A Once in Lifetime Adventure in Walt's Wonderful World-lots of pics-COMPLETE

[jacksparrowfan]

I'm enjoying the part on Michael. He was there for us. Our visit with him was one of my highlights on our trip! Looking forward to more reading!

 

[Aburns8]

Well, I would say how could you miss him he was huge, but there was so much to look at that I can see how you could miss it!!!!!!!!!!!

I saw the big one (if I missed it I would have to be blind he is so big ). I missed the one in the reception area!

 

[hack2112]

I seem to recall a picture of me doing the same exact thing.

AHHH!!!! MICHAEL HAS A MUSTACHE!!!!!!!! He is hilarious.

And yes, we were there when they were filming the video, so we never got to see it.

 

[stacyz]

Great trip report so far! It's like doing the ABD tour again (well, almost). Henson Studios was the best - it was our tour that someone saw Justin Timberlake on. The time spent at Henson Studios is not long enough - what a cool place that would be to work at.

I'm looking foward to the rest of your trip report.

 

[jns]

Have a great Christmas and a Very Happy New Year

Jackie and Michael and boys xx

 

[Disneygrl36]

Loved your date with a frog update!!

Awww thanks Beth. I loved my date with the frog--just wished it was longer.

When you have oodles of money to buy a house
I that movie! Thanks for sharing that. I'll prob think of Mr. Henson too. I've always had a small place in my heart for the Muppets. They are awesome.
OH...MY...GOSH I would have died. I JT! That would have been wicked awesome!
Do they literally take your cameras/phones and lock them up?

Yes, they literally did make us lock our cameras etc in a box at the Jim Henson studios when we were headed to the creature shop. They said they usually lock them up other places too like when they take you backstage at Disneyland, but they learned they could trust us & didn't bother.

Patrick saw J T-lake there too! He also saw Miley Cyrus there once, and the Jonas Brothers, and Kanye West, and that guy Randy Jackson from American Idol has an office at Henson and hangs around a lot. It's funny because Patrick doesn't know who most of these stars are and people around him freak out and have to explain to him why they're freaking out.

I also got a little thrill watching your video when Michael mentioned the invitation-only puppeteering classes that Henson does - that's the one Patrick teaches!

I love that Patrick sees famous people & has to be told who they are.....so cute. I remembered you mentioning that class too. Michael was awesome & I really enjoyed listening to him answer all our questions.

I'm enjoying the part on Michael. He was there for us. Our visit with him was one of my highlights on our trip! Looking forward to more reading!

. Glad you are here & reading. He was fascinating especially with Sweetheart.

I saw the big one (if I missed it I would have to be blind he is so big ). I missed the one in the reception area!

D'oh, there were so many Kermit's in the post, I didn't know which one you meant. Silly me..........I can blame it on the fuzzy head that the cold has given me.

I seem to recall a picture of me doing the same exact thing.


AHHH!!!! MICHAEL HAS A MUSTACHE!!!!!!!! He is hilarious.

And yes, we were there when they were filming the video, so we never got to see it.

Max, that's really cool that you got to see them filming the video. I would have loved to see the puppeteers at work.

Great trip report so far! It's like doing the ABD tour again (well, almost). Henson Studios was the best - it was our tour that someone saw Justin Timberlake on. The time spent at Henson Studios is not long enough - what a cool place that would be to work at.

I'm looking foward to the rest of your trip report.

Thanks Stacy & Glad I could help you relive your memories. I agree that the time at the Henson Studios was not enough-but just remember it's better than anybody else has ever gotten which is none. I agree that it would be an awesome place to work.

Have a great Christmas and a Very Happy New Year

Jackie and Michael and boys xx

Thanks for the Christmas cheer Jackie....same to you guys.

I have a ton of cooking to do today for our family dinner tonight. If I have time I will be back later with an update, but most likely it will be Friday before I get one up.

 

[Disneygrl36]

We had a wonderful time spending part of our holiday season at Disneyland. We hope your Christmas is filled with peace, joy & extra pixie dust!!!!!

