D23 Expo Day 3

Day 3, Saturday – lots of attendees today!

This was the day all Disney Park folks were most interested in, a talk by Jay Rasulo entitled Imagineering the Future of Disney Parks.

His presentation did not disappoint as major announcements and previews were shown including Star Tours 2 in 3D and doubling the size of Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom. Towards the end of the presentation Stormtroopers filled the stage and were soon joined by Darth Vader on the HUGE screen. At Rasulo announced that Star Tours in DL and WDW would receive a new 3D movie that would be ready in 2015, Vader boomed that “Mr. Chairman that is not acceptable”. At that point, Rasulo said the new Star Tours would debut in 2011! It was a very impressive show!

Each attendee received a limited edition Star Tours posting announcing the new attraction coming in 2011! One question left to be answered is when in 2011 will the new show be online and will this have any impact of the Star Wars Weekends traditionally held at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in May and June.

Laura’s blog has some great video (Thank you Lee) of the Parks announcements!

The giveaways on the Expo floor were not in great abundance, but were those that were handed out were quality. One of my favorites was from the “Mickey By” booth. Twice a day, contemporary artists that Disney has commissioned to create their impressions of the mouse were available for autographs. They each had a 5×7 glossy print of their creation to autograph. The artists changed at almost every session and one of my most treasured souveniers is a collection of these prints.

Another fantastic interactive area was the Alice in Wonderland Movie setup. The Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter, White Rabbit and Alice were on hand to share a tea party with you, and engage in great conversation. I stopped by to watch a couple times each day. They occasionally roamed the Expo floor too!

Photopass Photographers were at all the right locations throughout the Expo floor and there was also a 2nd Cast Member who would take photos with your camera as well! Very nice! Photopass photo ops included Lucky and Wall-E, Cinderella’s Carriage, a Turtle from the Electric Light Parade, characters like Mickey in his Band Uniform (I’ve never seen him in that costume before).

My last presentation of the day was called The Making of US Presidents which included the newly reopened Hall of Presidents in Walt Disney World and the currently rehabbed Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Again, there were long waits. My colleague Laura Gil breath did such a great job describing this session I’ll just link to her blog for the details. Once again, this was a first rate seminar and one full of information!

I had hoped to attend the “Refreshing it’s a small world attraction” as well as the “Prep and Landing” presentation but there wasn’t time. I did see a clip from Prep and Landing, a holiday special coming to ABC later this year and it looked very cute!

Day 3 was coming to an end. I had a wonderful dinner at Catal some friends. One day left.