D23 EXPO 2019 Superthread - dates announced!

[theluckyrabbit]

Opening day is going to be tragic. In fact, the entire week will be tragic. We will be there opening day, opening hour only because that's our assigned reservation time... I plan to get as zen as I can, and bob and weave with the madness.

And, please, report back with as much detail as you can remember!

 

[hiroMYhero]

Same. I spoke to them today and gave them my mate's name - they took my phone number and basically told me they'd see what they can do. I hope I find out sooner rather than later because he is coming from Australia!

I called DLand today and explained how I wasn’t able to add on my DH prior to confirming my reservation. The CM stated their policy is now to add 1 Additional Person to the reservation!

I was able to add on my DH after confirming my reservation # and account info.

Try calling again as I was only on the phone for 13 minutes total.

 

[Lauren in NC]

A San Jose Mercury newspaper article about the lightsabers mentioned similar prices ($109 for the finished hilt and $49 for the blade, but prices can vary depending on the style(s) selected).

Oof, yeah, I was thinking it was going to be somewhere around $200 after tax. I wonder if the droids will be similarly priced. The kids have some gift cards from birthdays and Christmas, but I think it'll be a hard decision whether they want to dump all their saved souvenir money for the whole trip into one item. Usually we take pictures and then decide what they want on the last day, but that's not exactly an option here.

 

[kpd6901]

I saw the Star Wars Celebration segment where they discussed these lightsabers. They are heavy, durable metal materials. I would say, much more collectible and display piece and occasional usage than simply an expensive child's plastic you lightsaber than one can also build themselves for less$$ elsewhere at the parks.

 

[BadPinkTink]

Im guessing alot of casual Star Wars fans or families just bringing their kids to Star Wars Galaxys Edge are going to be upset and angry at prices and experiences in the new land. Its been obvious to me for a while now that Star Wars Galaxys Edge is being targeted to the adult Star Wars fan, they type of people who go to Comic Con and other conventions and who have the money for more expensive collectable merchandise and experiences. The mass produced cheap plastic light sabers and other merchandise will be onsale in Star Traders in Tomorrowland, while the merchandise in Star Wars Galaxys Edge will be more expensive, better quality adult collectables.

 

[twodogs]

Same to you!!

I don't think you have anything to worry about. Are you going near the opening or a few days/weeks after? They'll probably (hopefully) have all the bugs fixed after that initial weekend/week.

We are not going until the last weekend that reservations are required. By then, they will hopefully have the routine down a little. I will read reports here of the early days. We are going to have to fly out there, and my difficulty is that we are already going Memorial weekend, so this trip at the end of June was not really in the cards. Then I snagged the SWGE reservation (on my daughter’s actual birthday no doubt, which falls on a Saturday this year so we could go). But I don’t want to make the plane reservations until I see if it is even worth it to go during the reservation period or if people are literally waiting for an hour of their reservation period just to get into the land, or getting in there and then waiting the entire 4 hours in a line for the ride or a drink. If that is the case, then we won’t go and will go again later when things die down (in about a decade, ha ha!!).

 

[HydroGuy]

Opening day is going to be tragic. In fact, the entire week will be tragic. We will be there opening day, opening hour only because that's our assigned reservation time.
Disney is absolutely terrible at rolling new things out. The good news is, they adjust quickly.
My husband remembers being at Animal Kingdom opening week and it was a joke. Disney worked hard and fast to fix things. I remember when Frozen meet & greet started at Disneyland. Oh my gosh, that was a joke. I've never seen so many people yelling and getting upset at a theme park where it's supposed to be happy.

I plan to get as zen as I can, and bob and weave with the madness.

I have been relating how Disney at WDW AK nailed it for Pandora opening in May 2017. At least the Florida folks have learned how to manage the crowds. At DCA last June with the (much more minor) opening of Pixar Pier, the California folks totally screwed that up.

I would thus not agree with you that "Disney is absolutely terrible...". I hope Disney is smart enough to figure out who brilliantly handled Pandora and to put them in charge of SWGE.

 

[njchris]

Opening day is going to be tragic. In fact, the entire week will be tragic. We will be there opening day, opening hour only because that's our assigned reservation time.
Disney is absolutely terrible at rolling new things out. The good news is, they adjust quickly.
My husband remembers being at Animal Kingdom opening week and it was a joke. Disney worked hard and fast to fix things. I remember when Frozen meet & greet started at Disneyland. Oh my gosh, that was a joke. I've never seen so many people yelling and getting upset at a theme park where it's supposed to be happy.

I plan to get as zen as I can, and bob and weave with the madness.

