I'm back from the D23 Expo / vacation. I had a great time. Here are
some highlights for those interested.

The awesome thing about D23 is it's not just trailers and previews for
all the upcoming movies, they also bring out the stars (and director,
writer, producer, etc.). There was so much I've already forgotten much
of it. Most of the footage shown is exclusive and not available on the
web, but I'll try to post what is available. This is what I remember:

Day One

Disney Legends Ceremony - They inducted a bunch of new people to be
Disney Legends. The presentation opened with stars from various
Disney's productions on Broadway performing live. This was really good.
A bunch of the cast from "Frozen" was also inducted and they performed
live on stage too. Josh Gad was really funny.

Studio Showcase (Disney and Pixar movies) - This first movie
presentation showed all the upcoming live action and animated movies
coming from Disney and Pixar. They also had the casts show up in person
and lots of live performances. This was great! Lots of exclusive clips
including an entire song from the upcoming live action "The Little
Mermaid" followed by the trailer. This is looking really good IMO.
Disney is about to celebrate their 100th anniversary and they debuted a
new logo during the presentation. They also announced and showed
footage from as well as a live performance from their upcoming animated
movie to celebrate the 100th anniversary. This new movie will be, I
think mostly, traditional hand drawn animation. The plot will tie
together various Disney movies over the decades.

Day Two - Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and Fox Studios - They started with
Lucasfilm and gave release announcements/trailers for all the upcoming
Lucas movies and TV shows. The cast were all there too. They also
brought out the cast and showed a new trailer for the Willow series.
That looked good. And they ended with bringing out Harrison Ford and
showing a trailer for Indy 5. The trailer looked really good. I wasn't
sure what to expect, but now that I've seen footage, I'm looking forward
to Indy 5.

Next up was Marvel Studios. Kevin Feige comes out on stage and bemoans
how at the D23 all the Disney and Pixar presentations have live
performances from the stars and Marvel doesn't have anything like that.
Then sudden a band and performers appeared on stage, and they did the
full musical number "I Can Do this All Day" from Hawkeye! In full
costume and everything just like on the TV show. This was AEWESOME!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqngnZOC5nI
Speaking of Hawkeye, they had footage and the cast for the Hawkeye spin
off Echo. Like her character, the lead actress is deaf and only has one
leg in real life. That lead to a reveal that King Pin will be back and
costarring once again in a new Dare Devil series.

There were more announcements and footage (along with the casts of
course) for upcoming Marvel TV shows and movies. The highlights were
probably Loki season 2 trailer, Secret Invasion trailer, The Marvels
trailer, which cleared up what happened at the end of Ms. Marvel and
what the plot of the movie appears to be. It looked good. They showed
more footage from Wakanda Forever, which included more action seeing
Namor in battle and seeing what appeared to be Ironheart in her Iron Man
suit. They showed a trailer for the Ironheart series. They explained
the villain in her series uses magic and this will be the first time
they will have a fully explore magic vs. technology. I'm probably
forgetting a lot of other stuff, but they ended with a trailer for
Antman 3. It was looking really good.

I'll mention this just in case someone cares, they showed a trailer for
"Werewolf By Night" This will be a one off special for Halloween.
Everyone seems to love the trailer, but I didn't get it. Here is the
trailer for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLEFqhS5WmI

And here is the trailer for Secret Invasion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZVTkn2NjS0

They wrapped up with Fox Studios. They had the Avatar cast on stage and
James Cameron live via remote video. Then they handed out 3D glasses to
everyone in the audience and showed multiple scenes from the new Avatar
movie. They showed way too much IMO, but what they showed sure looked
good. And I'm still shocked they handed out 3D glasses to everyone in
the auditorium so they could show scenes from the movie in 3D.

