ABD DIS'ers Only Backstage Magic with special appearance by the SW premiere UPDATE 5/24 Walt's Barn

OhioStateBuckeye

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 7, 2007
Welcome to my spectacular trip report! I am very excited (and late) to be writing this report as it was one of my best Disney trips ever. I was lucky to be able to attend a special DIS boards podcast sponsored Adventures by Disney Backstage Magic Tour.



Not only that, but it was a Christmas trip! The dates were Sunday, December 13-Friday December 18. We decided to extend our trip a few days until Sunday the 20 to camp in Joshua Tree National Park.

But wait, there's more! Our trip also happened to occur during the Star Wars Force Awakens Hollywood premiere!



Introductions:



I am Rachel and next to me is my long suffering boyfriend, Brian. I am the major Disney nut but he is slowly but surely coming around. We recently moved to Austin Texas from Columbus Ohio. We're still adjusting to the area but we really love the temperatures! We both love Ohio State football, watching movies, hiking and National Parks and nerdy things (Doctor Who, Harry Potter, video games and most definitely Star Wars!!).

We also love Disney trips and have been to Disney World many times and this would be our 4th Disneyland trip.



I truly believe Disneyland has a special sort of magic.

Oh, and I almost forgot! This is Sirius, he spent the trip in a staycation at his boarding kennel in Austin.



In the next update I'll post our itinerary and our initial surprises from ABD.
 
About a month before we were to leave on our trip we got an ABD box!!



I was very excited to see what was inside.







Ignore the pins on these lanyards, the pins we collected along the way.

There were also some luggage tags and luggage straps that I don't have pictures of.

We also received a nice booklet with out itinerary.



Time to get the itinerary out of the way! The following was copied off of the DIS wdwinfo website:


Backstage Magic Tour - Highlights


  • Special Access at Walt Disney Imagineering
    Get a glimpse of how Walt Disney Imagineers create the magic at Disney theme parks and resorts. See some of the creations conjured by this brilliant group of architects, designers, engineers, technicians and more. You'll also be able to enjoy a special shopping experience.
  • Behind the Scenes at Disneyland® Park
    Make your dreams come true with a 2-day VIP experience at Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Parkwith special Disney's FASTPASS service and reserved parade seating.
  • Exclusive Visit to The Jim Henson Company Lot
    Tour the home of Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and some of your other favorite Muppets! Usually not open to the public, The Jim Henson Company Lot was built in 1917 by Charlie Chaplin. The charming studio is featured prominently in the new Walt Disney Pictures movie, The Muppets (2011).
  • Private Tour of Walt Disney's Disneyland Apartment
    See Disneyland Park from the perspective of the man that started it all! Located on the second floor of the Disneyland Fire Dept. building, this cozy apartment was used by Walt Disney many nights during the park's construction and early years of operation. You'll get a privately guided tour of this rarely seen location!
  • Private Hollywood Tour
    See historic and significant Hollywood landmarks with an expert guides. Snap photos of world-famous iconsincluding the El Capitan Theatre, Chinese Theatre, Crossroads of the World and more!

Day 1:

Arrive and Check into the Lowe's Hollywood Hotel and meet our guides and our group at the welcome dinner


Day 2:

The trip usually has a private Hollywood tour this guy but we did not since this was the day of the Force Awakens Premiere and most of Hollywood was shut down to non-insiders. The Force Awakens premiered simultaneously in the El Grauman Chinese Theater, the Dolby theater (where the Oscars are held) and the El Capitan theater.

Jim Henson Studio lot tour

A visit to Walt's Barn

Lunch at Tam O'Shanter

On our own in Hollywood


Day 3:

Walt Disney Studios and the Disney Archives

Walt Disney Imagineering

Drive to Disneyland!

Check in at the Grand Californian and Welcome to Disneyland dinner

Evening on our own in the parks


Day 4:

Breakfast at Disneyland Park

VIP custom tour of Disneyland

Afternoon and Evening on our own in Disneyland


Day 5:

Character breakfast at Storyteller's

VIP custom tour of DCA

Afternoon on our own

Farewell dinner

VIP Viewing of WOC


Day 6:

Storyteller's breakfast

Depart from the ABD group




It was really a jam packed itinerary! I have a few warnings before I continue further with this report.

Special gifts and surprises happen on all ABD trips. The DIS sponsored trips seem to go above and beyond in this aspect. Kevin, from the podcasts and Dreams Unlimited, plans these trips special with ABD. A lot of the special surprise events don't occur every trip, so Kevin has asked that we try not to share these surprises. That way people can be surprised and won't be disappointed if that particular occurrence does not happen on their future trip.

