After our trip through the Parks & Resorts Pavillion we decided to go ahead and head over to the Parks and Resorts Presentation. Since our Premiere passes gave us guaranteed seating in the Arena, we didn’t have to queue up crazy like all the regular attendees. The presentation opened up with drummer Mickey playing his drumset.
Actually since we were sitting on the side where the band was located and I could see the drummer, I knew it wasn’t Mickey playing. Sorry, oh and for those that thought he was….the Easter Bunny isn’t real either!
PS. Edited with comments from Fran: Mickey is hitting the drums, but the mic was on the bandstand drummer. She also says while the Easter Bunny is not real, Yensid IS!
The first part of the presentation covered the Fantasyland expansion. There wasn’t all that much new information from what I had learned at the Destination -D event in May, they talked about the entering through Maurice’s house and ending up at the Beast’s Castle. There was some information on Dumbo and a few other tidbits, but I had forgotten that I needed take notes on the sessions if I wanted to remember anything!
The next thing that they covered was Aulani. For those of you who are DVC you might remember that this was a DVC Resort, however if you have been keeping up on the news you know that Jim Lewis was suddenly fired a couple weeks ago. Not “no longer with the company”. Fired, no severance package, no golden handshake, no Mickey Watch, just a kick in the booty and out the door. Why does this matter to the Expo? Because when the top executive is fired one week before the presentation, and there is a scandal which causes Disney to halt sales of the latest DVC Property, they have to do a little shuffling and back stepping to put their best foot forward.
I visited the Aulani area at the Parks and Resorts Pavilion and I picked up a brochure. Not once did it mention DVC and all references said, “Aulani, a Disney Resort”. There was one picture at the beginning of the presentation where they couldn’t “photoshop” Jim Lewis out of the picture, but nowhere else was he mentioned. Plus they had a quickly thrown together video of Joe Rohde giving a preview of the resort. It was pretty obvious that they were trying to “fill” this presentation as they didn’t have much that was really new and that they could talk about.
They talked about breaking ground for Shanghai Disney.
They covered some of the DCA update and showed some concept art for Buena Vista Street
There was some talk of the Carthay Circle Club (they are hoping people would want to join this and they can artificially make it as prestigious as Club 33).
There was a brief mention of Carsland.
They also said something about expanding Club 33, but were very vague and unclear.
As soon as that presentation was over we hightailed it up to the 3rd floor to find out if there was a queue forming for the 8:15 performance by Dick VanDyke and the Vantastix. It was just after 5PM, but there was a good 50 people already in line. The theater only held 1000 people, so we decided we better go ahead and get in line. This is where us Premiere people didn’t feel so special any more. Sorcerer’s only had to show up about ½ an hour before the show, but we had to wait just like everyone else. I heard the line was capped off from the stand by only by 6:15PM. We ate our other Chinese chicken salad in line, plus our bananas, yogurt, cottage cheese, anything we could find as we were freezing (this room was set for antarctic temperatures) and starved as well! The lines for the mediocre food were 30 minutes minimum and most people were saying they waited well over 45 minutes for a cruddy hamburger.
This is where I forgot to take pictures. The majority of the weekend was spent in lines. For those who have no concept think the queue for the Great Movie Ride, as if you were packed in there for three hours and didn’t move, the movies weren't showing, just loud Disney music that was only about a 20 minute loop. After waiting probably 10-12 hours in this room over the weekend, it got annoying to say the least. For those who don't know WDW, think Hyperion Theater queue if it were indoors. Everyone sat on the floors. They allowed in and out privileges to fetch meals, bathroom breaks, etc, but one person in your party had to hold the slots and once the queue started moving, anyone who wasn’t there was sh*t out of luck. However most people were friendly and the time passed relatively painlessly.
By 8:15 everyone wondered what we were still doing in the room, and it was still another 15 minutes before we actually started filling in the theater. The show ended up starting at 9:00 PM. They started off with a “rap-like” Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was really cute and the sound effects that they made were quite amusing.
You can probably find all this on Youtube if you look.
They also sang (and not necessarily in this order)
Bare Necessities, Dick VanDyke had a cute set of alternate lyrics about his "darned senility” which were hilarious!
Sesame Street Medley
Would you like to swing on a star
You've got a friend in me
About halfway through they sat down after a rousing version of the Old Bamboo, they talked about how they met and began singing together, and then sang a few more. Also dick invited up his personal assistant who also sings with him in the car on their way doing errands and stuff. Evidently one time they were singing spirituals and the guys were over and they made up some backgrounds on the spot. They sang that for us before moving on to their final number. All four were given honorary D23 memberships and Dick was presented with a painting by Ellenshaw of the London Chimney Sweep Scene.
They finished off the evening with a Mary Poppins medley that featured a “rap” version of Spoonful of Sugar, which had the audience in stitches. They closed it out with “Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious” that brought the house down.
For those of you here for the food porn stay tuned, because after a day like this we needed it!
My DD met another friend that was on the Expo staff working the line for Disney Parks and resorts presentation. She said that there was a back up line for the stand by line!
: I believe that the tent on the right is the area of the new interactive queue for Dumbo where you will wait until your turn to ride is up.
Here's the link:
Why are you even reading any others????? 