 

[Disneygrl36]

So when last we left our travelers, we were back on the bus & headed for a surprise. We were taken to Griffith Park where the LA Steamers were going to open Walt's barn up for us & give us a train ride on a miniature train like Walt had in his backyard. If you will remember, this is something I really wanted to see so we had taken a special trip on our own out there just to see the barn from the outside just in case we didn't get to go because it is opened by volunteers so Adventures by Disney isn't always able to have this experience for the tour.

Of course, the way this barn got to Griffith Park, is that Diane Disney Miller was able to talk the people that bought Walt & Lillian's property in Holmby Hills into not tearing it down & letting her get it moved to Griffith Park so that it could be enjoyed by generations to come. This was done in 1999. Walt's backyard railroad, the Carolwood Pacific, was a light in his life & something that he really enjoyed working on in his backyard & this barn was where he did alot of that work. The barn was built in 1950 & can be credited with being a place where many wonderful ideas for a little place called Disneyland were hatched-so many have called it the birthplace of Imagineering. Also of course, Walt wanted it to be the right scale so the doors appear larger than they are & there is even a sag in the roof & over the door to give the appearance of age & settling. The paint was made specially so it appeared more weathered as well & they were able to get the same landscape designer to come & landscape around the barn once it was moved. Thank goodness it was saved, because it is a gem & since the house is no longer there at least you can still see a part of what Walt Disney's home world looked like. Walt & Lillian even had a formal legal agreement about the train & the track as she knew if she didn't have things in writing he would take over the whole back yard & she would not be able to have any flowers & trees like she wanted. I think she was a real smart cookie.
Here is the plaque outside the barn from the dedication

This is a collage of pictures of that opening day with Diane Disney Miller.

There we several members of the LA Steamers there to talk with us about the history of the barn, trains & Walt.

We were able to go inside the barn & look at all the memoribilia in there. There were some amazing things.

Things that Walt touched, worked on & built himself.

His nametag as a charter member of the LA Steamers

I am standing beside an actual Carolwood Pacific car from the train here.

This is the pot belly stove from the Lilly Belle. Walt's train was 1/8 scale just like the track/train that runs around his barn at Griffith Park now.

The switch for running the train.

This is his actual track that has been preserved.

Gotta love this hat.

Touches like this is what made this barn so special-you could really feel Walt's stamp all over it.

Eric in front of Walt's shaving mirror. He actually used to go down to the barn in the morning & shave.

A great old photo of Walt & Lillian.

Inside the barn they had some memoribilia from Ollie Johnston's train days as well.
I loved this because this was some of his drawing paper & pencils.

This is Ward Kimball's Firehouse 5 Plus 2 hat used during a performance-besides being a top animator & train buff, he was a musician as well.

This is a Disney Legends Statue tucked over into the corner-we would see a huge version of this at the studios the next day.

They have also moved Ollie Johnston (one of Walt's 9 old men) train depot here as well & refurbished it. Ollie & Ward Kimball (another of the 9 old men) were involved in trains & helped Walt to get the train bug.

Well, after exploring the barn, we were broken into groups & the Daisy group went first to ride the train. We were able to mill around some more & talk with the volunteers while they rode. They had a table set up with tshirts, hats, books & pins. I bought some 2 pins & this book called Walt's Happy Place-which is a children's book about Walt's railroad. I love the painting that is featured on the front of this book. Walt young & old smiling!!!!

Eric & I really enjoyed talking with the volunteers who were passionate about the trains & Disney in general. I asked about Ollie's depot & how much we loved being able to see that as well. We were then treated to a story about Ollie's celebration of life service that this volunteer had personally attended. It gave me chill bumps to hear about Ollie & his last trip on board his train the Marie E that John Lasseter (yes that John Lasseter) has bought & refurbished. John made arrangements to take the Marie E to Disneyland & Ollie was able to drive it around Disneyland 3 times. The great thing about it is that this train had never made a full circuit before because it had been an out & back train in it's work life & in Ollie's back yard as well. Soooooo wonderful!!!!!!!!! I have since looked up several things about Ollie's service on the internet & have seen many wonderful pictures of that day & the smile on Ollie's face was priceless.
So we were quite content while the Daisy's were riding the train, but guess what? The train pooped out & we were not able to ride...the Daisy's broke the train (foreshadowing for future events). So they were able to at least bring the train around for us to have our picture taken like we got to ride.
Eric & I on the train.

