So the 8 hour time difference to the West coast can cause havoc with sleep patterns and even after being awake for over 24 hours and getting to sleep around 10pm. I first woke again at 2am, and again at 3, and then on and off till at 5am I had had enough and got up showered and decided to walk to the nearby 24hour Denny's for breakfast.
By 8:15 I decided to head to the Conference as, as a D23 member the doors would open at 9am. Ah this was probably my first mistake as I had noticed on twitter that the first people in the queue and got there at 2am, and the queue by the time I got there was already longer than the length of the venue.
It took till 9:30 to get into the centre and I decided to try and start with a presentation so went up the escalators to Stage 28 on the 1st floor. It was presentation described as the History of the Disneyland Hotel, and was based on an archive find of old photos and films taken in the 50's and 60's of the Disneyland Hotel. It was absolutely fascinating even though i had never been to the hotel at that point and the layout and descriptions didn't make much sense.
The presentation finished at 10:30 and with the Legend's ceremony due to start at 11am I headed down to the Arena, to be faced by a queue that seemed to go on for ever and the show was due to start in 5 mins. And at that time they baulked the queue and started to send people back into the main hall rather than letting them into the arena so although they had queued for a while they were no longer going to get into the Arena.
So with the legends ceremony on I thought this would be a good time to get walk around the show floor, as the main crowds were surely in the arena. I was able to renew my Celebrations magazine subscription and bumped into a group of attendee's in costume.
I then walked towards the Dream Store, this was to be were the main expo merchandise was on sale, but as I got there I noticed that there was a bit of a queue to get in, and after waiting 10 mins based on the amount I had moved it looked like it would be at least 1 hour to actually get into the store and probably more, so as I was hopeing to get to another presentation at midday and it was already 11:30, however as I attempted to leave the queue for the dream store I did see a collection of items that were to be sold at the Live Auction on the Saturday night, including a Zebra from the Jungle cruise ride. I found out later that this sold for $6,000 what do you do with a life sized zebra, and I had been given direct instructions from my wife NOT TO BUY THE ZEBRA.
They also had a small setup of Pins and Vinylmations that are due for release during the rest of the year and the vinyl of Dopey did grab my attention as he is a favourite of my wifes.
I then headed up to Stage 23 which was the larger of the 2 smaller presentation rooms where I was able to just sneek in as as i arrived the queue was already moving and I jumped on to the end and was held at the door before 7 more were allowed in but what I found in the room was tons of empty seats which had not been filled as they turned off the lights and showed us this years episode of Prep and Landing, which was funny and a wonderful story of good and bad, and family. I decided not to stay for the questions and answer session as I was starting to think about lunch and a Skype chat home.
On the way back down I noticed that there was not a queue to get into the Treasure Trove store, which was attached to the Walt Disney Archives exhibition, so I had a quick look and found a couple of first day maps and a bunch of interesting Pins. I then found that although the store did not have a queue to get in. It did have a queue for the checkout. but after 15 mins I was at the check out and found out why the queue was so slow as each item had to be found in a book of barcodes as each item could not just be zapped.
I wandered back to the hotel and grabbed a Chicken caeser salad to eat in the room with a chat home.
I headed back to the conference centre just after 2 and decided that after seeing people being turned away from the Arena for the legends ceremony that I should start to queue as that was due to start at 3:45 by the time I got there the queue was already long
I was able to get into the switchbacks but again only just as 30 or so people later the queue was stopped. but this did not stop some people just joining the queue nearer the front, sometime with food and normally meeting up with people they knew, but after a few minutes they must have started letting people into the arena as the snake started to wind its way into the main hall
and after 1hour 15 mins of being in the queue I was finally able to get a seat in the arena.
Now so much has already been talked about on podcasts and blogs on what was announced, but my highlights were the Tom Staggs doing castmember jobs film, seeing the mine train both as a concept video and as a mock up in a car park and the castle in Shanghi which looks amazing.
I know some other people have complained that there was no big announcement at this expo, but I didn't really mind that and was sort of expecting it as nothing had leaked out prior to the expo. It would have been nice to hear about a new country for Epcot or a new ride for Paris but with the amount of money being spent in New Fantasyland, Cars Land and Shanghi & Hong Kong it is not supprising that it will be a few years before anything major will be announced.
After the parks and resorts Arena show ended I hurried back to teh collectors forum as I had seen a few Jessica Pins as I had walked past in the queue so went back to purchase (luckly they were still there) and had a better look arround the forum as the whole show floor seemed quieter, probably a mixture of people waiting for Dick van Dyke and others just heading home/hotels/to dinner. As such I was able to get into Mickey's of Glendales which is the immagineering shop, getting a T-shirt for my nephew and a polo shirt for me along with some more pins.
By now there was no longer a queue for the dream store so I was able to visit all the major retail spaces in the first day, I just got a couple more pins at the dream store, but they had already sold out of some of the more limited designs.
Then it was back to the hotel to sort myself out as I had an appointment in Disney's California Adventure that evening.
I arrived at the new look entrance to DCA just after 7 and wandered through the construction walls and headed around Grizzly Peak to the paradise gardens area, where I was able to pick up my picnic dinner and a fastpass for World of Color
After eating I still had time before the show so had a quick ride on Little Mermaid as this was not showing a wait. It is a good dark ride and the technology has moved on from teh likes of Pooh, Peter pan etc, but it is JUST A DARK RIDE and not the E ticket that some people seem to want it to be. But it is enteraining and tells the story quite well.
I came out of the ride and headed into Paradise garden's proper to find a spot for World of Color. I had brought my little tripod and got some nice photos of the Paradise pier area even in the dark
but for the show everyone must stand up so the tripod was just to low as I was not right at the front of my area. The show is a mix between Fantasmic and the bellago fountain show in las vegas, with lights, water and music being joined by film projected on to water screens. Oh and fire at some points. The only down side to the whole show was I was wearing the wrong clothes as I was getting rather wet as I was close to the waters edge but water also comes out of every planter and side so it is designed to get you wet.
Once the show came to and end i was damp to say the least but the dry air (even if it was not that warm now the sun had gone down) did dry me out by the time i got back to the hotel. But first I had plans to attend the Inside the Magic/windows to the magic meet at Trader Sam's in the Disneyland hotel, so I headed out of DCA via the Grand California entrance Which cut of some time heading back through the entrance way and out into Downtown Disney, I found the hotel which is actually a group of buildings but each individual tower is signposted along with what is in each so I did eventually find Trader Sam's just before 10pm. But I couldn't spot Ricky or anyone else from the podcasts and as sleep decided then to hit me I headed back to the hotel (a 20 min walk) and fell fast asleep till the following morning.
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