When I come upon a time that a special event happened, I will let you know that I'm skipping some time forward and I will just move ahead to the next event. If you'd like to PM me and ruin the surprise for yourself, I will share it in private because I'll be doing a write up for myself on those experiences so I can always remember them (one of my top 3 Disney moments happened during a surprise event). I would just ask that you keep the experience to yourself and don't spread it around the boards to others.

Next up is Day 1!!!!
 


Wow! That sounds like a dream come true. Thanks for writing it up!

My BIL and family just moved south of Austin last fall.

PHXscuba
 
Wow! That sounds like a dream come true. Thanks for writing it up!

My BIL and family just moved south of Austin last fall.

PHXscuba

It really was a dream trip. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

How do they like Austin? Do you know which area they are in? We're in north Austin in Cedar Park.
Joining in and looking forward to reading about your adventures. :sail:

Welcome! Thanks for joining, Chris Parker babysitter extraordinaire :dogdance:
 


I'm following along too! How exciting! I will probably never be able to afford an ABD trip, so I might just be on your PM list ;)
 
It really was a dream trip. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

How do they like Austin? Do you know which area they are in? We're in north Austin in Cedar Park.

They are near New Braunfels close as I can tell. They are my kids' closest cousins/friends so we are hoping to visit them this summer.

PHXscuba
 
I was just listening to the Dreams Unlimited Podcast about ABD and thinking when you were going to do your trip report. Low and behold, here it is:) I can't wait to hear more, since we are hoping to do this tour. I think it's going to be summer 2019 now, instead of 2018, because Star Wars Land probably won't open until then.
 
I'm following along too! How exciting! I will probably never be able to afford an ABD trip, so I might just be on your PM list ;)

Welcome! Never say never. I'm not going to say it isn't expensive, but if you can secret away $50 or $100 a month it isn't too bad. At least that's what I tell myself so I can sleep at night :rotfl2:

They are near New Braunfels close as I can tell. They are my kids' closest cousins/friends so we are hoping to visit them this summer.

PHXscuba

Oh sweet! You guys will have so much fun if you visit! Schiltterbahn is fantastic! There is also a great old fashioned German town near there.

I was just listening to the Dreams Unlimited Podcast about ABD and thinking when you were going to do your trip report. Low and behold, here it is:) I can't wait to hear more, since we are hoping to do this tour. I think it's going to be summer 2019 now, instead of 2018, because Star Wars Land probably won't open until then.

I was wondering when you'd find me :) Maybe we'll go with you guys, we definitely want to go again, we are hooked! Waiting for Star Wars land might be a very good idea.

Well in that case, I need to get my wife to read this trip report ;)

I'll take that as a challenge :goodvibes I'll do my best. I'll do my best.
 
Day 1: Welcome to Hollywood



Everyone on board their Great Movie Ride vehicle? Ready to go to Hollywood? Action!

Hooray for Hollywood,
Where you're terrific if you're even good
Where anyone at all from Shirley Temple to
Aimee Semple Is equally understood
Go out and try your luck, you might be Donald Duck
Hooray for Hollywood

Oh wait...this is the real thing! Now that everyone hopefully has the Hooray for Hollywood song stuck in their head...we can begin.

Sunday December 13:

Our flight was very early. We left the apartment around 5 am. We called an Uber and one was there within 10 minutes. We got an interesting driver, he was actually a private pilot and told us stories about all the crazy rich people who he has flown around. There are a lot of perks to being a private pilot, apparently. He has a standing offer of 50 yard line tickets for the Seahawks from their owner whenever he feels like watching a game.


For having such an early flight, the Austin-Bergstrom airport was pretty crowded. We had about a ten minute wait for security. Then came our very first special Star Wars moment of the trip: I was carrying my lightsaber (it is tough to fit a lightsaber in a bag) and fellow nerds started to flock to us. The lightsaber was like a nerd rallying banner. So many people came up to comment on it. You may not realize it…but there are Star Wars fans all around you.

We grabbed some breakfast tacos at our gate and settled in for
about an hour and a half wait. We were flying Southwest and had obtained the golden ticket (A group boarding). The flight was pretty uneventful but a little bit rainy.



I tried to sleep but was of course too excited. The lightsaber had a place of honor against the window.



We had one stop at El Paso, but luckily we got to stay on our plane so we also got to move up to prime seats near the front.


I love sitting by the window on flights. I’m fascinated by all the land and clouds. Look at this sky, looks like there is a sky river winding through the clouds.











