All about my experience at the D23 Expo 2026, including what I did, panels I saw, and more:
I will preface this by saying I know that Disney now officially calls this event the “Ultimate Fan Event” and not Expo. But that, frankly, feels like a mouthful. So I will continue to refer to it as the D23 Expo!
For those who aren’t familiar, this is a convention that takes place in Anaheim every other year. It celebrates all things Disney, and is a time when the company makes many of their major announcements involving the theme parks and entertainment. D23 has a show floor with lots of booths set up for interactive adventures & shopping, plus a number of panels and speakers.
I had attended the event once before, in 2017. So it’s been almost 10 years. The expo has changed a lot since then in terms of how it’s run and what to expect. I do think my previous experience helped me at least be realistic about what I could do and set expectations.
If you suffer from bad FOMO, this event is not for you! You cannot possibly do everything. You honestly can’t even come close to doing everything. Choices must be made, and even when you try to prioritize there’s a chance you might miss out on something you were really hoping to do. The best advice I can give for attending this event is to realize there is SO much to enjoy, and to try not to get too disappointed by the things you don’t get to do.
After my first expo my post was titled “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” I don’t think I experienced anything this year that I would call Ugly, so that’s a positive! But I’ll still go over the pros and cons, what I enjoyed the most, and what I think could be improved.
The Panels
For me, the smaller panels that happen throughout the day are the highlight of the entire event. They are fun, informative, and a great chance to learn more about Disney behind the scenes, or to hear Disney people speak about projects they worked on.
There are many that happen throughout the day, but I attended “Beauty and the Beast: A Tale as Old as Time,” “The Muppets Musical History,” “Disney Legends in Conversation,” and “Disney Rewind Encore Concert.”
I can’t emphasize enough how great each and every one of these was. Beauty and the Beast had Paige O’Hara, Susan Egan, and Alan Menken all on stage together. Paul Williams spoke about writing Muppets music, including Rainbow Connection. During the Disney Legends panel, we got to hear from Alan Tudyk, Susan Egan, and a few others. And I adored the Disney Rewind Concert – there were so many incredible performances!
Back in the day you would just line up for whatever panel you wanted to attend, sometimes hours early. This year they did something called RSP, which is a Reservation Random Selection Process. You filled out which experiences you were most interested in attending, and then they would randomly pick people to have a reservation. As long as you showed up by a certain time, you were guaranteed entry (usually 30-45 minutes before). Then they had a standby line they would let in after that time. You could join the standby line pretty much whenever you wanted, but you weren’t guaranteed to get in.
That being said, every panel I attended seemed to have empty seats. I understand there were a small handful that were very popular and filled up (like Kingdom Hearts), but the things I was most interested in were pretty available.
If there are a number of panels and talks that sound interesting to you, I think this is a great reason to attend D23.
Honda Center events
Your ticket doesn’t include three of the bigger events. You’ll need to pay an extra fee for them or purchase one of the bigger packages. Those are the Disney Experiences Showcase, where they make parks and cruise announcements, the Disney Entertainment Showcase, and the Disney Legends Ceremony.
They used to be part of the regular panels, but people were camping out so long for them they eventually made them separate. They are even at a separate venue, the Honda Center. I only attended the Disney Legends Ceremony.
Back in 2017 I went to the parks panel. While it was exciting, it was pretty low-key: just people on stage making announcements. All 3 of the Honda Center events now are not just announcements but spectacles, with celebrity hosts and musical numbers.
I cannot tell you first hand about entertainment and experiences showcases. I do know a lot of people were disappointed by the parks announcements. After 2024, I think expectations were really high. There was no way Disney could make that level of announcements again! So I’m not really sure what people were expecting, realistically. Disney was also livestreaming it this year, which meant I could watch it in my pajamas at my hotel room. I was pretty happy with that experience!
Disney Legends Ceremony
I did attend the Disney Legends ceremony, and I thought that was an incredible experience. Disney inducted 13 people this year, including Lin-Manuel Miranda. I am not normally a big “celebrity” person, but he is an exception because his work has touched me in so many ways.
They started off strong by making Lin the first one inducted. He was introduced by Auli’i Cravalho (the voice of Moana), and then launched into an incredible medley of his music. Songs from Moana, Encanto, Hamilton, and more were performed by a number of talented singers, including Mandy Gonzalez, James Monroe Iglehart, Arielle Jacobs, and Wayne Brady.
He sang his acceptance speech to the tune of “Part of your World,” and I will admit I cried. I may have been very far away from the stage, but it was completely worth it to be there and celebrate him (and the other amazing Disney Legends).
