The Walt Disney Studios and D23

Main Building - Walt Disney Studios

So before our December 2016 trip, Mrs. DisneylandTraveler was reading up on D23 and their annual opening of the Walt Disney Studios for D23 members. Now I haven't been the biggest fan of D23 because it is too Southern California centric and the rest of the country doesn't have the opportunity to take advantage of what D23 has to offer. But she decided we needed to be members anyway because one of the perks was being able to members being able to attend what amounted to be a D23 open house.

Hand Prints of Disney Legends Cover the Pillers

On our way to Disneyland we stooped in Bubank at the Walt Disney Studios for the D23 gathering and Christmas celebration. We parked in the Disney parking structure, walked over to studios and tried to get our acclimated with all the buildings and structures. Except for some Disney touches here and there it looked like any other large office complex, What was impressive was the walkway of Disney legends hand prints adorning the pillars outside main Studios building. Some were cool like George Lucas, others poignant like Robin Williams, but it was an interesting thing to see.

Roy Disney with Minnie

Outside of the Legends section just in front of the main building with 7 dwarfs statues seemingly propping up the roof, the rest of the place was pretty non-descriptive.. Big buildings, smaller buildings, and a log of open space. There was an area were the TV/Movie actors trailers are parked but hardly a big deal. I did get amused when a man with his briefcase used a security badge to get into one of the larger buildings. Imagine that, an actual working employee of the Walt Disney Company not connected with a theme park. Just looked like a guy going to work.

A Partner Statue You Can Actually Touch

Mrs. DLT wanted to go to the Employees Only Company store but its small and only a few people were allowed in at a time. By the time we made it over there, the line was a couple of hundred people deep so we blew that idea off. Out of the 4 hours of the D23 studios open house, we ended up staying about 2 hours then continued our way down to Disneyland.

Was it worth the trip? I'd say yes because you are able to see things that are normally reserved for employees . only. This is behind the scenes type stuff so for that I feel a little privileged, Would I go again? Probably not. I've seen it once and that was enough.

The big D23 Expo is this weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center. It's not free by any means but your D23 card gets you a bit of a discount..  But you have to admit, they put out a beautiful quarterly magazine.

ABC Television Studios Just Across the Steet from th Disney Stdios.