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Our D23 RSP Results Are In—Here’s Our New Weekend Plan

Two friends in disney ears in front of disney castle at disneyland
Besties weekend at Disneyland is about to begin! 


Our D23 panel reservations are finally here—and they were not quite what I expected.

Between the two of us, after submitting several choices for D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, Shauntel and I received exactly two panel reservations:

  • D23 Mousequerade: The Ultimate Disney Costume Contest on Saturday morning
  • Floating Mountains: A Conversation with Joe Rohde on Saturday afternoon

That’s it.

I had also hoped for Marvel Fanfare, the Disney pin trading panel and a few other possibilities. When the results arrived, my first reaction was definitely disappointment. We bought Ultimate Preferred tickets, which include reserved floor seats for all three Honda Center presentations, and this is a big, expensive trip. I wanted to make sure we experienced as much as possible.

But once I went back to the plan, I realized something: only getting two reservations may actually give us the flexibility we need.

The parts of the weekend that are already fixed

Our three Honda Center presentations are non-negotiable:

  • Friday: Disney Entertainment Showcase
  • Saturday: Horizons: Disney Experiences Showcase
  • Sunday: Disney Legends Award Ceremony

Saturday is now our most structured convention day because both of our RSP reservations are that morning and early afternoon. The other days are much more open, which gives us room for shopping, the show floor and possibly a standby panel.

I used ChatGPT again to rebuild the itinerary around the reservations we actually received instead of the ones I hoped we would receive. My priorities stayed the same: Imagineering and Disney Parks, Marvel, shopping, all three Honda Center presentations and as much Disneyland time as we can reasonably fit in.

Our simplified D23 and Disneyland plan

Thursday: Arrive and head to Disneyland

We land at John Wayne Airport around 1 p.m., so after checking into the Hilton Anaheim, we’ll head to Disneyland for the rest of the day.

Because we visit Walt Disney World regularly, I don’t want to spend our limited Disneyland time repeating attractions that are essentially the same in Florida. Our Disneyland priorities are the experiences we can’t do at Walt Disney World—or that are different enough to be worthwhile.

That means Indiana Jones Adventure, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Snow White’s Enchanted Wish, Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin and Disneyland’s longer version of Pirates of the Caribbean. I also specifically want to ride “it’s a small world” because the Disneyland version includes Disney characters.

The current plan is to finish the evening near “it’s a small world” for Paint the Night, Wondrous Journeys with Fireworks and Tapestry of Happiness. It feels like a very Disneyland way to begin the trip.

Friday: Marvel, shopping and the Disney Entertainment Showcase

Every convention morning will begin much earlier than I would prefer: shopping virtual queues open at 6 a.m. Pacific.

D23’s current rules say that guests can join a shopping virtual queue at 6 a.m. and again at 1 p.m., subject to availability. A guest can be in only one queue at a time. Since there are two of us, we may join different queues as parties of one so we can cover more stores.

Friday’s targets will likely be Mickey’s of Glendale for me and The Walt Disney Company Store for Shauntel. If a shopping group is called, we’ll work around it.

If the timing cooperates, we’ll try the standby line for Marvel Fanfare. After that, the priority becomes the show floor—especially the Imagineering: Horizons pavilion, Marvel Studios’ TVA Experience and Walt Disney Archives: Uncrated. I may also try standby for Beyond the Magic: Disney Pin Trading, but only if it doesn’t interfere with shopping or our departure for the Honda Center.

We’ll return to the hotel before leaving for Honda Center because the venue has an extremely restrictive bag policy. Our convention bags and purchases will stay in the room while we attend the Disney Entertainment Showcase.

Saturday: Our two confirmed panels and the Disney Experiences Showcase

Saturday is the one day when the itinerary cannot drift very much.

  • 10–11:30 a.m.: D23 Mousequerade
  • 12:30–1:30 p.m.: Floating Mountains with Joe Rohde
  • 7–9 p.m.: Horizons: Disney Experiences Showcase at Honda Center

We’ll still attempt shopping virtual queues at 6 a.m., but neither of the confirmed panels will be sacrificed for a store. After Joe Rohde, we’ll eat and spend the afternoon on the show floor instead of trying to squeeze in yet another panel.

This is the day I most want time in the Imagineering pavilion. Joe Rohde followed by the show-floor Imagineering experience and then the major Disney Experiences presentation at Honda Center sounds like an excellent day for someone who loves the parks.

Sunday: Final shopping, Disney Legends and California Adventure

Sunday morning will be our last opportunity to finish the show floor and pick up anything we missed. We’ll attempt another pair of shopping virtual queues, spend the early morning at the convention and then leave for Honda Center well before the 1:30 p.m. Disney Legends ceremony.

After the ceremony, we have two possible plans. If one of our shopping groups still makes sense, we’ll return to the convention center briefly. Otherwise, we’ll go directly to Disney California Adventure.

Our California Adventure priorities are Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!, Radiator Springs Racers, Avengers Campus, WEB SLINGERS, Cars Land after dark, Incredicoaster and Monsters, Inc. These are all experiences we don’t have at Walt Disney World in the same form.

If we still have energy when California Adventure closes, Disneyland is scheduled to remain open later, so we can hop over for any unfinished favorites.

The rules keeping me from overplanning again

The detailed version of this itinerary has backup options and decision points, but I’m trying to keep the actual trip governed by a few simple rules:

  1. Honda Center comes first. We paid for Ultimate Preferred tickets, and those three presentations are the heart of the trip.
  2. Confirmed RSP reservations come before shopping. We only received two, and we are not missing them.
  3. A called shopping queue comes before a standby panel. Standby is never guaranteed, and a shopping window may be brief.
  4. The show floor deserves real time. I don’t want to spend the entire convention standing in panel lines while missing Imagineering, Marvel and the Archives experiences.
  5. We are not riding Walt Disney World duplicates just to check boxes. Our park time is for the experiences that make Disneyland Resort different.
  6. We do not have to use every possible minute. Exhausting ourselves Friday night could ruin Saturday, and Saturday is too important for that.

What I learned from the RSP results

I originally thought the reservations would create the plan. Instead, they simply created two anchors.

The rest of the weekend will depend on virtual-queue timing, standby availability, crowds, how long it takes to move between venues and how tired we are after each Honda Center presentation. There is no realistic way to schedule every minute of an event this large before we arrive.

Using ChatGPT helped me turn the giant schedule into a series of smaller decisions. It remembered that we are adults, that Shauntel is happy to follow my lead, that I care most about Imagineering, Marvel and shopping, and that we visit Walt Disney World often enough to skip most duplicate attractions. When the RSP results changed the plan, we didn’t have to begin again from scratch. We just moved the pieces around the two reservations we actually received.

I’m still expecting the weekend to be chaotic. But now it feels like organized chaos—which, honestly, may be the best anyone can hope for at D23.

Schedules, virtual queues and operating hours can change. I’m continuing to check the official D23 schedule, D23 shopping information and the Disneyland Resort calendar as the trip gets closer.

 

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