It was a lovely visit & this was the first of many times on this trip where I will say that I could truly feel Walt Disney's presence!!!! It was wonderful to be inside the barn knowing all the hours he spent there. It was a great "surprise".
Here is a picture of the postcard of our whole group at the barn & the pins I bought.

As we left, they gave us this cute picture of Donald & this really cool sticker.

Once back on the bus, the people that were going to Jimmy Kimmel live were given the information that they needed to meet each other in the lobby at 4:45pm to go over to the studio. The tickets were all under one name. We had opted not to do this, as we still had some areas of Hollywood we wanted to explore, but the ones who did go said it was great. They got to see Courtney Cox, Brian Austin Greene & musical guest Adele.
They also gave us our pin for the day since all of us would not be back together that day.
The pin was the theme of the day "Lights, Camera, Adventure" & it features Miss Daisy Duck. Diana said it was the only ABD pin with Daisy on it so it's extra special.

We were all excited when we caught a glimpse of the Disney Studios where we would be going tomorrow on our way back to the hotel.

Continued in next post...............

 

[Disneygrl36]

After we got back to the hotel, I called to set up our VIP tour at Grauman's Chinese theatre that we wanted to do so we could see inside it. It was around 4:15 & I was told just to go to the box office & that there would be a tour starting at 5:00. Perfect. So we relax a few minutes & then head over around 4:45 to look for a few more hand/foot prints we had missed only to be told at the box office that the last tour was at 4:30. I said but I just called. Oh well, next time.
So we browsed around & found a few things we had overlooked before.

We decided to head over to explore the Roosevelt Hotel which has alot of old Hollywood history & is a pretty cool place to hang out. The very first Academy Awards were held here. It has been in numerous films & is said to be haunted by Montgomery Clift & Marily Monroe. This was another suggestion by lurkyloo aka Carrie & it turned out to be another great one.

Me on the steps that Shirley Temple is reported to have learned how to do a tap dance number from Bill "Boganles" Robinson in the 1935 film "The Little Colonel."

This is the dance if you want to see how she did after her lesson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjCFYpWDmfM&feature=related
A pretty Christmas tree

In the cool/dark/ultra-hip lobby area

From the mezzanine level

Weird I know to take a photo of a bathroom, but I thought it was really pretty.

In the outside pool area where famous people or nearly famous people like reality stars from The Hills are reported to hang out.

Marilyn Monroe lived in a bungalo suite overlooking the pool right above the Tropicana bar.

We looked everywhere for Marilyn Monroe's mirror which hung in her room & now is supposed to be haunted. We found photos of Marilyn but no mirror so I asked someone & it has been moved out of the public areas . It is said that her image appears in the mirror sometimes & that you can experience a cold sensation in the area in front of it.
Here is a cool little video I found that shows the mirror & talks abit about the haunting.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=33372472
We then had dinner at 25 degrees which is a burger restaurant in the Roosevelt.
Eric's house beer at 25 degrees.

It is decorated with rich red wallpaper, chandeliers & leather booths. Very cool.

You can make your own burger creation for a long list of toppings & sauces.
We ordered a combo of onion rings & sweet potato fries-these were too die for.

My huge burger that I could only finish a little over half of. It was delicious. I wasn't very adventerous but the Farm house cheddar from England that was on my burger was delicious. Eric had a taragon aiolo sauce & guyere cheese added to his & he really liked it.

It was another great suggestion from Carrie.
After dinner we browsed Hollywood Blvd a little more.

Details at the El Capitan....

Grauman's at night.

Characters hanging out on the Blvd....who knows what one is but the other is Marilyn Monroe complete with her white dress blowing up from the steam in the vents.