We finally landed in LAX and got our first taste of being ABD VIPs. A woman was waiting for us with my name on a sign. I’ve always wanted someone at the airport to wait for me with my name on a sign…don’t judge, not all dreams have to be big.

She was incredibly nice and she escorted us to the baggage claim. While we waited for our luggage she called our driver and let him know we had arrived. The luggage took about 15 minutes to arrive and then we headed outside to meet our driver.

Being a country bumpkin, I was super impressed by the car that was waiting for us, an Escalade. I took a very poor picture because I was trying to do it super incognito so our driver wouldn’t know how much of a bumpkin I am. I was trying to secret agent the picture and Brian is whispering ‘act like you’ve been there’.



Our driver got our luggage loaded and we were off!! If you’ve ever had to drive in or around LA…then you know how wonderful it is to have a driver. So relaxing. We kicked back in the backseat and listened to our driver regale us with stories of all the celebrities he’d chauffeured around before. He told us about Lebron James just seeming very out of it, but he was pretty young at that time so the driver gave him a pass. Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warrior basketball player was super nice and grounded. When we let him know we were Steelers fans he told us that Ben Roethlisberger was a big jerk, but I guess we could have guessed that. When we told the driver that we lived in Austin, Texas he was excited and said that he drove so many celebrities to the airport who were vacationing in Austin. I guess Californians love Austin? We also passed Floyd Mayweather driving his yellow Lamborghini through Hollywood. I guess he is well known for that car and our driver easily recognized it.

mayweather-lambo.jpg



After a carefree ride through LA, as unbelievable as that sounds, we finally arrived at the Loew’s Hollywood Hotel. Our driver helped with our luggage and we said our farewells (also, no need to worry about tipping him because all tips are already covered by ABD!).

We turned slight to our left and there it was!





We were pretty early, I think it was around 10:30 California time and we couldn’t find any ABD people in the lobby. They were supposed to be meeting us as we checked in but we didn’t see anyone so we just went and checked in ourselves. Our room was actually ready!! We took our luggage up. And…OMG, the view!!! Could not have been better. I think we were on maybe the 7th floor? I’m pretty sure I have a picture of the room number coming up later, so I’ll correct myself then.









We relaxed in the room for a little bit and did some unpacking but we were getting hungry so we decided to walk around outside. We’d visited Hollywood on our first ever DL trip a few years before so we were somewhat familiar with the area.

Upon going outside…we realized the landscape looked a lot different than it had our last trip! 4 blocks of usually busy street from Highland Ave to La Brea Ave had been closed down for the Star Wars premiere that was happening the next day. Just for a comparison, they only shut down 1 block for the Oscars. I stole this picture from the internet so you guys could see how massive it was:



It was fairly easy to move about this day (just wait until I get to tomorrow when we walked around the same area). The sidewalks were clear, the tents were only set up in the streets. We walked slowly down the street, looking at all the costumed street people. No pictures, since they expect compensation if you take a picture. The costumes ranged from a ridiculously bad Mickey and Minnie to impressively good. There was a giant, life size Bumblebee that looked amazing. That costume almost got me to part with some money for a picture.







The El Cap theater:





I should stop here and give a note on the weather. It was actually raining, considering how little rain California usually gets we were pretty (un)lucky. It was really pretty chilly as well, for our Hollywood days the temperate was in the high 40s to low 60s and it was very windy which made it super chilly. I was very happy I’d
packed a hat.

We decided we were in the mood for diner food so we went to Mel’s Drive In. It is only a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. This is the story of the original Mel’s:

In 1947, Mel Weiss and Harold Dobbs opened the first drive-in restaurant in San Francisco, Mels drive-in. At the time, the drive-in restaurant concept was just beginning in America, and the agreeable weather of California was ideal for year round carhop service.

The original location of Mels drive-in was 140 South Van Ness Avenue. It consisted of ample grounds, attractively landscaped with the capacity for 110 cars, and a two-story rectangular building. Anyone who has seen the 1973 film "American Graffiti" remembers the familiar neon sign at the gang's favorite hangout spot buzzing in the background, blazing "Mels drive-in." Though the film was set in Modesto, California, the scenes at "Burger City" were actually filmed this first Mels drive-in location.



I also have a pretty bad picture of the Christmas decorations and a stranger's head.



The food was exactly what we wanted and very cheap by Hollywood standards. They also had my favorite sweet potato fries, so I wasn’t complaining. After eating we were really ready for a nap so we headed back to the room.



