Sailing the Skyliner: Life is the Bubbles on Spring Break - A March 2024 Trip Report

[footballmouse]

Oh how I wish that exhibit was coming near me .

 

[jrmint427]

Joining in!

Thanks for joining!

Oh how I wish that exhibit was coming near me .

I haven't seen all the cities announced just yet, hopefully it will come to one near you as it travels!

 

[jrmint427]

Disney100 Exhibition, Part 3​

Finishing up the second room, there was a cute photo opportunity with the Fairy Godmother.




Looking back, we spent 6 minutes in the second room too.

The third room was “The Illusion of Life”.



There were some costumes in this room that were neat to see, including the outfit from the Live Little Mermaid.



There was also an Olaf puppet from Broadway that was cool to see up close.



The girls liked the interactive table in this room (and you can see Cruella’s dress in the background).



We were able to see most things quickly in this room and only spent 4 minutes here.

The fourth room was “The Spirit of Adventure and Discovery” and was a celebration of stories that take us on adventures to different worlds. This room highlighted 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars and more.



We watched all nine Star Wars movies in the couple weeks before our trip. I had never seen the newer three movies and the girls had only seen the original Episode 4 before we binged. We watched in chronological order from Episode 1 to 9 (not in the order they were released). So, we were all really excited to see the Star Wars memorabilia.

Han Solo’s dice:



BB-8!



I was really excited to see the Skywalker Lightsaber from the 2019 movie.



We spent 5 minutes in this room.

 

[mickey916]

So happy I stumbled onto your report! Can't wait to hear all about it. I think we're going next year for the month of March so I'm interested to see how you navigated Spring Break. Now you have me looking up the Disney100 exhibit.

 

[SimplyGoofy]

Pat and I quickly decided to go for it, so I bought tickets for 6:00pm on the evening we were getting into Chicago (March 8th) before we even got up from the couch.

Nice! What a great way to kick off your trip!

We had a few early mornings coming up so I was hoping to sleep in, but I woke up at 6:00am and was so excited, I couldn’t get back to sleep.

It’s impossible to sleep the night before a Disney trip. I’m impressed you were able to sleep until six!

Our guide informed us that we were the last family to be entering for the day, so we had the pre-show room all to ourselves.

Our guide explained that there were going to be 10 rooms with different themes, and recommended we pace ourselves since we were going to have about an hour and 15 minutes to cover all 10. Quick math meant we were going to have 7-8 minutes per room. We could have used a lot more time to take it all in, as we had to rush through some rooms to ensure we had time for the whole exhibit.

Wow, it’s like a private tour! It’s too bad you had to rush through some of the rooms, but I’m glad the traffic only delayed rather than stopping you from experiencing the exhibit.

Your pictures remind me of the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. We visited the museum in 2022 and it was spectacular - tons of personal and company history, including memorabilia from the parks. Highly, highly recommended if you’re in San Francisco!

 

[erinch]

We got to see the Disney100 exhibit on my birthday in Philly last August. Since it was my bday, I read every word, looked at every exhibit and took about 3 hours. My hubby and daughter and her hubby were done in less than an hour. But it was my bday! They had to wait.

 

[suse66]

This was our 5th trip with our kids and 3rd trip with both my parents and my MIL joining us (but 4th trip with my parents and 4th trip with my MIL – we took one trip with just my MIL in 2018 and one trip with just my parents in 2022). This was the 7th trip my husband and I took together, my 9th trip ever and his 10th. This was also a big milestone trip for us – our first trip without a stroller!

Exciting start! It was so nice to meet you and your beautiful family, Jessica!

I can’t wait to share more about the fun adventures we had on this trip (and re-live the trip through this report). Stay tuned for food reviews (myself and the kids are vegetarian, the other 4 adults eat meat), my review of the dining plan (was it worth it?), a detailed breakdown of Genie+ and how much time it saved us, how we navigated the Spring Break crowds, and a ton of pictures from our trip!

Looking forward to reading all about it!

Our guide explained that there were going to be 10 rooms with different themes, and recommended we pace ourselves since we were going to have about an hour and 15 minutes to cover all 10. Quick math meant we were going to have 7-8 minutes per room. We could have used a lot more time to take it all in, as we had to rush through some rooms to ensure we had time for the whole exhibit.

Oooh, I want this to come to Toronto!

“Walt stoically accepted defeat, but he did not let it define him… and somehow, he would start again.”

Great message and inspiration for life.

 

[KimM82]

Definitely following along!!!

 

[Disney102015]

Following along! What a great way to start your trip!!

 

[jrmint427]

So happy I stumbled onto your report! Can't wait to hear all about it. I think we're going next year for the month of March so I'm interested to see how you navigated Spring Break. Now you have me looking up the Disney100 exhibit.

Glad you are here! We may not have hit the worst of spring break crowds, but it wasn't the busiest we've seen! And the weather was great, we much preferred this weather to June / super-hot weather.

Wow, it’s like a private tour! It’s too bad you had to rush through some of the rooms, but I’m glad the traffic only delayed rather than stopping you from experiencing the exhibit.