A few other highlights for me included Gennifer Goodwin presenting the award to Alan Tudyk, Ming-Na Wen presenting to Imagineer Kim Irvine, a performance of the song Beauty and the Beast by four women who have played Belle on Broadway in honor of Susan Egan, and a fun musical number featuring some of animator Eric Goldberg’s characters. There were some moving and powerful acceptance speeches by Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson (who got the whole stadium to sing Happy Birthday to his daughter!), and Bob Iger.
In terms of the logistics of getting to and from the Honda Center, I had heard some nightmare stories about how long it took, especially to get back after it was over. I’ll be honest, I really didn’t have any problems (maybe because this one was during the afternoon and not at night?).
The Show Floor
The last main component of the event is the show floor. This is where various booths are setup and you can wander around, talk to people, see things, take photos, and sometimes get giveaways. Some experiences can get pretty long lines, while others you could just walk up.
The show floor is also where all of the shops were located, though I’m going to discuss them separately.
I found the show floor very hit or miss. Perhaps it’s not surprising, but it seemed much more targeted at influencers than my last experience. I enjoy a good photo op, but I like something a bit more substantial, too.
My favorite experiences on the show floor were Imagineering, Disney Archives, the Disney Family Museum & Marceline Museum, the Marvel display, Disney VoluntEars, and the Heinz booth (where I got to mix my own condiment!).
The Hulu Experience was okay. It was all photo ops but the lines moved quickly and they had some creative set-ups. The bookstore was tiny (I wish it was bigger!), and it was closed a lot of the time when they had big signings going on.
I never got into Mundo Pixar because the line was very long. I didn’t want to wait an hour for a photo op. Even with spending a good amount of time in panels (and taking an afternoon break on Friday and Saturday!), I was still pretty much done with the floor by Sunday. Unless you wanted a ton of pictures or wanted to buy all of the things, there wasn’t too much to occupy all of your time there.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are many booths that have smaller talks happening throughout the day, so be sure to look out for those! The Lucasfilm and Imagineering booths both had a number of interesting speakers. There’s also the Spotlight Stage, which hosts some presentations throughout the day.
You can grab giveaways at many of the booths, too. Some will just be giving items out if you ask, while others release them at specific times and you have to queue for them. Still others had a sort of ongoing line (mostly as part of a photo op). I got a few nice art prints and smaller things like buttons and keychains.
Keep your eye out for other entertainment, too! These smaller things are often the highlight for me. I thoroughly enjoyed a brass band playing their own arrangements of Disney tunes. And I came across a LEGO display of Pirates of the Caribbean, created by two brothers who were building it for 4 years. It was incredible! There were lots of amazing costumes and cosplay to see around the floor, too.
Shopping
If I get the chance to buy some fun merch, great. However, it’s not going to make or break my trip. I also don’t want to wait for hours for the chance to spend money.
Most of the Disney shops now have a virtual queue. You can sign up at 6am for a return group, just like the virtual queues at the parks. You can only join one virtual queue at a time. There were a number of shops, and many of them had separate virtual queues for the pin experiences. There were 3 I was mainly interested in seeing. I decided I’d try for one of those each morning, but I wouldn’t be heartbroken if I didn’t get in.
The first day I went for the Disney Company Store, and got a very early return group. That gave me priority when the event opened. I got to line up pretty early so they could lead us directly to the store to start shopping right at 9am. This was definitely the best merch of the event (in my opinion!). I looked at a number of cute things and ultimately bought more than I expected!
The “Walt’s Office” collection was my favorite, and I absolutely fell in love with this bag. I grabbed a few other things as well. On the second day I got a virtual queue for Mickey’s of Glendale, which had a Muppet Show collection. I had to get a few of those things, as well! I also managed to snag a virtual queue the last day for the D23 Marketplace. However, by that time many things were sold out and I was not impressed by what was on offer there, so I didn’t make any purchases.
Some of Disney’s partners had merch booths too, like Loungefly, Box Lunch, and Crocs. Many of these had very long lines (since they didn’t use the virtual queues), so I didn’t go to any of them.
Overall
While D23 is overwhelming, it truly is what you make it and can be a great experience. I would not recommend going if you have only one focus, because you could get disappointed. But if you love Disney and would be happy doing a number of the events here, I think you could have a great time!
Looking back over my recap from last time, Disney has made a lot of improvements to the experience. Though much of the event is waiting in lines, it was definitely less than last time. While there were a few things that didn’t go perfectly, it ran much more smoothly overall.
It’s not something I can attend every time it happens, but I’ll return when the time is right. Mostly for the panels, because I learn so much. I’m going to try and do a write-up on many of the panels I attended. They were full of info I’d love to share with you!
Have you ever attended D23? What would you be most interested in?
Sounds like there’s a lot to do! I guess it’s a good idea to plan carefully.
So much to do! It’s good to be aware of it, but also willing to go with the flow!