We still didn’t see any ABD guides in the lobby. We ended up back in the room and took a much needed several hour long nap. At this point we also discovered that the Kylo Ren car was parked in our hotel’s very
small lot! If you remember, Dodge had been airing a SW car commercial at that time and this was one of the cars.



I'm going to stop here for tonight.

Coming up: our welcome dinner, meeting the group and we'll see if the guides have any surprises in store for us!

 
I never saw the Kylo Ren car. That's pretty wild. Does it rear end people when things don't go right:rolleyes:
 
Day 1 Part 2: Hello Adventures by Disney!


Somewhat refreshed, we knew we needed to find the guides. We headed back down to the lobby and found an ABD guide with another party. They were all chatting a lot and we didn’t want to interrupt so we just creepily followed them into an elevator and got off on the same floor then waited our turn to get signed in. The guides gave us passes to the Wax museum, which was only about a 5 minute walk away. We’d gone to the wax museum on an earlier trip so we decided to pass in favor of some more relaxing in our room.


We found out that our guides names were Summer Rose and Dean. We filled out some forms and were told when we’d need to meet back there for the welcome dinner. After spending some more time in the room being lazy we headed back down for the Welcome dinner. The guides had some funny Christmas props set up and we all got pictures in varying degrees of silliness.


Summer Rose and Dean!:






I’ll stop here and add another note, when you take an ABD trip the guides will take pictures of special moments and landscapes throughout the trip. It is kind of like having your own photo pass photographers following you around. These pictures are included in the price of the ABD. At the end of the trip you’ll get a code and a web address where you can download all the pictures. You’ll have all the pictures the guides took during the whole Adventure, even the ones of other people in your group. It might sound a bit creepy, but it is kind of nice having pictures of everyone else in the group. I won’t be posting any here that aren’t group shots, but we made friends with quite a lot of our group so it is nice to have little mementos of everyone else.


After everyone had their goofy Christmas pictures taken we all trooped into our private dining room. I was a little apprehensive about this welcome meal. I haven’t always had the best experience with catered type meals like this, but I thought our food choices were pretty delicious. I think we had a couple meat options, a vegetarian option, salad, delicious soup and maybe 3 different desserts. I probably should have taken pictures, but I didn’t know anyone in the group and didn’t want anyone thinking I was weird. Which was actually pretty dumb, considering that all these people were from the DISboards which is the group least likely to think I’m weird for taking pictures of food.


Summer Rose and Dean spoke with us while we ate and got us excited for the trip. We didn't know it at the time, but we would quickly grow to love Dean and Summer Rose. I've never experience any other ABD guides, but these two are so good! They both work at DL when they are not doing an ABD trip. Dean is a VIP tour guide, and so is Summer Rose, but she is also keeper of the keys for Walt's Apartment. After we got home we looked through some google DL celebrity pictures hoping we'd spot Dean or Summer Rose and we found this gem of Dean and Cindy Crawford. His face is just classic Dean, like he is saying ugh, I know your not taking a selfie, try to be a little bit classier.




They also introduced us to our lanyards and the fact that we would be receiving a special pin for each day of the trip. I’ve always been more of a vinylmation collector than a pin collector, but I was still excited to have them.




We went around the room and introduced ourselves a little bit, then the guides called out special celebrations. There were a couple birthdays, including Brian’s. They all got very nice cards and an extra special birthday pin. There were also a couple anniversaries.




Brian also got a special birthday pin.




After everyone was done eating we got another surprise: Good Dinosaur tickets at the El Capitan! The event was voluntary, of course, but I think most of the group took them up on it. As we headed over as a group Brian and I got a chance to talk to the Podcast reps for the trip: Craig and his new wife Kylie. Kylie and I had a nice Harry Potter talk and I think Brian and Craig talked about Ohio State football. I’ll also mention here: we really couldn’t have had better podcast reps than these two. They couldn’t have been nicer and Craig made sure to spend time with everyone in the group and make sure we were having a good time.


On the way there we saw the Kylo Ren car a little closer:










We arrived at the El Cap and found our seats. We had special VIP tickets so not only did we get center row reserved seats, we also got a bottled drink and a neat Good Dinosaur popcorn bucket.


