EPCOT 30th Recap, Dreamfinder News, and… MY FACE!

Wow, what a long, strange trip it was! Here’s a recap of some of my crazy adventures at EPCOT’s 30th:

Got in mid-day on Saturday 9/29, received my WeGoShop delivery (12-pack Sam Adams light, 6-pack Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, shit ton of tonic, limes, 4 frozen pizzas, mozzarella sticks, and a bunch of other stoner/drunkard food), met up with my buddy Hackett and his girlfriend (they brought me a box I’d shipped down to them that included a 1.75L bottle of Kinsey Gin and an Iolite vaporizer), and then bolted for the Communicore Weekly event that night, with guest star Ron Schneider.

The Communicore Weekly event was very cool. When we got to the Norway Pavilion nobody was outside to greet us and take us up, so we called Jeff Heimbuch and bitched until he came down to escort us up to the VIP lounge. Once there I finally got to meet George Taylor, of Imaginerding fame, as well as a whole bunch of other people from Facebook. The event was jam-packed with fun Disney Geeks!

The highlight of the evening was being able to see Ron Schneider in person again – I hadn’t seen him since the DSoD party last October, and SO much has happened between us since then. We gave each other a big hug, he got to meet Pentakis, and I gave him a proof of the newly released hardcover edition of his book.Yes, that’s right, a HARDCOVER edition of From Dreamer to Dreamfinder is coming out, just in time for Christmas! Signed copies will soon be available at the Bamboo Forest Store, and it’ll make a great gift for any friends who are into theme parks. Not only that, but the audiobook version has also just been released, and is available on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible. Listening to Ron do all of the voices of all of his characters is just an amazing experience, and I’m so glad we were able to make it come together and get it released.

One of the other highlights of the Communicore Weekly event was being able to have free rein of the Norway VIP lounge. I explored that place from top to bottom – video forthcoming! Unfortunately, I missed the “Spaceship Earth with the lights on” ride-thru at the end of the evening because I had to retrieve the acoustic guitars being used by the band; Hackett had generously allowed the Communicore Weekly guys to use them. But luckily Nomeus took this awesome video of it:

The next day was filled with the D23 seminars. For the most part they were entertaining and informative. The two standouts were a panel with a bunch of the Imagineers who had helped build EPCOT Center, and, of course, Ron Schneider’s appearance onstage with Tony Baxter to discuss the Imagination ride. Ron had specifically been told by the D23 organizer (Steve Vagnini, I assume) that, “We will not publicize anything put out by that publishing company!” If the dude had said that to me I would have told him to eat a bag of dicks, but luckily Ron played along… at least until he got up on stage. He probably had them shitting themselves through his entire appearance, because he repeatedly mentioned From Dreamer to Dreamfinder and even gave a shout-out to “backstage exploring”, which received a bunch of cheers from the audience, much to the dismay of the panel host. Ron is such a cool guy.

That night I organized a very successful and fun Monorail Bar Crawl. Unfortunately Mizner’s was shut down (until December), so instead we closed out the bar at Narcoosees and then closed out The Wave. It was an awesome time, I met a lot of cool fans, got a piece of the Spaceship Earth Millenium Wand from Matt Marooney (which I fully intend film myself shitting on for a future video), and there were a ton of shenanigans involving monorail pole dancing and stolen towels. Again, video forthcoming.

The following day was the big day: EPCOT’s 30th Anniversary. Months ago I decided to create a secret Facebook group and invited people who I knew would be down there at that time, and who were cool with our type of shenanigans. One purpose of the group (aside from organizing the Monorail Bar Crawl) was to sign people up for a big “Leonard Kinsey Retirement” event. I created a text group via SendHub and anyone who was interested was added – so all I had to do during the event was send out a single text, and everyone in the group would get it. I had approximately 30 people signed up by the time the trip rolled around! Nobody except me knew where we’d be going, because I didn’t want it to leak somehow. 30 minutes before each event I’d send a text out, saying where to meet next.

As planned, we all met at the Chase VIP lounge in the Wonders of Life Pavilion. Chase was letting each of their cardholders bring 9 additional people into the lounge. Unfortunately, within 10 minutes a bunch of us got kicked out when we tried to board the elevator to get to the 2nd floor lounge. Here’s Adam the Woo’s video of that incident:

That lady was pissed!!!!!

The rest of the day was a flurry of pulse-pounding adventures. All told, it was a memorable experience for everyone involved, and a great way to wrap up my years of backstage exploration.

Which leads me to… my official unmasking!

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be doing lots of cool and crazy Disney stuff and posting stories about it. For example, during the past week at WDW I:

• Saw the Horizons Resurrected virtual ride-thru, to which I’d donated a bottle of Lorange fragrance (the simulation was spectacular, by the way).
• Was interviewed by FOX 4, along with Nomeus and Adam the Woo, for a segment they’re doing on DSoD that will come out during “sweeps” in November.
• Got drinks at La Cava de Tequila with a multi-millionaire/pilot/consulate/playboy who had some very intriguing business ideas….
• Laughed as a bunch of people got completely blitzed off a vaporizer at The BoardWalk (no smoke or smell – highly recommended!) and later hit a gravity bong and coughed like maniacs in an off-property garage.
• Ate my first Citrus Swirl…. Dole Whip, move the fuck over, because we have a new contender for best on-property dessert that should be mixed with booze!
• Played an impromptu set on drums during a rehearsal for a local band. I only sucked a little, which was nice.
• Saw the most number of boobs I’ve ever seen in one room (outside of a strip club, at least). They ranged from the biggest I’ve ever encountered (double-H!?!?!) to one of the nicest A-cups I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing. Thanks, ladies!!!

All told, it was a helluva week. I met SO MANY insanely nice people, and wish I could have spent more time with everyone. To be honest, I didn’t even do the parks much this trip, and I didn’t really miss them. What I do miss now that I’m back home is hanging out with great the friends I’ve made over the past year. But, hey, I have plenty more events planned for the coming months, so hopefully that’ll mean more fun meetups!