quickly turned around and headed back into the terminal to get a bottle of water and as I got back the shuttle was already there and almost full, but they had space for my bag and we drove through the freeways of LA. It took 1 hour to get to the Disneyland area but mine was the 2nd hotel to stop at and I could check in and drop off my bags.

Hunger was on my mind now and to try and stay awake as it was 5:30pm PST (or 1:30am UK time). I just turned around in the hotel room and headed to the Conference centre to get my pass and then walked to the Anaheim GardenWalk as I always need a Cheesecake factory fix. Dinner was a Grilled chicken Tostada Salad which was huge but wondrously tasty. I could never also eat a slice of cheesecake after that but I did get the Carrotcake Cheesecake to go. That was dropped back at the hotel room in the fridge and I grabbed my trading pins and headed to the Annabella for Westward Ho trading night organised by the Central Jersey Pin Traders.

I was able to get a few trades done and meet some wonderful people from across the USA. As the clock headed towards 9:30 time was getting the better of me so I walked back to the Marriott to try and sleep through to a reasonable time to get up....