Have you heard of D23? D23 is “the official Disney fan club celebrating the wonder and excitement of Disney’s stories, characters, songs, and experiences.”
It’s completely free to join and you get lots of fun insider information as well as access to fun events like Destination D23 at Walt Disney World and the D23 Expo at Disneyland Resort.
The D23 Expo is a fan event that celebrates all aspects of the Disney company, from movies and TV shows to the parks to Walt Disney himself and more! It usually lasts for 3 days – from Friday to Sunday. You can attend just 1 day or 2 days or all 3 days.
The D23 Expo happens every two years and is a ticketed event. You can purchase tickets with a regular free D23 account, but there are also special tickets available if you have a paid Gold membership.
The 2022 Expo was a very special expo, kicking off the celebration of the 100 year anniversary of the Disney company!
Check out this incredible entrance to the Expo!
I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for a good Mickey statue!
Once you enter, there is a show floor with tons of amazing booths to visit.
On Day 1 I visited most of them, but it’s almost impossible to see everything. Most are “official” booths but there are also some non-Disney vendors with really cool products to check out.
But my first stop this year was to visit Walt Disney’s plane, the Mickey Mouse One. It was so amazing to see the plane that Walt flew around in. They had an amazing display with memorabilia from inside the plane. What a special piece of Disney history to see!
Next I headed to the show floor and to the D23 Live stage. This stage was so cool! They live streamed all day every day of the expo with fun games and interviews. One of the first guests they had on day one was Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson! It was super easy to walk right up and watch the events there through the weekend.
Next I headed to the Marvel Studios booth and met Thanos himself! Oh dear! Thankfully I survived!
Near Thanos were some incredible Marvel movie costumes on display. It was so amazing to see these costumes so close up. There are so many details you don’t see on the big screen or your TV!
I even met Thor’s goats!
There was also an incredible display of Star Wars costumes.
There are fun photo ops everywhere on the show floor including the Pizza Planet truck and a huge balloon animal Figment.
One of the most fun things to do at the D23 Expo is to people watch. There are incredible cosplays and mash-ups handmade by some amazing people. Check out this R2D2 HulkBuster!
The last thing I did on Day One was visit the Disney Parks exhibit.
They had fun things on display such as maquettes for new ride vehicles coming to parks all around the world.
One thing I’m excited about is the remodel of ToonTown at Disneyland Park. They had two models on display showing what it will be like with the brand new Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway attraction. And at each display in this exhibit, there are Imagineers just waiting to talk to you about their work! So cool!
There was a model of the beautiful Te Fiti attraction coming to Epcot at Walt Disney World. She will be 16 feet tall!
And then of course everyone loved this full scale model of the new Walt Disney statue also coming to Epcot.
Well that’s it for Day One! After this exhibit I took my aching feet back to the hotel to rest up!
Stay tuned for Day Two of the Expo (when I get to attend the incredible Disney Parks panel) as well as a fun day at Disneyland Park in between!
Reach out to one of our Journey Planners to start planning your own magical D23 trip!
Special thanks to Embrace the Journey Operations Coordinator, Joy Wolski, for writing this blog post for us.