Destination D is the place for me and Bill *New trip report started link page 12*

[mickeyfan71]

Your trip is so close! Pixar weekend sounds like so much fun-I know you are excited to see Wall-E! I am excited to get to the caramel kitchen in Epcot also!!

 

[jenseib]

Look at that ticker!!! Only 3 weeks!

 

[All7OfUs]

WHAT a lineup!!! I can't believe how many characters will be available for your weekend! NIce!

It IS shocking that SS went out, as well as Tokyo. But hey, you added the Karamel Shop. What more could you ask for!?

 

[mrsksomeday]

Your trip is so close! Pixar weekend sounds like so much fun-I know you are excited to see Wall-E! I am excited to get to the caramel kitchen in Epcot also!!

Thanks!!

Look at that ticker!!! Only 3 weeks!

This is the time before the trip that the ticker makes me a nervous wreck .

WHAT a lineup!!! I can't believe how many characters will be available for your weekend! NIce!

It IS shocking that SS went out, as well as Tokyo. But hey, you added the Karamel Shop. What more could you ask for!?

Completely shocked about SS, but hey sometimes we have to adjust .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, Pixar decided to have their own website for Pixar Weekend. I went there and it saddened me that Wall-e has been replaced with Buzz Lightyear and there is no mention of Mr. Potatohead . They have talked about possible surprises so maybe Wall-e will be one of them?? I know we will still have a great time, I just wish Wall-e was going to be there.

 

[mrsksomeday]

There are so many things we are looking forward to with the Destination D event. It makes my Disney Geek heart sing. I will go into some detail of what is supposed to happen and why we are excited about it. (This might bore some of you, if so I am sorry) I am going to be giving info from the D23 website.

This is the schedule for the first day:

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2011

Opening Program
9:30 a.m. - 10 a.m.
D23 Head Steven Clark welcomes D23 Members with some special guests and a few surprises you won't want to miss!

Weird Walt Disney World
10 a.m. - 11 a.m.
Walt Disney Archives director Becky Cline and Disney historian Paul F. Anderson

Walt Disney World: The Way We Were
11 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Join Walt Disney Archives founder Dave Smith as we explore vintage pictures of Walt Disney World theme parks and resorts, including rare photos of construction and a fond look at some favorite attractions, shops and restaurants of the past.

Lunch Break
12:15 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.

EPCOT: Walt Disney's Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow
2:15 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Re-enter the 1960s hallways of WED Enterprises with Archivist Steven Vagnini and Disney expert Paul F. Anderson in this unprecedented look at the inspirations and plans for Walt's EPCOT, and find out the little-known ways that Imagineers brought their late founder's dream to reality throughout the entire Walt Disney World Resort.

Past Forward: A History of Walt Disney World on Television
3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Join Disney Archivist Rob Klein as he takes TV remote in hand to stroll through some of the many highlights of Walt Disney World Resort on television.

The Walt Disney World That Never Was
4:30 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.
What do the Western River Expedition, Asian Resort Hotel and Sleeping Beauty dark ride have in common? While these amazing experiences were crafted in the minds of skilled artists at Walt Disney Imagineering, they comprise a different kind of dimension of Walt Disney World history: the grand experiences that never made it off the drawing board or out of the model shop. With an array of rare artwork and photographs, longtime Imagineer Tony Baxter lifts the curtain and takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour through the incredible world of the Walt Disney World that never was.

Dinner Break
5:45 p.m. - 8 p.m.

From the Vault: Walt Disney World Resort on Film
8 p.m. - Join your hosts Disney Imagineer Tony Baxter and Disney author and historian Tim O'Day as they screen these rare treasures from the Disney film vaults, plus newly discovered and restored documentation footage of the construction and early years of Walt Disney World Resort.

This blows our minds, actually getting to see and hear some of the Disney legends. These people met, knew, worked with and loved Walt Disney. There are 2 men that we are ecstatic to see:


Marty Sklar worked on attractions for the 1964 New York World's Fair. Among the attractions he helped to design during this period were The Enchanted Tiki Room and It's a Small World, the latter originally for the World's Fair. For nearly 10 years, he wrote personal materials for Walt Disney for use in publications, television and special films. In 1974 he became vice president of concepts/planning, and guided the creative development of EPCOT Center (now known as Epcot) at Florida's Walt Disney World Resort.

As vice president of creative development, executive vice president and then president of Imagineering for nine years, Sklar supervised the design and construction of Tokyo Disneyland, the Disney-MGM Studios, Disneyland Paris, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Disney's California Adventure, Tokyo DisneySea, the Walt Disney Studios Park and most recently Hong Kong Disneyland.

Bob Gurr is an American amusement ride designer and Imagineer. His most famous work was for Walt Disney's Disneyland Park, and its subsequent sister parks. Gurr is said to have designed most, if not all, of the ride vehicles of the Disneyland attractions, including Autopia, Haunted Mansion, the Disneyland Monorail, the Submarine Voyage, and the Matterhorn Bobsleds.

