Trip Report Disneyland and D23 Expo 2017 Completed

Hello! Okay, I guess I didn't think of the most creative title but it does the job. :)

My husband (Brad) and I (Amy) decided last year in July while riding Mickey's Fun Wheel at California Adventure to attend the D23 Expo in 2017. Why? We were looking over at the Convention Center from the top of the wheel and I told him that's where the Expo would be held and how it might be fun to go. He agreed.

When we returned from California I book our hotel rooms and in December 2016 on Christmas Eve I purchased our 3 day tickets (with early bird pricing) to the Expo. Somewhere on some unimportant date I also bought airfare! Ha! We had renewed our premier pass in September, so admission was covered for Disneyland.

Fast forward not to July 2017 and our travel dates were July 12 to July 18, 2017. Hey look at that, we would be there on Disneyland's birthday too! We were hoping that the train and boats would be back in operation (spoiler alert...) they weren't, but Fantasmic did open while we were there.

So here we go!

I'm tagging a few people that have followed my past reports. If I missed you, sorry, but please follow anyway. If you are new, welcome. And if I tagged you and you don't want to read, no problem! :)

@figmentfan423 @MinnieM123 @Cesar R M @donaldtoo @MySmallWorldof4 @MOXOMUMD @JenniferS @PacNWTigger @Tuvalu @Gabe1 @betty rose @Songbird76 @sheriffwoody @bee @blgauger @BuddyThomas @fractal @93boomer @MouseDreaming @ @Wrangler-Rick @PUSH @Mr Ferret 88 @amjt660 @Minnesota disney fan
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Our first official day was on the 12th of July, but we headed over to Minneapolis the night before because our flight left at about 5:30 am. Dinner that night was at the Outback Steakhouse that is connected to the hotel. This is the closest Outback to our house (about an 1hour and 15 minutes) so we don't eat at this place often but we do enjoy the food. The appetizer came out quickly but our entree's took forever. I had a chicken sandwich that I think was supposed to have bacon on it but I didn't complain because despite the appetizer I was still hungry and wanted to eat! We didn't complain about the slow service but our waiter and the manager came and apologized to us and comped our bloomin' onion, awesome!
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The hotel was about a 5 minute drive to the airport but we worry about getting places on time. We got up at 2:45 am got ready and breezed to the airport, only to find that the Southwest ticket counter didn't open for another 15 minutes. But that was okay, there was a guy ahead of us in line that I was convinced was heading to the Expo as well, he was decked out in Disney clothes, hat, and backpack, I wanted to say something to him but I was too chicken.

Our airports are doing some remodeling and our gate was in the remodeled section and there was some cool art work.
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We boarded at the end of the A group and got a row to ourselves near the back of the plane and flew to Phoenix, where we had a connection to Orange County. And here is geeky me!
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Looking out the window!
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Waiting at the gate in Phoenix. Soon we'll be in California!
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We landed a few minutes early and by the time we got to baggage claim our luggage was enjoying its ride. As soon as hubby went to claim them I ordered our Uber and about 5 minutes later our driver arrived and lucky us our luggage just fit in his trunk! Off we went and traffic was minimal and 12 minutes (yes I timed it) we were pulling up to our hotel. We stayed at the Best Western Park Place Inn, if you followed my April solo trip this is where I stayed. It is almost literally (just a couple feet to the right) across the street from the Disneyland sign and walkway to the park. When we picked our hotel almost a year ago we had to decide if we wanted to be close to the convention center or Disneyland. The walk didn't look too bad (you'll have to wait to see) to the convention center so we picked proximity to Disneyland.

Anyway, we checked into the Best Western it wasn't even 10 am yet, so of course our room wasn't ready. But they kindly stored our bags for us and soon we were crossing the street and walking into Disneyland.

We entered Disneyland a little after 10 am. We took the trolley down Main Street.
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On our way to get a Matterhorn fast pass we ran into Gaston just walking around. When Brad asked Gaston if he would take a picture with me Gaston looked at me and said, "It's so strange that your husband wants your picture with another man." I said something about who wouldn't want their picture with Gaston, and he said "I am the best."
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So we got our Matterhorn fast pass and hopped in line for the Storybook Canal boats, which are always cool and Brad loves them. Really he does! While waiting in line we saw Pinocchio, Geppetto, and Honest John wandering around. I love that Disneyland has wandering characters.
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Coming up: more of Disneyland!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster

Excellent!:):joyfull:


Thanks again so very much for the tag! :)
But, I'm such a loser when it comes to keeping up with TR's...! :oops:
Although, this time I'm not 30-50 pages or so behind on the other thread...!!! :hilarious:
So, you never know...! ;)
Again, thanks for the tag, and looking forward to, possibly ;), keeping up this time...! :)

Whenever you can or want to pop in is fine!;)
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Another WI Disney fan following along (Metro Milwaukee, here)... I'm interested to see if my bf shows up in any of your D23 pics. He was there and he really enjoyed it!

