D23 Expo Day 3 - Random Takes From A Distance

By 9:00 last night the booths and exhibits of the 2011 D23 had pretty much been broken down and ready to be moved on, the Expo was over...... From what I gathered yesterday, there were still long lines to deal with but by Day 3, long wait times were to be expected and people had learned to deal with it or had grown numb to it to a certain extent.......Marvel did their spiel about the history of their company, but if you read Disney websites you hear very little about the Marvel panel.  To them, for the most part, Marvel is still Disney's ill-legitimate step child......Mention bringing a Marvel character into a Disney park and those are pretty close to fighting words.

Probably the highlight of the day was once again John Lasseter and crew showing up to give more details about Carsland......I think it's going to be a special place......I think it is going to be a very, very, crowded place for quite awhile once it opens next year......At over 6 acres, Radiator Springs Racers is the largest attraction that Disney has every built......Testing on the 3 ride attractions featured in Carsland should begin over the next month or so....

There was also a presentation by Tony Baxter giving a behind the scenes look at vintage imagineering at both Disneyland and WDW.......He mentioned that the Peoplemover was going to get "fixed" - whatever that means.

But again, the dominating story was the amount of frustrated people there were talking about how poorly organized the event was.  Disney reduced the amount of floor space and may have ended up with more people than in 2009.  The two didn't mesh very well......One MiceChat poster's biggest complaint was having to listen to all the people complaining, which I thought was an interesting take.......And now you are beginning to hear that many attendees got tickets through Disney employees who had tickets made available to them for $10 (general admission was $47 per day with a 3 day package option - D23 members paid $37 per day with a 3 day package option).....But somehow I get the feeling that even many of these complainers will show up again in 2013 when Disney has said that the third D23 Expo will go on......when push comes to shove and it's time to renew their D23 memberships, many of these people will pay the money just so they can be part of the "event".......Next time they claim they will be wiser and know better.......We'll see.