We saw Bob Gurr on a show about Disney and when he talked about Walt he still choked up. It really touched me that even after all this time has passed since Walt’s death he was still so affected.

So many other wonderful people will be there too.

We met Becky Cline Walt Disney Archives director in December, she will be there as well as Walt Disney Archives founder Dave Smith. This is the greatest job EVER in our opinion, getting to go through, catalog, search and find, and touch the wonderful archives. Becky spoke to us at the Magic and Merriment event a couple of times. She talked about getting to go up into the attic of the Haunted Mansion in the summer one year to go through all the stuff they had up there with Steven Clark, head of D23. She said they were so hot, there was no air conditioning, they were covered in sweat and grime and she loved every minute of it.

It looks like it will be a fantastic first day. The only hitch in the plan is we have Bill’s personal care. We do have two 2 hour breaks, if there is no place in the convention center to take care of things (a D23 castmember is checking on things for me), we will be going over to MK at lunch, to the first aid location and then grabbing something from Casey’s.

I will be stressed out until we are back at the convention center especially since I have been reading on the DIS that people are planning on either bringing food, or grabbing something from the Contemporary CS so they can immediately get back in line to get back into the Convention Center.


We have reservations at the Wave for the first night. I don’t know if we will like it but we will have something to eat LOL. We will probably take the bus again from the Magic Kingdom back to Pop Century, unless they have busses for the D23 members.

Next installment … Destination D day 2

 

[mickeyfan71]

I hope Wall-E is the surprise!!

 

[DisMomAmy]

Wow - Day one of the D23 event sounds amazing!!

I hope you get to see Wall-E!

 

[tinytreasures]

Your trip sounds really really busy.
I hope your Bill gets on the bus fast.
Pixar weekend sounds great. Bummer about Wall-E my Christian would love to meet him

 

[disneyeeyorefan]

Sounds like you have a wonderful trip planned :0)

 

[KatGarcia]

Hi! I am going to florida to visit my best friend and her family, and we are planning at least a day trip up to WDW, if not an overnight, sometime between May 14th-May 17th! I'd love to stalk you if i'm there!

 

[All7OfUs]

OMGOSH!! That is in event I'd practically DIE to go to!! WOW!! Such a variety of history, Imagineering, etc... Ahhhhh... Can my Disney Geek heart sing with yours?? I WANT a FULL report!!!

 

[mrsksomeday]

I hope Wall-E is the surprise!!

I hope so too.

Wow - Day one of the D23 event sounds amazing!!

I hope you get to see Wall-E!

I always said I would never book a WDW trip so close to the arrival date, I kept telling myself we shouldn't go but that line up just kept calling to me and we decided to go for it .

Your trip sounds really really busy.
I hope your Bill gets on the bus fast.
Pixar weekend sounds great. Bummer about Wall-E my Christian would love to meet him

The first couple of days we are just going to wing it and the Destination D days will be spent glued to a chair in the Contemporary convention center, Bill and I are looking at food options that don't require refrigeration so we can camp out by the doors inbetween sessions like everyone else .

Sounds like you have a wonderful trip planned :0)

There are always highs and lows but we always have fun .

Hi! I am going to florida to visit my best friend and her family, and we are planning at least a day trip up to WDW, if not an overnight, sometime between May 14th-May 17th! I'd love to stalk you if i'm there!

Hi Kat, on the 14th and 15th we are going to be attending Destination D, it will last from morning to late evening. I know we are going to try to go to DHS on the 16th before our flight it would be great to meet you in person .

OMGOSH!! That is in event I'd practically DIE to go to!! WOW!! Such a variety of history, Imagineering, etc... Ahhhhh... Can my Disney Geek heart sing with yours?? I WANT a FULL report!!!

You get why I just couldn't say no to this event, so amazing isn't it? I will do my best to do a good report on it. I am pretty sure a DISer called Lurkyloo will be there, she is a fantastic writer and will do a great report on it I am sure.

 

[Blueyed Girl]

Wow what an awesome day that is going to be!!! I can't wait to read all about it and see pics when you get back. I'm another one hoping that the surprise is WALL-E!!!! Oh how great that would be!!!

 

[KathyRN137]

Wow, Tracy, D23 really is the place to be!! The whole line-up sounds amazing.

I hadn't heard that bit about Wall-E. I hope its not true... what a cool character meet that would be!


Kathy

 

[mrsksomeday]

Wow what an awesome day that is going to be!!! I can't wait to read all about it and see pics when you get back. I'm another one hoping that the surprise is WALL-E!!!! Oh how great that would be!!!

I have to make sure to take good notes on this, I know I am going to be on information overload.

Wow, Tracy, D23 really is the place to be!! The whole line-up sounds amazing.

I hadn't heard that bit about Wall-E. I hope its not true... what a cool character meet that would be!


