Day Three proved to be another phenomenal day! We started out bright and early, again, to get a good spot in the ballroom for the morning sessions. I was especially excited to see Andreas Deja and a whole panel on the Evolution of Tinker Bell during the first half of the day and neither panel disappointed me. Deja is an acclaimed Disney animator, known largely for his amazing Villain work on characters like Jafar and Scar. With the help of an overhead projector to showcase his hand movements, Deja taught the crowd how he makes his memorable characters come to life on the page.

The Tinker Bell panel was especially wonderful as well. It featured the author of a new Tink book to be released in 2013, in addition to the original live reference models for Tinker Bell's face and figure and the current voice of Tink, one of my favorites, Mae Whitman.

We weren't quite as concerned about where we sat for the afternoon sessions, so we allowed ourselves a slightly more leisurely lunch at Tangora Terrace. I had been really looking forward to trying this restaurant since the Disneyland Hotel refurb was completed, and it was really great for a quick service meal! I tried the fish and chips and was pleasantly surprised by how good they were!

Once back in the ballroom, most of the afternoon was really fascinating… however, the last panel of the conference, all about Snow White, proved to be a little on the sleepy side. All in all, though, it was an awesome afternoon to close the conference. As soon as the Snow White panel was over, just about the entire ballroom engaged in an all out sprint back to the queue to snag a place in line that would hopefully translate into a stellar ballroom seat for the weekend's crown jewel… An Evening with Alan Menken! We ended up with an absolutely perfect seat and the concert was one of the most amazing Disney experiences that I have been a part of.

What could come close to comparing to a two hour concert with the composer of some of the greatest Disney music of all time? An late-night, thrill-ride packed, jaunt through the Happiest Place on Earth with some of the greatest people I have met in a long time! 🙂 It was an absolutely perfect end to a spectacular weekend, and, perhaps, the best part of all was that we still had two and a half days left to spend in Disneyland!

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