It was private in the beginning! We caught up to other parties in later rooms but it thankfully wasn't too crowded. I'm also very glad we still got to see the exhibit.

Your pictures remind me of the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. We visited the museum in 2022 and it was spectacular - tons of personal and company history, including memorabilia from the parks. Highly, highly recommended if you’re in San Francisco!

That sounds really cool! I'll have to add that to our list, I have a sister who lives in the Bay area, so hopefully will be out there again.

We got to see the Disney100 exhibit on my birthday in Philly last August. Since it was my bday, I read every word, looked at every exhibit and took about 3 hours. My hubby and daughter and her hubby were done in less than an hour. But it was my bday! They had to wait.

That is a great way to spend your birthday! I would have loved to have read every sign and taken a full three hours Good for you to take that time, especially on your birthday!

Exciting start! It was so nice to meet you and your beautiful family, Jessica!

It was so nice to meet you!! Hope you had a great rest of your trip, can't wait to hear about it!

Great message and inspiration for life.

I agree!! So glad he did not get discouraged and just give up.

Definitely following along!!!

Welcome!!

Following along! What a great way to start your trip!!

Glad you're here!

 

[jrmint427]

Disney100 Exhibition, Part 4​

The fifth room was “The Magic of Sound and Music”. We spent a whole 10 minutes in this room. We love music and there was a lot to take in. It was fun to watch the girls listening to music and dancing at the different stations.






It was pretty dark in this section, but there was sheet music on display. This sheet was from Whistle While You Work, dated 1934.



The Mickey Mouse Club Mousegetar was on display in this room too.



This room didn’t just talk about the music from Disney movies, but also highlighted how the Disney theme parks use music for storytelling and creating an immersive experience in each land in the parks, as well as the rides. One sign mentioned an album called “Walt Disney Takes You to Disneyland” in which Walt “introduces the spirit of each land”; I found the album streaming on Apple Music and am excited to listen to it!

We had fun scrolling through all the music on this wall.



The sixth room was “The World Around Us” where we spent 4 minutes.



I accidentally took a video instead of a picture of this poster and am only now noticing that there was movement in the poster! The cat popped up and down and the leaves on the palm tree wave in the wind. Now I’m wondering if the other posters had movement I didn’t notice too.

One of my favorite items in this room was a pair of Walt’s gaucho pants! It said these were given to Walt during a “studio research and goodwill tour in South America” in 1941 and there was a picture of him wearing the pants.



This room talked about how Walt wanted guests to “physically step into stories” so the parks needed to be designed to feel realistic. I really liked the art in this room.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

The fourth room was “The Spirit of Adventure and Discovery” and was a celebration of stories that take us on adventures to different worlds. This room highlighted 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars and more.

Sounds like that version just had more rooms. Ours was more in a big space and you kind of winded around.

I love the 20,000 leagues under the sea stuff.

We spent a whole 10 minutes in this room. We love music and there was a lot to take in. It was fun to watch the girls listening to music and dancing at the different stations.

the music section was Gwen's favorite area!

 

[jrmint427]

Sounds like that version just had more rooms. Ours was more in a big space and you kind of winded around.

I love the 20,000 leagues under the sea stuff.

Interesting! It must depend on the space they find for the exhibit. It was kind of neat walking from one room to the next, not knowing what was going to be in each room. The 20,000 Leagues ship was really cool!

the music section was Gwen's favorite area!

It was probably ours as well! We could have spent so much time there. She should check out that album they mentioned!

 

[jrmint427]

Disney100 Exhibition, Part 5​

The seventh room was “Innoventions”, and we spent 6 minutes there. I love this quote from Marty Sklar, “Walt Disney had one foot in the past, because he loved the nostalgia… and one foot in the future, because he loved the technologies that enabled him to constantly create ‘new’ magic…” This is something I love about Disney, the mix of nostalgia and imagining the future.



This room talked about how Disney developed storyboarding in the 1930s as an animation technique.



There was a robotic head from Hall of Presidents, it’s fascinating to see the insides.



One of my favorite items in the whole exhibit was the first drawing of Disneyland, drawn by Herb Ryman, who spent a weekend drawing as Walt described his vision for an amusement park. This was a reproduction of the original, but still very cool to see it so large (I think I've seen this in a book before).



The eighth room was “Your Disney World” which had even more about the parks. I’m surprised to see from our pictures that we only spent 6 minutes in that room. It was 7:00pm by the time we got there, and I had lost track of how many rooms we had been through. I was worried about having enough time to see it all, but we could have slowed down just a little.



This room had the very first employee badge for Disneyland Park – Walt’s badge from 1955! Featured with a picture of him wearing the badge.



There was a teacup for us to take a picture in, and a ship from Peter Pan behind that.



I also loved the doll from It’s a Small World – I wonder how many of these are floating around.



The ninth room was “The Wonder of Disney”. We only spent 5 minutes in that room.



This room had a really cool Encanto wall. When I was taking this picture of DD7, someone walked by and said they didn’t even notice my daughter there at first!



I have so many pictures to share! I will do one more post from the exhibit and then will move on with our trip.