Kathy

Reading the line up for the event just floored me when I first saw it. I usually let Bill decide when we are going and this is the first time I have really wanted to go for something specific. It just seems amazing to me. I can't wait .

 

[tinytreasures]

 

[mrsksomeday]

I hope you had a blessed Easter, we were without power for about 2 1/2 hours in the middle of the day and had storms that night, but are safe and that is all that matters .

 

[mrsksomeday]

This Disney trip was an addition to other things we had planned this spring. We are headed to Bill’s parents vacation home in the Smoky Mountains May 19th - 22nd. The plan was to go to St. Louis May 10th, get on the plane May 11th, go to WDW, stay until May 16th, fly to St. Louis, then drive home. Pick up Ace on the 17th, keep him with us until the 19th, drop him back off at the boarders, drive to the Smoky’s, stay until the 22nd, drive home and pick up Ace on the 23rd. Is anyone as tired as me just reading that

??

You knew as well as I did that even with booking the trip 47 days out there would be changes, I kept looking at that plan and had issues with it.

- Picking up Ace just to keep him 2 days and drop him off again would just mess him up. We know our little guy and it would take him time to get adjusted again at the boarders.

- The thought of flying from WDW, driving from St. Louis to home, then to Pigeon Forge in a span of 4 days did not appeal to me at all.

- Cancelling the mountains trip was not possible, we have said no too many times we have to go, but I didn’t like the plans as is.

I had been stalking the airline rates for Southwest at Nashville ever since we decided to go to Disney. Last night moving the reservation would only be an additional $7.50, so I casually mentioned it to Bill. Toni (OregonMommyof2) was on yahoo with me, we try to touch base at least once a day. I miss her like crazy. I was telling her about the flights and the plans we had. We talk stuff like this out all the time. I told her the only reason I didn’t book Nashville initially was that we would be driving back home 3 hours then driving right back by 2 ½ days later.
A new plan formed in my mind

, what if we didn’t go back home? Hmmm would we spend 3 days in Nashville? What the heck would we do for 3 days in Nashville?

OR
We could spend another day in WDW?? Now here is where the famous DFM (DISNEY FUZZY MATH) kicks in

. We could stay another day in WDW… as I was mulling this over the dang flights on the 11th went up over $250, Tracy was not happy

.


I told Bill I was just going to forget it and keep things out of St. Louis, he asked “what do the flight costs look like on the 10th? HUH? WHAT? This doesn’t fix our staying in Nashville for 3 days problems. I looked and of course they were cheaper than the 11th, even cheaper than St. Louis. I told him that was great but didn’t fix the issue. He then says “how much for adding the 10th AND 17th to WDW? Well, if you know me, you know I had a separate window with that info already calculated

. I gave him the price with our Annual Pass discount and he smiled. Then I asked what do we do about the 17th – 19th? We discussed it and figured we would take the last flight on the 17th go back to Nashville, sleep as long as we want to, veg at that hotel on the 18th and be bright eyed and ready to go to the mountains on the morning of the 19th.

So here are there changes:

CHANGE # 3 Flying out of Nashville instead of St. Louis.

CHANGE # 4 Not going back home between the WDW trip and the mountains trip.

CHANGE # 5 Adding two days to our WDW trip.

CHANGE # 6 Got rid of Liberty Tree Tavern ADR, added Crystal Palace on MK day and got Kona Café for our arrival night.

Change # 7 Added Sunshine Seasons (we all knew Bill would get SS back in there somehow

), put ESPN Club later in the trip.

I know we are crazy, thank goodness I rented some DVC points for the trip later in the year, I can’t mess with that reservation

.

The D23 rep Laura left me a message today stating they would have a space made available to us for Bill’s personal care, this is such good news!! Now we don’t have to run to MK, through bag check, the turnstiles, fight the crowds to first aid, etc., eat and get back to the event in a 2 hour period.

Next installment … Destination D day 2

 

[KathyRN137]

You knew as well as I did that even with booking the trip 47 days out there would be changes, I kept looking at that plan and had issues with it...

Mmmm-Hmmm...

(OregonMommyof2) was on yahoo with me...

Mmmm-Hmmm...

Bill then says “how much for adding the 10th AND 17th to WDW? Well, if you know me, you know I had a separate window with that info already calculated...

Mmmm-Hmmm!! I could see this coming from a mile away!!

Congrats on the extra Disney Days!!

The D23 rep Laura left me a message today stating they would have a space made available to us for Bill’s personal care, this is such good news!! Now we don’t have to run to MK, through bag check, the turnstiles, fight the crowds to first aid, etc., eat and get back to the event in a 2 hour period.

Oh my, that's the best news ever!! Sooo much more convenient... Yay, Laura!!!

And Yay, You!


Kathy

 

[All7OfUs]

Fuzzy Disney math works EVERY time!! I love how your minds work.