Another cheesehead, YAY! We are more north than you, we are close to Minneapolis/St. Paul and really don't get to the southern part of the state often. Let me know if you spot your bf, that would be cool if he just popped up in a picture.
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
After the Storybook Boats I rode the teacups, hubs doesn't ride because he gets sick on things that spin. Then we obtained a fastpass for Big Thunder Mt, it had an immediate return time but the time period of our Matterhorn one was due to expire soon so we came back to use our Matterhorn fastpass. By the way we were visiting a few days before Maxpass went live (we left the day before) so the fast passes were linked to your pass/ticket and a paper reminder was issued but to use the actual fastpass you have to scan your ticket at the magic bandlike posts, not the reminder. People were getting so confused!

The teacups at Disneyland don't spin as fast as the ones in WDW, the wheel seems tighter to me and I can't get them going, so that is a big disappointment. I usually just sit back and relax with the little spinning that occurs, so I refer to them as the lame-o-cups. I do love the view from the cups though, that is a much better view than the WDW ones.
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It was nice being able to ride the Matterhorn with Brad, we usually do single rider.
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By the time we got off the Matterhorn we had 5 minutes to get to our Big Thunder fastpass before it expired. In WDW it would be unthinkable to get from Fantasyland to Big Thunder in under 5 minutes, but we made it with 1 minute to spare walking at a decent rate. Brad didn't think we could make it but I said it would be no problem. A family of 5 entered the Big Thunder fastpass line before us and there were four scan machines (I think) and they stood in front of them all and guess what, they didn't have a fastpass for the attraction but stood there talking to the cm's and didn't seem to understand why they weren't allowed to go any further and just continued to stand firmly in front of the machines. I wanted to shout MOVE, but I didn't and waited patiently, then another cm told us to keep the line moving. I wanted to snap back that I couldn't move through these people, so I just nudged one of the people out of my way (because excuse hadn't worked before). Anyway, Thunder was good as always and we caught a couple glimpses of Star Wars land.

Then we wandered a round a little and got an Indy fast pass for later and visited Shrunken Ned in Adventureland. He gave me some advice for my jungle ailments.
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We wandered over to New Orleans Square to check in for lunch at Cafe Orleans.
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While waiting we saw Dr. Facilier just wandering around.
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Another weird guest thing happened while I was waiting for hubs to finish checking us into Cafe Orleans. I found a shady bench across from the restaurant and I put my purse on the seat area next to me to save a spot for Brad. There were a couple of open benches nearby, this is important to note. So I sat there for about 3-4 minutes waiting for him and now he is talking to the cast member, so he will be back to sit on the bench in less than a minute. Also, a few moments earlier a family stopped and stood across the sidewalk from me, and the mother (about my age and did not appear in distress they were going to check into the restaurant too) walks over to the bench I'm on starts to sit down...on my purse! Her bottom never makes it to my purse because even though I'm shocked I say that husband is coming to sit there and is just checking in and that she almost sat on my purse. She looked at me indignantly and huffed over to her family and didn't sit at any of the open spaces. Really lady!? I thought that was strange, I mean if there hadn't been any open spots to begin with I could see her trying to sit with me, but ask me to move my purse first! Or if you don't ask me to move it, at least shove it aside then sit.

Anyway, after she moved about 30 seconds later Brad came over and he thought it was weird too. A few minutes later our name was called and we had a nice table on the patio area overlooking the Rivers of America. Our waitress came over almost immediately and took our drink order, which pleased us because we were super thirsty and were looking forward to some water (we also got soda) and almost 10 minutes later she returned with our water. It seemed to take a long time to get our drinks. But we ordered our food and that came in a timely manner.
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We ordered the Monte Cristo, without powdered sugar or berry puree because we both like it more savory than sweet, and the pomme frittes. We share the monte cristo and the pomme frittes as they are so greasy and filling, not to mention delicious!
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The guy who dropped off our food, said he couldn't believe we didn't get the berry preserves and that they aren't good without it. Whatever, buddy that is your opinion! We like them dipped in the remoulade sauce that comes with the pomme frittes.
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It was a tasty lunch!

And our table was right next to the painted parasol booth, so that was kind of cool to watch the lady painting them work.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
After lunch we headed to Tomorrowland and saw Pinocchio and gang again. They headed into a backstage area nearby but it was a little strange to see them in the Tomorrowland area.
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We grabbed a Space Mountain fastpass for later. Hubs wasn't too happy about riding Space Mt. because he gets a little motion sick on it. I told him he should get a Star Tours one and I'd get a Space Mt. one since the return time was around the same timeand he likes Star Tours better but he followed me instead.

Then hubs wanted to meet Darth Vader so we headed to the Launch Bay. The posted wait was 20 minutes but it was more like 10 minutes. I tried to rat Brad out as the rebel spy so Vader gave him a hard time!
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After Vader I offered to get in line to meet Chewy as well but Brad said the 30 minute time wasn't worth it. To me the line (like the Vader line) looked a lot shorter than the posted time but since he is the Star Wars fan and I'm not it didn't matter if I got a hug from Chewy or not. Our fastpass time on Indy had started so that is where we went.

Snakes!?! Why did it have to be snakes!?!?;)
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After someone looked into the eyes of Mara our quest for fortune was thwarted but we survived! And once we exited the temple we headed to Main Street and looked at the Disney art before a very important attraction.
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Coming up: what is this important attraction?!?!
 

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