 

[jrmint427]

Disney100 Exhibition, Part 6​

We all needed pictures on the Encanto wall!




The next item was one I had read about and was most looking forward to seeing – Book from Hocus Pocus!



The girls had fun trying to call for Book, but he didn’t move.




The tenth and final room was “We Are Just Getting Started” and we only spent 3 minutes in there.



We had to get our pictures with the replica of the Partners statue.



That left us with the gift shop where we spent about 10 minutes walking around and considering a few items. There was a Steamboat Willie shirt Pat really liked but it was $80 and that was hard to justify for a shirt he might wear on rare occasions. There were some books that were interesting that I think I’ll be able to find used later (or through the library). DD9 wanted a Stitch stuffy and DD7 saw a few things of interest, but I reminded them that we weren’t even at Disney yet, and they might want to save their souvenir money for later in the trip.

We had to get a picture with Goofy on the way out. The girls' grandpa who wasn’t traveling with us told us Goofy was his favorite, so we were excited to send him a picture already.



We left at 7:25pm, just 5 minutes before the exhibit was going to close. There were quite a few people still milling around, especially as we got to the later rooms. We were really impressed with this experience! I will go back if I have the opportunity. It was the perfect way to kick-off our Disney vacation.



We were in Kansas City this past weekend and saw signs that Disney100 is going there next!

 

[jrmint427]

Portillo’s​

I knew we were going to get dinner in Chicago, and I was initially excited about all the great food options, such as Pequod’s pizza (which is less than 10 minutes from the exhibit). But then Pat talked some sense into me. It was going to be around 7:30pm before we finished up at the Disney100 exhibit, and with a 4:00am wake-up time the next morning, we weren’t going to want to be out late at a restaurant.

So instead, I searched for options that were on the way back to our hotel and closer to fast food than sit-down restaurants, but not quite McDonald’s or Taco Bell. I landed on Portillo’s from online reviews, mostly because it had a veggie dog option for me and the girls. The parking lot was packed but we saw a drive-thru when we pulled up, so we opted to take the food back to the hotel to eat and quickly go to bed.

We stayed at a hotel near the airport where we could park our car for the week, and parking was included in the price we paid, along with a shuttle to and from ORD. It was about 8:10pm when we got to the hotel – almost bedtime!

Pat and his mom ordered the Italian Beef sandwich. By the time I had gone downstairs for utensils and napkins, they had eaten a lot of their sandwiches and declared what was left was too messy for a picture!

I ordered the girls just plain veggie dogs with ketchup and a side of fries.



No pics because the fries went quickly too (we only ordered one serving for all of us), but we decided that their crinkle fries are almost as good as Culver’s fries (our new favorite since becoming Midwesterners again).

I couldn’t decide between the Plant Based Garden Dog (mustard, relish, celery salt, onions, tomato, pickles and sport peppers with a Field Roast hot dog) or the Pepper & Egg Sandwich, which was a special only available on Fridays during Lent. In the rush of making a decision because of our last-minute turn into the drive-thru, I ordered both.




I ate half of each, and Pat and his mom helped with the other halves. Both were good, but I will probably get the veggie dog next time. I liked the flavors with the peppers more than I thought I would.

We finished eating around 8:45pm and got ready for bed. I want to say we were all asleep by 10pm or so. We needed to be up at 4:00am to catch the 5:00am shuttle to the airport for our 7:15am flight to MCO.

Steps: 3,798
Miles: 1.6

(We were just warming up… I wasn’t wearing my watch while packing so this was mostly the steps taken at the Disney100 Exhibition)

 

[SimplyGoofy]

Thank you for all the great pictures of the exhibit! That was a great way to kick off your trip.

We were in Kansas City this past weekend and saw signs that Disney100 is going there next!

I looked up the exhibit and saw it would be coming to Kansas City! So close! Now to convince my husband to day a long day trip (or brief overnight) to KC this summer…

I think to-go food was the right call. I’m glad you were able to get to bed at a decent time, but I’m sure that alarm felt very early!

 

[disneyAndi14]

The Disney 100 exhibition looks really interesting I would love to see it!
I love all things Walt Disney and his history. Andi use to read and watch everything she could find on the life of Walt!
Thanks for sharing!

 

[madeline07]

Looks like a great start to an amazing trip! Can't wait to follow along

 

[jrmint427]

I looked up the exhibit and saw it would be coming to Kansas City! So close! Now to convince my husband to day a long day trip (or brief overnight) to KC this summer…

You have to go!! Especially if KC is in driving distance! I was disappointed we didn't overlap with it again while we were there.

I think to-go food was the right call. I’m glad you were able to get to bed at a decent time, but I’m sure that alarm felt very early!

It definitely was the right call! We were able to get somewhat decent sleep that night... kind of

The Disney 100 exhibition looks really interesting I would love to see it!
I love all things Walt Disney and his history. Andi use to read and watch everything she could find on the life of Walt!
Thanks for sharing!

I hope you get to see it at some point on its tour! I'm also fascinated with Walt's life and the Disney company.

Looks like a great start to an amazing trip! Can't wait to follow along

Thanks for following along!