A Brit-Chick Goes Solo in Disneyland – Friday 24th September 2010

[missbounce]

I was up bright an early this morning for the first day of Destination D. I’d also treated myself to a night at the Disneyland Hotel, so I packed an overnight bag and headed over to the resort.

I arrived at around 7am and after checking in (which took just a couple of minutes), I joined the queue of D23 members who were already lined up outside the Grand Ballroom. I’d been there for around 20 minutes, when I found out through a D23 Cast Member that I needed to check in before joining the queue – drat! The line was already about three times longer than it was when I arrived, but the Cast Member was really lovely and escorted me to the check-in area to grab my pass and free post-cards. Then like my own personal fairy god-mother, got me back in to my original place in the queue so that I didn’t miss out on a good seat. I was so grateful and it was a lovely start to the day. The doors opened at around 8.30am and we all filed in to the Grand Ballroom for the first lot of panels.

Thanks to the friendly cast-member, I managed to secure a seat just 7 rows from the front in the centre section and had a brilliant view of the screens and the beautiful Sleeping Beauty Castle mock-up on the stage.


I won’t go in to all the details of the panels themselves, as other D23 members have posted some brilliant indepth reviews elsewhere online, but needless to say, the whole day was brilliant. I felt like I’d died and gone to Disney heaven. The highlights for me included the Mouseketeer reunion (Bobby’s old jitterbugging footage had us all in stitches),

the Imagineering panel featuring X Atencio, Marty Sklar, Alice Davis, Bob Gurr and Tony Baxter,


and of course, the concert in the evening with the legendary Richard Sherman.

I’m a big Ugly Betty fan, so I was super-excited to see Ana Ortiz (Hilda) and Michael Urie (Mark) in the flesh.



All the guest singers were outstanding and Johnny Tartaglia was brilliant with his opener of ‘Grim Grinning Ghosts’ – gotta love his puppets that helped with the chorus.



After all the panels were over (around 10.30pm-ish), I hooked up with Jeremy again and a couple of his friends (including Lou) and we all made our way over to the parks for an hour or so to enjoy Disneyland after-dark. We started off by grabbing a corn-dog on Main Street and then it was off to Pirates of the Caribbean, followed by Big Thunder Mountain. We had intended to ride Indiana Jones, but we just missed the close-off, so hung out on Main Street for a while instead. We played some of the games in the Penny Arcade – Lou tested his ability to withstand electric currents running through his hands and Jeremy put a quarter in to the old pipe organ at the rear of the shop. I grabbed some pressed pennies and got my fortune told by Esmerelda. We finished off in the Disneyana store and stared lustily at the gorgeous artworks and figurines on display in the many cabinets. At around 12.15am, we headed out of the park and back to our hotels. It was really nice chatting to Lou on our way through Downtown Disney (if not a bit on a surreal side!). I had to keep pinching myself when I got back to my room – I’d spent the last two hours in Disney mecca with one of my Disney heroes in tow – awesome!! LOL!! By the way, my room at the Disneyland Hotel was awesome – it was one of the newly renovated ones in the Dream Tower and included the fireworks effect in the headboard and lots of lovely photographs adorning the walls, including my favourite one of Walt strolling through Sleeping Beauty Castle. You could even admire a Jungle Cruise boat whilst sitting on the toilet! Only at Disney!

[lilo88]

Sounds like an awesome day and you've made me so jealous lol

[Chrissy&Tayen]

awesome.. so much fun on a singles trip.. i wish my hubby would let me do that

[NC_WDW_Daddy]

Loving the pics and stories.

[missbounce]

awesome.. so much fun on a singles trip.. i wish my hubby would let me do that

My husband is a complete super-hero. He was originally planning to come with me but due to starting a new job just recently, was unable to get the time off. But he still let me go without him, which I thought was very sweet. Needless to say, he got a lot of pressies from me when I returned to London on Monday!