Our feet really hurt but we had a really good time this weekend. DH and I are waiting for our connecting flight to get home so I thought I'd reflect on the experience and share it here in case anyone's interested:
-Friday: shopped at MOG and the expo Marketplace, walked the overwhelmingly large expo floor, then finished with the Mousequerade, which was very entertaining. Nina West was particularly so with her opening act in which her dress continually transformed into different princess dresses.
-Saturday: didn't make it into the Imagineering morning panel that we wanted but that's ok, we walked the expo floor more and got another shopping VQ to pick up an Aristocats blanket we had missed previously. Then went to the Muppets panel, which was amazing--first time we saw them in person and Brian Henson and the other panelists had great stories. Then Jodi Benson, the Muppets and Nina West sang to us! Finished the day at DCA for Oogie Boogie Bash, which was a blast, not least because
@Tiggerette @lily_belle and
@HeadNerd were there for the light up at Cars Land. And Madam Mim was my favorite treat trail!
-Sunday we made it to the Parks panel thanks to our RSP; they had some nice performances and gave us treats. The announcements were light on immediate big projects but I'm excited about the upcoming
DCL and DCA stuff, and hopeful for the MK and AK stuff. After lunch, I picked up two Mickey watches at Citizen (they were having extra discounts that day and I couldn't resist). Then we went to a panel hosted by the Animation Research Library that was pretty cool, they showed us some never-before-seen footage of reference acting used by animators. Mark Henn and Eric Goldberg were there
We ended the day with the Conversations with Character Voices panel, and this was the highlight of the whole expo for us. DH almost had to drag me in there because I was so tired, but I'm sooo glad I went. The voices of Goofy, Donald, Mickey, Minnie, Ariel, Tiana, Jasmine, Aladdin, Megara, along with the multi-voices Jim Cummings, all told cool stories. Aladdin and Jasmine performed a scene from the movie. But the best part was a surprise finale performance of I'll Make a Man Out of You by Donny Osmond (voice of Shang in Mulan), with cool costumes and backup dancers... it was so awesome! People were crying. So was I.
Overall, the expo was a very entertaining experience for us and worth the cost of our tickets imo. I'm grateful for all the super useful info shared on this thread, special shout out to
@dina444444 for answering this newbie's questions throughout the weekend! Anyway looking forward to the next one.