Well, Day 1 of the 2011 D23 Expo is history. While it’s had some
special moments, for the most part it was a very frustrating day.

The Expo opened to D23 members at 9:00 and to the general public at
10:00. Or I should say that was the *announced* opening times.
The lines were HUGE by 8:30, and they did let D23 members in earlier
than 9:00, but it still took a ridiculously long time to go in. I
got in line at about 9:10 and it took me almost 50 minutes to get
inside. And there were still lots of people behind me. And they
hadn’t even started to let those in the General Admission line in!

There are fewer sessions this year, and they are holding them in
just three rooms this year – the Arena, Stage 23, and Stage 28. The
good news is that the rooms are larger than they were two years ago,
but even so none of them are large enough for the number of people
who want to attend. People are lining up sometimes 3 and 4 hours
before a session starts – I heard people ask this afternoon if it
was possible to start lining up TODAY for the Walt Disney Studios
session that’s in the Arena TOMORROW.

There are fewer food locations this year and the lines there are
ridiculously long, too – and we won’t even talk about the prices.
$8.00 for a hamburger with NO fries or chips, just a slice of
tomato and pickle.

I wasn’t able to attend very many sessions today, and they all
started at least 15 minutes late – which makes it even less possible
to try to attend other sessions.

So what did I do today?

Once I finally got inside the building I started by finding the
Arena and figuring out where I needed to go to get into the
Disney Legends ceremony.

That was pretty special – they inducted 12 new Disney Legends,
including Regis Philbin, Guy Williams, and the women who were the
voices of the more modern Disney Princesses: Jodi Benson (Ariel),
Paige O’Hara (Belle), Linda Larkin (Jasmine speaking), Lea Salonga
(Jasmine singing, Mulan), and Anika Noni Rose (Tiana). The four
ladies sang some of their signature songs, and at the end they all
performed together, as you’ll see in this clip.

Guy Williams died in 1989, but his family accepted on his behalf – his son even brought along his “Zorro” sword!

All of the award winners were escorted by a Disney character, with the exception of Regis Philbin who enjoyed the company of three lovely Disney princesses!

Also inducted was Jim Henson. Kermit the Frog and Rowlf performed
“Rainbow Connection”. You know how some songs just “get you right
here”? That one does it for me…and there weren’t too many dry eyes
in the house.

That started late, so it ran late, and I wasn’t able to get into
the next session I had hoped to. I wandered around the Show Floor a
little bit, but didn’t have time to really see anything before
eating the almond butter and jelly sandwich that I had brought with
me, while sitting on the floor because all of the tables were packed
(at least the floor was carpeted!).

Then it was time for another line – this one for the Walt Disney
Parks and Resorts presentation. (As members of the press, we did
have a special line for presentations in the Arena, but still had to
get there 30-45 minutes early.)

There were no real surprises in this one. It was hosted by Tom
Staggs who brought out other guests like Bruce Vaughn, Joe Rohde
(recorded), Bob Weiss, Kathy Mangum, and George Kalogridis to talk
about things like the Fantasyland Expansion, Aulani, Shanghai
Disneyland, Cars Land, and Disneyland. I have lots of video that I
haven’t had a chance to process – while there were no surprising
announcements, there were some nice computer simulations of Shanghai
Disneyland and recent photos of the Cars Land area.

That also started late and ran late, so I had about 45 minutes until
the Ultimate Disney Trivia Tournament was going to start at 6:00
(which didn’t start until almost 6:20). There was a queue for
that, though fortunately it didn’t fill up that quickly. (They had
a separate queue for the Dick Van Dyke & The Vantastix program,
which was going to be held in the same room – it was at 8:15 and at
5:15 there was already a lot of people queued up for it.)

There were 20 people who were semi-finalists for the Trivia
Tournament, and wow, they really knew a lot of trivia! They asked
them some very hard questions – like the number and street of the
house Walt Disney was born in (and the person knew the answer!!!).
And they asked someone to spell “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.
They even brought out some costumes and props from the Disney
Archives and asked questions about them. There were multiple rounds
with different formats to make it even more interesting. John, the
guy who won, was head and shoulders above everyone else – during
the “Lightning” round where they buzzed in, sometimes he buzzed in
before the host (Daniel Roebuck from Lost) had finished asking the
question – and he still got them right.

Here’s what they were playing for – John gets his name on this
trophy, and he gets a cruise on the Disney Fantasy next year.

I enjoyed that, but of course it also ran late, and the queue for
the Dick Van Dyke show, which I would’ve like to have seen, had been
full for a long time. Since the Archives and Expo Floor were closed
by then I called it a day.

I hope the entry procedure tomorrow will be better…but they’ve
already announced that tickets are sold out for Saturday, so I’m
sure the crowds will be even worse.

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