Then we went to Hollywood & Highland. We browsed a few stores including the Virgin Mega Store & got a few chocolate treats to take back to the room. We stopped in the lobby bar & had a drink as well.

I had a Star is Born & Eric had a glass of wine.

It was nice & relaxing to just sit & chat about our full day of fun. We ended our day relaxing in the room & turned in early because we had a 7am meet time in the morning.

Up next..........Imagineering Magic & Walt's chili

 

[BriarRosie]

I saw the big one (if I missed it I would have to be blind he is so big ). I missed the one in the reception area!

At least you didn't miss the big honkin' white tiger under the tree.
I had a really bad Sigfriend and Roy joke to make, but I'm not going to say it here.

I really loved the Bobby and Samson movie, to get back to that Henson Studios post. I thought Bobby reminded me of Fred Willard in his speech and delivery. He kept messing up Charlie Chaplin's name, no matter how often Samson tried to correct him.

And I am part of the Destructive Daisy group. We broke the train. It was quite funny because we were slowing down at the first bridge, and the conductor had to ask a few people to get off the train to lighten the load. Then a little further down the track, he asked a couple more people, so it turned into ABD Survivor. I was one of the lucky ones who stayed on, and we picked up the few "hitchhikers" who got kicked off as we circled back to the station. I guess the engine wasn't charged enough or something.

I was one of the people who went to Jimmy Kimmel, and I did have a great time. Although I could have done without the creepy little guy outside tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Hi..." to me. I'm a freak magnet, I swear. At least the crazy mumbler I saw the previous day walked past us without incident.

Looks like Melanie and Eric had a great time at the Roosevelt. Oh, my dinner that night, should you care, was actually some good sushi at the restaurant at Hollywood and Highland.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday.

 

[SoonerGirl]

Great updates Melanie! What a wonderful treat to get to visit Walt's barn. I could tell how much you enjoyed it by the big smile on your face in your photos! Sounds like it was a fabulous (and BUSY) day!

 

[Disneygrl36]

At least you didn't miss the big honkin' white tiger under the tree.
I had a really bad Sigfriend and Roy joke to make, but I'm not going to say it here.

I really loved the Bobby and Samson movie, to get back to that Henson Studios post. I thought Bobby reminded me of Fred Willard in his speech and delivery. He kept messing up Charlie Chaplin's name, no matter how often Samson tried to correct him.

And I am part of the Destructive Daisy group. We broke the train. It was quite funny because we were slowing down at the first bridge, and the conductor had to ask a few people to get off the train to lighten the load. Then a little further down the track, he asked a couple more people, so it turned into ABD Survivor. I was one of the lucky ones who stayed on, and we picked up the few "hitchhikers" who got kicked off as we circled back to the station. I guess the engine wasn't charged enough or something.

I was one of the people who went to Jimmy Kimmel, and I did have a great time. Although I could have done without the creepy little guy outside tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Hi..." to me. I'm a freak magnet, I swear. At least the crazy mumbler I saw the previous day walked past us without incident.

Looks like Melanie and Eric had a great time at the Roosevelt. Oh, my dinner that night, should you care, was actually some good sushi at the restaurant at Hollywood and Highland.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday.

Hi Lori I loved the Bobby & Samson movie. They were so funny. I keep meaning to go search You Tube for them but haven't yet.
Was the crazy mumbler you saw the little guy dressed up as Charlie Chaplin?
Glad you are here enjoying my trippie.

Great updates Melanie! What a wonderful treat to get to visit Walt's barn. I could tell how much you enjoyed it by the big smile on your face in your photos! Sounds like it was a fabulous (and BUSY) day!

Thanks. I am glad you can tell by my smile how much fun I was having. It was a great day & it was so cool to see all those things that Walt had actually used & touched. It was a very busy day as were all the days on this trip----this trip is not for the faint of heart/lazy vacationer.

More coming up.......