Here is a little bit of info on the theater:


Step into Hollywood's glittering past and be treated to an unparalleled movie-going experience powered by the most advanced cinema innovations at The Walt Disney Studio's premiere cinema, The legendary El Capitan Theatre. This grand theatre made its debut on May 3, 1926, as "Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama." and has been fully restored to its original elegance, boasting a Spanish Colonial exterior and a colorful and lavish East Indian interior designed by San Francisco architect G. Albert Lansburgh. Here at the El Capitan Theatre you can experience the most advanced cinematic technology, such as the completely immersive Dolby ATMOS sound system featuring over 100 speakers, the super-bright Christie Solaria series digital projectors delivering crisp, clean images with perfect color, and ultra-realistic digital 3D powered by RealD. The El Capitan Theatre experience often includes exclusive preshow entertainment, prop


The El Cap is also known for its organ that is played before each movie showing. Here is some facts on the organ from the El Cap’s website:





The newly installed spectacular 4/37 Wurlitzer has four keyboards and 37 ranks of pipes, each of which represent different musical instruments. It was the last of five magnificent "Fox Specials" built in the 1920's, and is considered the top of the line in theater organs and was designed with all the "bells and whistles" for movie palaces. It was meticulously restored over a one-year period and installed by G.M. Buck Pipe Organs, Inc. of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Theatre organ experts Gordon Kibbee and Bill Schutz served as consultants on the project and wrote all the specifications.

Over 2500 pipes have been installed in four chambers - two in each side of the theatre. The largest pipe is over 32 feet long! The El Capitan's "Mighty Wurlitzer" was originally installed in 1929 at the World Famous San Francisco Fox Theatre and subsequently purchased by Frank Lanterman in 1963 for his home in La Canada. Since its installation, this marvelous instrument, the "Mightiest of Mighty Wurlitzers" which was dormant for so long, has come to life again, performing to a new audience of hundreds of thousands of people at Hollywood's Classic Movie Palace, The El Capitan Theatre.


The theater is so beautiful. I’ve worked in several movie theaters during my younger years so I was incredibly impressed by the crispness of the images. Remember how amazing the backgrounds in the Good Dinosaur were, now just imagine them on an amazingly sharp and crisp screen, it was so astoundingly beautiful.




As we filed in to find our seats the organist was playing, he was sooo good and played several Disney songs.





Another great thing about this theater: there is a pre-show! We ended up seeing the very last showing of the Good Dinosaur before the theater closed down for the Force Awakens premiere the following day. Which meant we also saw the last of the Pixar themed pre-show.







As a character fan, this show was great because there were so many rare characters on stage! I had a great time just watching Sadness. I could not stop cracking up. Sadness was doing all the happy dance moves that the other characters were but she looked so hilariously morose doing it.


We had already seen the Good Dinosaur, but we really enjoyed watching it again, especially with the amazing El Cap projectors. I don’t think the Good Dinosaur is my favorite Pixar movie, it is probably down near the bottom but the landscapes in the film really are breathtaking.


After the movie we went downstairs. In the basement of the El Cap there is a display area. For the Good Dinosaur, they had a lot of fossils and some dinosaur bones. Some of us posed for pictures with Arlo on the way out.







We were sure to stop next door in the Ghirardelli Disney soda shop. We didn’t get any ice cream, but we enjoyed looking at all the merchandise, which was mostly Star Wars and Good Dinosaur related.





We weren’t quite ready for bed yet so we headed down the street to check out Grauman’s Chinese Theater. This was probably a good move as this area is pretty crowded during the day. We had it virtually to ourselves. Well, us and about 30 die hard SW fans who were camped out for the Force Awakens. These are my people and I can definitely relate. At a Star Wars celebration in Indianapolis I definitely spent the night outside in line in 30 degree temps and freezing rain so that I could see George Lucas the following day. There were 5 of us crazy people, with 5 camping chairs, one tarp and two sleeping bags between us. That was a cold night.






I took some awkward pictures with my favorite Donald Duck's star:





The courtyard of the theater was empty for once so I got a picture of the Harry Potter trio's foot and hand prints:




After a short time we headed back to the room so we could get to bed, we had an early morning wake up quickly approaching. Here was our nighttime view from the room:










 
I was recently watching some of the ABD podcasts, including Craig's for this trip. It made me even more excited for your report. All of the Dreams Unlimited team that had Summer Rose as a tour guide said great things about her, and really all of the ABD tour guides.
 
I came here looking for some DL reports to get me in the west coast spirit and look who is here!

You know I'm really hoping to go on an ABD in the next few years so this will probably cause me additional torment! ;) But really I can't wait to hear all about it.
 
So excited to hear about your trip! I signed up for the dis exclusive ABD this October and can't wait.
 
Love your report so far!

We just took the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour with Summer Rose as our guide last month, and she was fantastic. I look forward to hearing more about your Adventures!
 

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