I have to say, I see far less angry/stressed people at DLR than at WDW. While I've just moved here last Sept, I've been to the parks here 40 times already and I used to go to WDW every year for over 25 years. WDW had a lot more people that I felt came off as entitled.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Oof, yeah, I was thinking it was going to be somewhere around $200 after tax. I wonder if the droids will be similarly priced. The kids have some gift cards from birthdays and Christmas, but I think it'll be a hard decision whether they want to dump all their saved souvenir money for the whole trip into one item. Usually we take pictures and then decide what they want on the last day, but that's not exactly an option here.

Your pricing is more accurate. The lightsaber experience is going to be pricey. DD#2 says the prices quoted online were not firmed up yet. (Source: DD#2 is in training, today, to work at the lightsaber experience. Her group is getting to do a walkthru the area right now, and gets to preview the MF ride this afternoon, providing everything is working ok)

 

[WonkaKid]

If he is reliable about details, please ask him to give you as much logistical detail as he can about how things are working that first day. It will really help people here to have any kind of accurate idea about how lines, check in, wait times, clearing the area, etc. will work.

Absolutely. Oddly, he and I ride POTC together often and he always points out very small details; things that I don't often notice. Certainly I'll ask him to provide as much detail as possible.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

I saw the Star Wars Celebration segment where they discussed these lightsabers. They are heavy, durable metal materials. I would say, much more collectible and display piece and occasional usage than simply an expensive child's plastic you lightsaber than one can also build themselves for less$$ elsewhere at the parks.

This

 

[Barnabus Collins]

I am so excited for this to open. Opening day cannot get hear fast enough for me. I will be part of the second group in on opening day, 11am to 3pm. I will post what I experience in SWGE. Hopefully, I will have lots to share.

 

[gypsy_at_heart]

We are not going until the last weekend that reservations are required. By then, they will hopefully have the routine down a little. I will read reports here of the early days. We are going to have to fly out there, and my difficulty is that we are already going Memorial weekend, so this trip at the end of June was not really in the cards. Then I snagged the SWGE reservation (on my daughter’s actual birthday no doubt, which falls on a Saturday this year so we could go). But I don’t want to make the plane reservations until I see if it is even worth it to go during the reservation period or if people are literally waiting for an hour of their reservation period just to get into the land, or getting in there and then waiting the entire 4 hours in a line for the ride or a drink. If that is the case, then we won’t go and will go again later when things die down (in about a decade, ha ha!!).

We're going on the 21st. I went with that because I was hoping since it's a Friday it will be a teensy bit less crazy than the weekend. Also it's near the end of the reservation period so, hopefully, some of the bugs will be worked out.

Also, in theory, DLR might be a bit less busy because it's the start of block out days for the deluxe APs, but not yet the open free for all of Galaxy's edge.

All in all it might amount to nothing and be crazy busy, but I have high hopes it won't be awful.

Your pricing is more accurate. The lightsaber experience is going to be pricey. DD#2 says the prices quoted online were not firmed up yet. (Source: DD#2 is in training, today, to work at the lightsaber experience. Her group is getting to do a walkthru the area right now, and gets to preview the MF ride this afternoon, providing everything is working ok)

I'm actually not into a light saber.... unless the blade can actually pass through things and it's just a light up tube. If they can do that, I'll just throw my money at them lol

I'm hopeful the droids won't be insanely priced because I really really want one and I'm already spending too much on this whole trip I had hoped to do another fall mini vacation after Disney and before my big annual trip, but I'm pretty sure I'm just going to spend the money on this instead since I'm taking my parent's and they need a little extra TLC. Also, I want to buy all the star wars things lol

 

[Castillo Mom]

I have to say, I see far less angry/stressed people at DLR than at WDW. While I've just moved here last Sept, I've been to the parks here 40 times already and I used to go to WDW every year for over 25 years. WDW had a lot more people that I felt came off as entitled.

Glad you've had good experiences so far. Unfortunately, DLR AP holders have a reputation for being persnickety and self entitled. I try to be a good AP holder and appreciate that it's a luxury, not an entitlement and try to show extra appreciation to CMs. Based on several interactions that I observed between guests who weren't getting their way and the poor CMs this past weekend, I'm probably going to need an extra dose of patience on the 31st.

 

[njchris]

Glad you've had good experiences so far. Unfortunately, DLR AP holders have a reputation for being persnickety and self entitled. I try to be a good AP holder and appreciate that it's a luxury, not an entitlement and try to show extra appreciation to CMs. Based on several interactions that I observed between guests who weren't getting their way and the poor CMs this past weekend, I'm probably going to need an extra dose of patience on the 31st.

I'm an AP holder too. Always treat the CMs nice. I don't get how people can be nasty to CMs. Glad I haven't seen it tho.

 

[twodogs]

We're going on the 21st. I went with that because I was hoping since it's a Friday it will be a teensy bit less crazy than the weekend. Also it's near the end of the reservation period so, hopefully, some of the bugs will be worked out.