 

[Disneygrl36]

So once again this was to be an early day. We were to meet at 7am at Twist for breakfast. We both woke up at 5am California time & were too excited to go back to sleep-just like in the commercials. So we talked, watched some TV & tried to relax to prepare ourselves for the busy day ahead.
We went down to our breakfast at Twist which was a very nice buffet breakfast. We were better rested than alot of our fellow travelers even with our early waking time, because they had gone to Jimmy Kimmel & then after that to see Bolt at the El Capitan for the last showing of the day. We had considered seeing that last 9:55pm show as well, but we were just too tired & decided to rest instead. After a nice breakfast, we went back up to our room for a final check to make sure we didn't forget anything. Our luggage had already been collected-we were told to just leave it in our room while we went to breakfast.
Around 8:15am we loaded on to the bus & headed for our destinations.
We saw this sign not far from the hotel--which was exciting because we would be heading to Disneyland that afternoon.

Along the way we also passed a few cool things.
That's Warner Brothers Studio

NBC where we saw people already lined up to get into the Tonight Show with Jay Leno

We also passed the Walt Disney Studios which would be our 2nd destination today

As we got into Glendale, we started to see a few buildings with these Disney cast member name tags on them. This is the only way to identify these buildings as part of WDI or Walt Disney Imagineering.

This unassuming building is the headquarter building for WDI. It is at 1401 Flower Drive in Glendale California. There is a big name tag with 1401 on it which you cannot see in this picture.

Since we had to leave our cameras on the bus for our visit here & we had some time to kill while waiting to be let in, I asked if the guides would take our picture with the sign. This started a trend & everyone wanted their picture with the sign. This is one of the pictures that I am excited to get when we get our photopass info from ABD.
So soon our guide Imagineer Dave met us outside & lead us into the hallowed halls of Imagineering. As we walked in the door there was a big Sully there to greet us & as we walked down the hallways you could see tons of posters & artwork on the walls. It was very hard not to drag your feet as we moved along briskly just to soak up all the artwork. I remember seeing old posters for attractions at all the Disney parks around the world & even a grave yard with tombstones for attractions that have been retired like World of Motion, Skyway etc. We were taken into a room where there was a big screen so that as Dave talked to us about the history of Imagineering & how it got started he could show us pictures & video. I remember one photo in particular of Walt surrounded by his Imagineers & they were all dressed alike in white button down shirts & skinny black ties. Nothing like the Imagineers of today like Joe Rohde who express their creativity freely in their appearance & manner of dress. Imagineering was known as WED enterprises (our word of the day) back then & was a totally different company formed by Walt outside of the Disney Studios. Walt stole artists from the Studios to make into Imagineers-people like Marc Davis & Herb Ryman. We saw footage of Herb Ryman talking about his weekend with Walt drawing the initial plans for Disneyland for Roy to take to show the bankers. Fascinating stuff. We also saw quite a bit of footage of Walt talking about the "Florida project" & how it would be different from California's Disneyland. We saw different projects that Imagineering had been responsible for over the years & found out that imagineering contains something over 160 different disciplines. Dave talked about taking a project from concept to completion using Expedition Everest as an example & we got to see quite a bit of the concept art & hear the Imagineers talk about the process of doing research to make the STORY-which is the foundation of everything they do at Imagineering-come to life. He spent quite a bit of time talking about the evolution of Audio Animatronics that all started with a tiny bird in a cage that Walt found on his travels & had wound up with the newest & latest projects like Lucky the Dinosaur & the new Muppet Lab with Beaker & Bunson Honeydew that can move around & interact with guests in a new way. He was showing us video of that & then said something to the effect of well he can show you himself "Come on our Lucky." And out walked Lucky the Dinosaur who weighs in at 450lbs, is 9 feet tall & 12 feet long. I was amazed as I never got to see him when he was out & about in the parks. We were able to all gather around while Lucky signed a picture for one in our group-his signature is a 4 leaf clover of course. Then each family group got to go up & meet Lucky. It was amazing to be up close to him & see how expressive his eyes could be. He makes different sounds based on how he is feeling. He almost purrs when you touch him & can make cute little sounds that make it almost feel like he is talking to you. He feels soft to the touch as well which surprised me. The guides were able to take our picture with Lucky & here is a photo of our picture postcard that was left in our room later in the week. It also has a photo taken in the sculputing room at WDI & the exclusive WDI pins I bought.

