Sunday was the last day of the 2015 D23 Expo and we opted to take a different approach to third day of Expo than we had the first two days. Friday and Saturday we charged around from talk to talk and really didn’t get to see much of the show floor and were pretty much dead tired from 9pm CT. Sunday we only had two talks to attend as press, the Disney Interactive presentation which Drew was live tweeting from, and the “In Conversation: Wilma Baker and Ginny Mack” presentation on the Archives Stage. The rest of the day we spent a good deal of time on the show floor bumping into friends and Periscoping.
As you probably learned while following Drew on the TMSM twitter, Disney Interactive has some great stuff coming up! He is already telling me the new Darth Vader inspired PlayStation 4 would look really awesome next to his R2D2 XBox 360.
I am sure Infinity fans are excited to hear about the new Force Awakens figures coming to Infinity 3.0. I know my nieces and nephews are going to be super excited to learn that Baymax from Big Hero 6 is coming to Kingdom Hearts III, and Drew and our friend Paul were already talking about who would have the new Star Wars Battle Pods so they could go play them. I was excited to talk to the CM working the Playmation booth on Periscope as she explained that game, I hope you caught it! I am also excited to play the new Disney Magic Kingdoms and Disney Dream Treats apps that are coming soon. Disney Treats, which didn’t get much coverage, is something else I covered on Periscope when I stopped at the Disney Interactive booth. It is a matching game that let’s you connect food items in different restaurants in Disneyland and Walt Disney World with the help of different Disney and Pixar characters. It is out in the iTunes store in Canada currently but will be available in the US soon, and is available on Google Play for Android.
The Archive presentation was amazing. For those of you who know Drew and I you know that we have a love of Disney Imagineering and Disney History, which is why we attend so many D23 events. “In Conversation: Wilma Baker and Ginny Mack” was hosted by author Mindy Johnson. Sitting and watching these ladies relive the EARLY days of Disney feature film animation, 98 year old Wilma started working at Disney when they were making Snow White, and Ginni was one of the three models and inspirations for Tinker Bell as well as having worked with Disney since after World War II, I realized the amount of history in the room and was honored to be in attendance. I was also sad to see that Drew and I were the ONLY media guests that had signed up to attend this amazing talk.
I had a really great time showing off the Shanghai Disneyland Pavilion to everyone on Periscope, and wish I would have been allowed to do the same in the new Pandora Pavilion. In my absolute obliviousness I ended up having Joe Rhode walk RIGHT past me near the pavilion, on Friday I had the same thing happen but with John Lasseter, I promised guys I have two years to pay better attention to my surroundings! I also had the joy of seeing TMSM’s west coast photo contributor Byron and our friends Sarah and Richard from Skywalking to Neverland and the legendary Brian Hull.
We also stopped by the Walt Disney Hometown Museum and introduced myself, and stopped over at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Fransisco and was very happy to see Micheal Broggie from Walt’s Barn and the Carolwood Society. Sunday for me, was TMSM Networking day, where I spent a LOT of time shaking hands, smiling, behaving, and telling people about The Main Street Mouse. We also stopped over at the New Zealand Mint booth again so that Drew could get some better shots of their amazing products.
Expo ended last night, but Drew and I’s trip to Disneyland hasn’t. Today we are moving from the Hilton Anaheim (a great good neighbor hotel!), to Disney’s Paradise Pier. We will be taking the “Welcome to Disneyland Tour” this morning and then hanging out in the park before attending a special talk our friend Anna invited us to. Please keep an eye on TMSM’s Twitter and Periscope through the week as we will be sharing photos and videos of cool things we encounter throughout the week! You can also visit our Periscope archives to see any live streaming you may have missed out on this weekend, including the complete Parks presentation! Also through the week look for some updates I will be sharing here on TMSM’s blog full of pictures and information from the Expo, some even will include new merchandise! 
Michele also contributes theme park news for Fox 35 Orlando 11pm news and on the radio on WDBO.
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