Also, in theory, DLR might be a bit less busy because it's the start of block out days for the deluxe APs, but not yet the open free for all of Galaxy's edge.

All in all it might amount to nothing and be crazy busy, but I have high hopes it won't be awful.

That makes me feel a lot better, and I’ll be optimistic about that weekend along with you!!!

 

[Barnabus Collins]

How could you not be nice to the CM's? Just seems crazy to me people will give them grief.

 

[Elias1901]

Howdy all,

Firstly, I apologize if this is being posted in the wrong section as I have no idea where it would truly belong. I've looked but nothing immediately jumped out at me. To any mods, please feel free to shift it wherever it is supposed to belong, if not in here. Anyways, here we go!

I've been to the D23 Expo in 2011 and 2013 to which I've had some success (satisfaction) and some failures (disappointment) in the way of attending presentations that I wanted to see. 2011 was definitely the experience with the biggest growing pains of the two, as in 2013, I did manage to make it to at least a few that were high on my list. I'm not as much of an expert on the Expo as I am to the parks, so I have a few questions that I would super appreciate some detailed answers to:

1) I am a Disney Store Cast Member in Canada. It was mentioned to me that there has been discounted D23 Expo tickets available for Cast Members. I haven't been able to locate such a thing anywhere on the internal sites where such a discount/buying option is located. Are they not doing it this time around? Or is it something that's not guaranteed/doesn't show up until they're down to the wire and have lots of availability left? Any fellow CM's on here that could address this one, would be much appreciated! I'm starting to wonder if we should just bite the bullet and pay out of pocket as I noticed today that the 3-Day tickets are already sold out. We only planned to hit the Expo on Friday and Saturday, so we only were going to buy a single-day ticket to each day as it is... but I don't want to miss out altogether and have those days suddenly sell out on me!

2) Does the D23 Expo still have the StagePass system in place for the presentations in the stages? If so, the location of this area and a refresher on how it works would be appreciated.

3) I'm not willing to camp out overnight for anything, but I realize and am willing to show up (stupidly) early to guarantee I get into the big D23 Arena presentations on those first couple days (Legends, Animation/Studio, Parks & Resorts are all my top priorities if I can manage it). What time do you recommend getting to the convention center to get in line? Would 5 or 6 AM be fine? Or is that already pushing it?? I think 5 AM is kind of my "earliest" time I could handle... I don't know, we'll see.

4) Would my Cast Member discounts work on merchandise purchased in the Dream Store or Mickey's of Glendale at the Expo (again, a question for my fellow CM's out there).

5) Since I reside in Canada, will-call pick-up for tickets is apparently my only option. I don't want to waste my theme park time beforehand walking over to the convention center just for that, if I can help it. If I order the D23 Expo tickets online and have them shipped to my friend in the USA, who will forward them to me... do they send out tickets right away when they are ordered? Or do they show up in the mail closer to the time of the Expo? I ask as my friend plans to move from her current residence in July, so I wouldn't want to have tickets be sent out to her old address, obviously. Any more exact specifications on how this works would be GREATLY appreciated.

6) If we pop out of the Expo for lunch when we have a lull in our schedule... how much of a pain in the **** will it be to get back in? Do lines to enter the convention center die once the initial morning rush has come and gone? Additionally, I'd like to have a nice dinner at Downtown Disney or something like that after our days at the Expo... what time does the Expo close each evening? Does it vary or is it usually a set time each night??

7) Is there currently a work in progress schedule of events for this year's Expo posted anywhere? I seem to remember from the past that it came out in advance but would update/change little by little until a week or so before the Expo. Is this still how things are? If there's no schedule out currently, where can I find it when it does get posted?

Anyways. I think that about covers my biggie questions for the time being... if there's anything else I think of, I'll post them here. I've just felt so helpless at times in past Expos but I really wanted to give another one a shot and I figured with more preparedness, perhaps I'd come out more satisfied than in the past. Any other tips or tricks regarding Expo-going would be MASSIVELY appreciated...

... I feel almost like a complete newb here!!

Thanks in advance everyone!

 

[CO2CA]

I'm so excited for opening day. We actually didn't even plan it out to be there for it, we had just happened to have booked our hotel the same day it was announced the opening date was the 31st! We get to be a part of the history of the park, the official opening day!! And one of the first guests to access the park on that day, too (8am group). Sure it's going to be crazy, but it wouldn't be as special if there wasn't some chaos and craziness. Going with the flow is going to help a lot, I think.

 

[AndrewC]

Have there been any somewhat reliable rumors of when the second attraction will open up? Anyone think there is a decent chance it’ll be open by late October? Or do you think “later this year” means like a week before the new year starts? Has there been any write ups if the hold up is technical issues (that could be hard to nail down)? I’ll be down there for the Halloween event (Oct 19th to 24th) and am dying of curiosity on what chance I have in both attractions being up.