After that Lucky was getting tired-he is millions of years old after all, so we told him goodbye. They broke us up into our Daisy & Minnie groups. We went to a soundstage next & an Imagineer named Steve talked to us about the use of sound in attractions. We got to listen to a binaural recording that was done by using a dummy head that replicates a real human head with sinus cavities & things that affect the transmission of sound. It was about a new guy on the job's first day at a studio. It was really cool to hear all the different things like the haircut where it really felt like things were tickling the back of your neck & it was all just accomplished with sound. There was a hilarous photo on the wall of the dummy head in a field with real people doing a battle reenactment.

Next we were taken to an area to wait for Dave again & there was a big painting on the floor that was like the Rabbit hole that Alice fell down. It was a really cool piece of art & I was wondering what it was doing on the floor. When Dave came to meet us, he told us that it was for a new photopass idea they are working on where you can have a little device & take your own photos in the parks. So he picked me to demonstrate it & had me go stand on the painting & then told me to do something crazy-which I did & looked very ridiculous I am sure. The camera takes a series of photos & then you can view & buy them on-line at home. Pretty cool-it looked like I was falling down the rabbit hole.

Then, Dave took us into the Sculpture room that is like a storage area for all sorts of things. As you looked around the room there were some amazing things to see. Dave showed us a very small maquette (which is a small sculpture used to visualize and test shapes and ideas without incurring the cost and effort of producing a full scale product) of the Tramp.
Here is a photo I found of a maquette of Mater to show the small scale that maquettes start out as.

That small maquette had been made into a larger sculpture maybe about 2 or 3 feet tall which was more detailed & just the way they wanted it to be. This was then scanned into a computer & could be hooked into a machine that would then break it down into pieces for the structure to built using rebar that the computer can bend & shape to form the structure which they can then turn into the huge sculpture of Tramp at the Pop Century Resort at Walt Disney World.

Photo borrowed from the Internet.
Dave then showed us a head & asked us to guess who it was. I guessed Johnny Depp & I was right. It was done by taking an exact mold of Johnny's head. This was of course used to make the Captain Jack Sparrow Audio Animatronics that have been added into Pirates of the Caribbean at both Disneyland & Walt Disney World. This AA is the new genertation named A100's. This lead us to a demonstartion of new generation AA's using a clear plastic model that is a lifesize human character named Joe Cocker (because the Imagineer that made him really liked Joe Cocker the musician). You can see Joe's working parts. There are also 3 heads that are Joe's back up singers. Dave went behind a curtain just like the wizard in the Wizard of Oz & Joe & the back up heads came to life & performed the song "Doin' All Right" for us. It was amazing to watch how life like his movements down to the wiggling of his fingers in time to the music were. Really cool & I think I may have even danced along. Next we talked about the Snow White marble statues that took up a prominent spot in the room. These are the originals that stood in Snow White's Grotto at Disneyland for years. He told us that the story we have heard for all these years was not true but a pretty story manufactured by John Hench to cover up a mistake. They did not know the real story either until after John died & they found a folder in his desk about the statues. Seems they were never a gift, but something Walt wanted to do at the park to honor Snow White since it was the feature that gave the company such a great success. They were ordered & the measurements were wrong so that Snow White was the same size as the dwarfs & animals. John Hench contacted the sculpture in Italy & found out it would cost $2,000 to redo Snow White so they decided that was too much so they just decided to use forced perspective instead by placing Snow White at the top & the dwarfs down levels. This just goes to show you how Disney myths are born. Great story. The other unique thing we found out is that they decided to take them out of the park because they were showing signs of wear being out in the elements. They wanted to protect them so they were packed up & put in storage, but Snow White was broken in shipping. So trying to protect them turned out to harm them worse than if they had left them where they were standing at the parks. They finally decided to bring them to Imagineering & let them at least be enjoyed there instead of in a box somewhere. You can see the break marks on Snow White's arms but they have been able to put her back together pretty nicely. It was fascinating to be in this room surrounded by all this cool stuff. I remember seeing lots of heads of Presidents including George W Bush, a maquette of the Yeti for Expedition Everest, Ham from the Kitchen Cabaret from back in the day at EPCOT, Julie Andrews head for the Mary Poppins segment in the Great Movie Ride, small world doll head, hitchhiking ghosts maquette & busts from the Haunted Mansion that sing Grim, Grinning ghosts. I could have spent hours in there looking around. But alas, it was time to move along so we could go shopping at their exclusive store Mickey's of Glendales.