"Disney Branded Television" - This was basically everything on The
Disney Channel and Disney+. When I first came in and took my seat, I
noticed on one of the stages there was a set up for a band to take the
stage. I made a mental note that a band would probably come out to play
and didn't think much of it. Then to open the presentation The Muppets'
Electric Mayhem band took the stage! The actual Muppets appeared live
on stage and performed! The audience went wild! This exceeded any
expectation I could have hoped for. They sang "Can you picture That"
from the Muppet movie. The Muppets themselves have a new show debuting
on Disney+. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoy1xcjLIgU

The presentation for the upcoming Disney TV shows was once again full of
cast and live performances throughout. They confirmed Descendants 4.
They had full on production performances for their third zombie movie
and their mummy musical sequel. They brought the cast out and showed
the trailer for the National Treasure series. That looked good. But
the highlight for me was probably the cast and trailer for "American
Born Chinese" which looked really good, and the cast included Michelle
Yeoh and her co-star from "Everything Everywhere All at Once" Ke Huy
Quan. Ke Huy Quan is also starring in Loki season 2. He came out on
stage for Loki season 2, which was announced shortly after Indiana Jones
5 and made a joke about this being an Indiana Jones reunion. But I
think the joke went over most people's heads as they didn't realize he
co-starred with Ford in Temple of Doom (he was Short Round).
Another highlighted was probably the cast of "Disenchanted" along with
the trailer. It looked really good and the villain this time appears to
be Amy Adams as the "wicked stepmother" because all stepmothers are
evil! And I see the trailer is available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRuwjZJ-DQw

Day Three

Disney Parks, Experiences and Product - This panel was basically all the
stuff coming up in the parks across the world. I enjoyed the panel, but
don't have much to say abut it. Here's a brief recap Marvel released:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CVld-PI3xA

Disney Princess Concert - For Broadway stars came out and sang various
songs. This was nice.

Tron 40th Anniversary panel. Various cast and crew from Tron. I'll
just post a link to the full panel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F0K7GXUUgs

The Archive Stage - One of the attractions at the Expo was an archive
with various props and items from across the parks and movies. They
also had on the sides of the walls various key moments in Disney
history. I noticed the timeline had 1953 then skipped to 1955. I saw
no reference to "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." I asked one of the cast
members if there were any props from that movie on display and was told
no. (Keep reading for more on this.)

Vacationing at the Parks and tours

Disneyland - This was my first time in the park during a holiday
retheme. The biggest highlight by far was the retheme of The Haunted
Mansion. They didn't just add decorations outside, they *completely*
redid the interior. From the stretching room which had new artwork and
narration, to the artwork in the hallway, to everything you see while on
the buggy, it was *all* new! And it looked great. It was all rethemed
to "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and was actually better than the
traditional setup. I rode the ride several times. The first time I
rode it I was so in awe of what I was seeing I could barely take it all
in. This was by far one of the most popular attractions the entire time
I was there. I've never seen lines this long to get into the Haunted
Mansion. Usually when I go, here's little to no line. But this retheme
made it more than worthwhile to ride over and over again.

Disney Studio Tour - I spent about 10 years saving up points so I could
take the Disney Studio Tour. This is a tour of the actual working studio
in Burbank (not the theme park). This tour is not open to the general
public. It was just me and a personal tour guide. My guide was really
nice. She worked for Disney since the 70s as a professional singer and
was in some of the movies. I got to see Walt's office. It was nice and
even though it was designed/built in the 30s, it had modern touches.
She showed me the underground tunnels beneath Disney studios. I got to
hold a real Oscar. I saw the exterior of the sound stage where they
filmed "Zorro" and the one where they filmed "Bedknobs and Broomsticks,"
which she pointed out was the same soundstage where they filmed "20,000
Leagues Under the Sea." To my surprise they had an entire display
dedicated to "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," which is one of my favorite
Disney movies. She took me to the archives room, but I wasn't allowed
to go much beyond the front waiting area. But I could see in the back
on one of the walls they painted scenes from "20,000 Leagues Under the
Sea." I asked her about the Nautilus model, but she didn't know
anything about it. But later we ran into a different tour guide, and I
asked him about it. He wanted me to clarify if I meant the small model
or full-size boat. I said of course I meant the model and he explained
they actually do keep some full-size props, like the Black Pearl from
the Pirates movies. But they don't know where the full-size nautilus
boat is located. He did, however, know where the model was located. He
said it's in the archives room and he saw it there himself a few years
ago. My tour guide told me about how in years past they didn't take
proper care of props and bits of Disney history. But once they started
to take proper care of things, that's why they built the tunnels beneath
the studio (at least I think that's what she said the tunnels were
originally for) to properly store items and they have been actively
tracking down and buying back various props that fell into the hands of
collectors over the years.