So the final day of the expo dawned, and I had adjusted a bit more to the time change so was only just awake as the day actually dawned, but after the normal morning routine of shower, breakfast (today back at Denny's) and a video skype chat with Celia. I headed to the conference centre a lot later than the last two days as I arrived it was 8:30 and I was taken aback but the absence of a line, where was everyone.
I headed straight up the escalators as today the arena shows were not interesting for me (Marvel & Disney Channel) so I was planning on being in and out of Studio 23 watching the smaller presentations, and first up was on the architecture of the latest Disney Cruise liners. I made it in to the holding pen room and waited for about 10 minutes before they started to unload the waiting room and move us to the stage. As we have never been on a cruise, the presentation was fascinating just even to see the boats in some detail.
And what they could have been.
The details on the Aquaduck and the story behind it, opened up the fact that every thing in Disney has a back story.
The ideas on the inside virtual portholes almost make them the preferred place to stay especially if we get to see Pooh bear floating past.
But the highlight was when we moved onto the Fantasy and how they plan to make an entire restaurant of animators. The plan goes like this, as you sit down to dinner you will receive a placemat
where you can design a character and draw them any way you want
Then after this has been drawn all the mats are taken away and fed into a computer system, which will based on where you are sitting ensure that you can see your character being animated along with classic pieces of Disney animations, anyway that is sort of the descriptions but it is probably just easier to see this
And the after the meal you get your placemat returned with a stamp showing that you are an honouree Disney animator. Now this is something I want to do…
After the presentation and with no other presentations to attend in the morning I was deciding what to do, when I bumped into Deb Wills from Allears.net and we had a little chat about the cruise line and how to combat seasickness as this could be an issue for my wife. I headed off to try and see the Disney Archives exhibit. As I got into the queue (as people seemed to have arrived now) there were announcements that the Marvel presentation still had spaces, but I got into line and was told it would be about 30 mins from where I was, well 1 hour later I finally got into the room. But it was worth the wait, First up was the Mickey mouse toy that rode with Walt on the train during the opening of Disneyland, along with a collection of maps and tickets from opening day.
There was a re-creation of an animators studio, and the original books from the Snow White film, there was also a whole section on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, including maquettes of Roger, Benny the cab and Jessica
I did get to meet the man who started the archives Dave Smith, who was just sitting in the room happily talking to anyone who wanted to meet him.
There were a lot of costumes in this display including Eddie Valiant and Delores from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Mad Hatter and Alice from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and various characters from Pirates, Lost and Tron.
Finally leaving the archive, I headed back to the hotel to grab a salad (and a slice of cheesecake that had been in the fridge since Thursday) for lunch hoping to eat whilst I waited in the queue and then headed back to the Stage 28 queuing area to find that I was already too late to get into the queue for the Cars land even with over hour and half before the show was going to start and the queue for the following presentation on Star Tours was already forming. The queuing on this last day was getting even more out of hand. Deciding that I was not going to queue for more than 3 hours for a presentation on star tours I headed to the D23 Charter member lounge to eat lunch and take stock of plans for the rest of the day. I quickly decided that the presentations were out as the queues were already looking way to long to be enjoyable. Discussing this with some of the other members in the lounge we did come up with the idea of showing the current Stage 28 presentation in the queue room for the next one, so that at least you had something interesting to watch whilst you waited.
After lunch I had decided just to wander around the show floor, and found myself heading towards the pin traders, even though I had met some of them before at Westward Ho, there were new faces and I quickly had to pop back to the room to grab my trader bag to get some new pins. But as it came up towards 3 and with the queuing not getting any shorter I headed back into the lounge for a round of trivia competitions and won another pin, and was also awarded a recycling Bin from Paul Anderson of the Walt Disney family museum, who is slightly mad, but they did pose for a photo with the bin, as I tried to take a picture of them asking questions.
Finally I had had enough of the Expo and decided to try and get to Target to grab a few items so that the next 2 days could be just about touring the parks, Oh that was a long walk and the sun was HOT, and the way my luck was going the stuff I was after the didn't have and my knee that I had hit before fantasmic the night before was still stiff and looked like it was starting to swell. But the walk to and from the shop did give me time to think and review what I had missed and the only thing that came to mind was to see the Talking Mickey, so when I got back to the Expo an hour or so after I left, that where I headed. He was in the Parks and Resorts pavilion but that did not have much of a queue as I think most people were still revolving around the various presentations and queue in studio 28. But he did have a short queue and went off for a break during my time in it, but this was no worst that the character meet and greet queues you get in the parks. Just behind me in the queue was Deb Koma from allears so I had met both debs on the same day. Having met Mickey on multiple occasions in the park, it is weird when he can talk and the mouth moves, but his vocabulary is a bit limited but we had a chat and a photo
And that was that, it seemed the obvious end to the Expo but I did have 1 last walk around the show floor, spotting a Tinkerbell
And a great Eye test T-Shirt but with no indication as to where you can get this,
I also had a last pop into the dream store and picked up a Tronorail diecast model, but then headed to the hotel dropped of my stuff and tried to decide where I was going that night. In the end on the walk up to the entrances I tossed a coin which on landing tails meant I was heading to Disney California Adventure for the evening. I headed to the Backlot area and grabbed a fast pass for Tower of Terror and then as my hunger had got the better of me to the Pacific Wharf area for some food, As I entered this area I was stopped by a group of girls as they were fascinated by my T-Shirt which is a Star Wars Coffee (May the Froth be with you) with a storm trouper drinking a cup and wanted to get a photo, this was all a bit surreal especially when the tattooed Californian girl turned out to be from Ilford, Essex but based on her accent that was when she was very young. I went to Cocina cucamonga Mexican Grill where I had half a burrito and felt more and more pain in my leg, I did try to ride California Screamin' but got very confused with the single rider setup, and wanting to see ElecTRONica and especially the Laserman show I headed back around the park to the backlot area.
ElecTRONica is just an open air nightclub, themed to look a bit like the GRID from the movie but the laserman show was brilliant, a mixture of smoke mirrors and great timing
But the leg was hurting more than I would like but I remembered the strapping I had found in the suitcase when I unpacked so decided that I should get that on to try and reduce the swelling. I did bump into Ricky Brigante as I was leaving the Tron area, and without even using my fast pass for Tower of Terror I headed back to the hotel for an early night.
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