Our Final Thoughts on the D23 Magic & Merriment 2012 at Walt Disney World

So, what are our final thoughts on the D23 Magic & Merriment 2012 at Walt Disney World?

Some events were more fun, interesting, entertaining, and educational than we expected – specifically the archival presentations and dinner at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Other events were very disappointing – private Illuminations viewing area with dessert buffet and private Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights viewing (that was because of the rain to a large extent).

The organizational aspects stunk – we didn’t get any idea of what was going to happen or where we needed to be or when we needed to be there until the last bloody hour (and we like to plan ahead!), there was a lot of miscommunication between guests, Events Cast Members, and the D23 people, and the dessert buffet was rather pitiful (so boo! to whoever arranged that!).

We’ve noticed that there’s a difference in D23 behind the scenes stuff and WDW behind the scenes stuff – D23 isn’t as well versed in WDW as one would expect and we think that the planning/scheduling/execution suffers because of it. For what these events cost, they’re really not worth it (there’s no value there).

We’re clearly not Disney fans, in that I mean rabid fans of the DIS corporation (movies, television, music, etc…); we’re very clearly Walt Disney World fans (with an appreciation of the movies, music, history, etc of DIS).

So, it seems that this means we’re not really D23 people. And chances are, we’re going to not renew our D23 memberships and put the money & time into doing WDW things that we enjoy!