As we exited Imagineering we went down a corridor that was John Hench's Imagineer art graffiti corridor where lots of Imagineers had done paintings of Mickey Mouse & dedicated them to John. We saw some amazing art & I was wishing I had my camera to capture the originality of these true artists.
We exited into a courtyard area that had tables with umbrellas. To our left was a comissary area & in front of us was the store. They had some old ride vehicles out there which was cool to see-a Skyway cab, an Autopia car, a peoplemover car. We were given about 40 minutes to shop & a coupon each for 40% off one item. This store called Mickey's of Glendales has alot of exclusive Imagineering merchandise that you cannot get anywhere else. We tried to control ourselves & only buy things that we couldn't get elsewhere. They had lots of apparel, artwork, pins, books. It was pretty easy for us to narrow it down to what we wanted. This was the most shopping we did this trip-more on that later. I am going to include pictures of what we bought because in the past when reading people's trip reports about this shopping excursion I was always curious about what kind of stuff they had at this store.
We bought Eric a polo shirt & a long sleeve t shirt. I got 2 t shirts & a sweater.

Eric bought a large leather portolio & I got a smaller one that I am going to use for a journal. I got a pen & a name tag holder. We bought a John Hench art magnet & 2 pins-one with Snow White that looked like an ID badge & one with Tink & the WED letters.

We also bought a piece of art that is Sorcerer Mickey who is the symbol for Imagineering & then pins that spell it out. Each pin is fashioned after a different character.

After our shopping spree, we went into the comissary to use the facilities-it was really cute in there too!!!!
We then got back on the bus to head to the studios. Ever wonderful our guides had water, lemonade & snacks for us once back on the bus.

Up next...........Walt's chili

 

[SoonerGirl]

You are SO making me want to take this trip! I love the artwork that you bought - those pins are too cool!

I wish a trip like this would interest my DH, but I don't call him the Disney Grump for nothin' Maybe when my oldest DS gets a little bit older he would like to go with me.............

 

[VBsHustla]

Wow! What a cool trip. It all sounds awesome, and I loved the pictures. I also enjoyed the Jonas Brothers anecdote.

 

[CangriChika]

Hey Melanie!!!

It's Sakina,
Hope all is well..I heard that you wrote trip reports, and I didn't really remember what site it was on, so I hopped on google and low and behold I found you!! It's great reading your trip report (as if I wasn't there to experience it as it ) but it's just something that's so memorable and unforgettable you cant help but WANT to relive!

You know the funniest thing, I have the same exact picture of that SAME billboard from when we were leaving Hollywood!!

>> this is where my picture was going to be, before I got denied since I haven't made >10 posts...grr <<


Looking forward to reading ((and reliving)) the rest of the trip!!

Oh! I'll stick around and promise not to break anything like the server or something, since apparently Daisy's break everything

 

[Aburns8]

Whoo hoo! Sakina has joined in!

 

[BriarRosie]

Woohoo! Sakina found us!


I had Sakina in front of me taking photos from our bus, yet I didn't know Melanie was doing the same thing behind me.

 

[CangriChika]

what can you say!
we were just being a bunch of tourist!

yay to finding the treasure (apparently this site) yay!!!

speaking of things to be found, that pirate never found && brought us that barrel of rum....

 

[Aburns8]

You're right, we never got our rum!