An honest look at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event 2026

Now that D23 2026 convention weekend has come and gone, it’s time to recap, reflect, and…prepare for 2028! (though you can only prepare so much because things seem to change every time).

This was my second time going to D23, but I wrote a guide for first-timers based on my experience in 2024 if you’re curious about how the event is organized! The basics were still the same this year with some slight changes that I’ll mention in this post. So let’s dive in!

How do you get tickets to D23?

For D23 2026, only D23 Gold members were allowed to purchase tickets. This differs from previous years where tickets were open to everyone with priority / early access windows for D23 Gold members. Within the D23 Gold membership, there are different tiers (based on price), so higher-tiered D23 Gold members had earlier purchase windows than lower-tier D23 Gold members.

On the plus side, if you’re a Disney+ subscriber, you are eligible for the complimentary D23 Gold account that you can get through the Disney+ Perks portal, though that does mean you need to be a Disney+ subscriber. On the down side, this complimentary account is the lowest-tier D23 Gold account type (to be expected, since it’s “free”).

Leading up to the D23 ticket release, D23 was offering discounts for people to upgrade their complimentary D23 Gold account to a higher tier however, you needed to upgrade your account at least a week before tickets were released in order for that higher tier to take effect. So if you missed that window and upgraded even a day before just to get an earlier purchase window, you were out of luck, unfortunately. :/ They also implemented a 6-ticket limit cap this year, which likely made it harder for larger groups to purchase tickets together.

Since I was only using my complimentary D23 Gold account, I had the latest purchase window. I was quite fortunate that my queue number was not too bad, so I only had to wait about an hour after I hopped in to get my tickets. All the 3-Day passes were sold out, so I purchased 3 single-day tickets instead for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for both my partner and me. Sunday was the only day that had the Honda Center Legends Ceremony tickets that were within budget for us, so we decided to skip the Honda Center presentations for Friday and Saturday this time around, and only go for Sunday. Similarly to 2024, because I had to buy individual day tickets for each day, we had to pay a service charge for every ticket.

Transferring badges and reservation selection process (RSP)

This process was very similar to 2024’s. The account holder who purchased the tickets is responsible for transferring the badges to each person in the party, and each person does need to have their own D23 account (can be a free general membership). The receiver also needs to accept the transfer before the deadline.

This is required for each person to participate in the reservation selection process where you get to choose the panels and activities that you want to participate in. Once RSP opens up, each person can choose the activities they want and from there you can only hope that you’ll get something! The selection process is random and not first-come first-serve, so you can make your selection and change it at anytime during the RSP window (just don’t forget to do it!).

This year, we were lucky enough to both get 2 selections; however, 3 of our selections actually conflicted with each other, and 1 of our selections was during the Legends Ceremony…so we only got to go to one of our reserved panels. While I appreciate the RSP because you can possibly get some guaranteed spots, I think it’d be nice if even for a single person’s reservation selections they weren’t given panels that literally had time conflicts with each other.

D23 Week - pre-convention activities

The D23 celebrations actually start even before convention weekend on Friday!

Anaheim Packing District typically has some D23-centered events throughout the week for D23 where there are some events, deals, etc. I’d recommend checking those out if you’re in the area!

D23 Day at Angels Stadium

The week of D23, there is also usually an Angels game that’s D23 themed!

While I didn’t attend in 2024, I did attend this year and it was pretty fun! The first 23K guests got a Mickey bobblehead with a 10% chance of getting a gold version! They also had two D23 areas within the stadium grounds where guests who purchased a ticket through the D23 website could hang out, get some photos, do some trivia for prizes, and participate in a Lorcana collection quest for free!

Additional Mickey pin gift for D23 members and wristbands to access the D23 area at Angels Stadium

If you’re familiar with Angels games, they’re not typically the busiest games around, but this was certainly not the case for D23 day. There were massive lines to get into the stadium even before doors opened at 5PM, so if you’re trying to be one of the first to arrive, you do need to be early! I’d recommend arriving at least an hour before doors open if you really want to get in early.

At this D23 Day, they did not run out of bobbleheads - some people in my group came around 7PM right before the game started and they still got their bobblehead! So if the giveaway item is the only thing you’re going for, you might not have to be too early and you’ll likely still get it. But! the Lorcana collection quest cards did run out. The Ravensburger people were still handing out booster packs for free so you could still get those, but you couldn’t actually participate in the quest to get the promo card!

This year, the head of D23 threw the ceremonial first pitch, and then the game started! And the Angels won!

D23 Day at Disneyland

To really kick off D23 weekend, the Thursday before the convention starts is typically D23 Day at Disneyland!

At rope drop, guests can pick up a D23 Day ear hat! This is the same hat they gave away in 2024, so I didn’t actually go to the park for D23 Day this time around. It does get pretty busy, and they do run out of the hats by the morning, so be early if you want to get one!

They also typically have a Legends cavalcade in the daytime too which is pretty cool!

What was truly incredible about this D23 Day, though, was that they also filmed the Disney Princesses concert in the evening!! Guests visiting on D23 Day could try to join a virtual queue to attend the filming, which was so cool! Since I didn’t go, I sadly didn’t get to try for the virtual queue, but I truly envy the people who got to be there to hear THE Lea Salonga live!!

D23 convention weekend

Cosplays and convention outfits!

This year, I tried to dress up a little more for the convention! It was so fun and inspirational to see everyone’s cool outfits in 2024 that I wanted to put more effort in this year!

I ended up making my own Kevin costume (complete with crocheted babies!) and a Wall-E outfit! It was fun to dress up and get to appreciate everyone else’s creativity as well! Chatting with others about their costumes and their outfits was honestly one of the best and most memorable parts of the convention, so if you’re tempted to go a little more costume-y for the convention, you should definitely do it!!

Shopping virtual queues

This year, D23 expanded their shopping virtual queue experience to multiple other stores. Queue signups opened at 6:00AM for all stores and then again at 1:00PM for some stores.

Getting an early shopping virtual queue is both a near-impossible task and the best way to get into the convention with ease. The pin stores were by far the most coveted spots and probably the hardest to get.

Food & drink

This year, the Anaheim Convention Center allowed guests to bring their own food and drinks! This is different from 2024 when nothing was allowed in, so I really appreciate this change! We were able to pack our own sandwiches and drinks to keep us sustained all convention long! So as far as food went, the only thing we did buy was coffee from Coffee Island every day of the convention (because it was so good!).

these iced vanilla lattes saved us all convention long

Entrance queuing

While I’m not sure of the reason, the queuing system in the morning seemed to be different every day, so even though this was my experience, I’m 1) not sure if this was everyone’s experience and 2) not sure if it will be similar to this in 2028.

Day 1

After security, if you had an early virtual queue group for any of the stores (~1-15, but it actually varied based on the store…), you were directed towards Hall D (to the left of the main entrance). If you were not in any of those early queue groups, you were directed to the standby entrance queues (to the right of the main entrance). There was confusion everywhere as people were trying to find the right line to be in. Some people were looking for a line for later virtual queue groups, some people were just looking for the standby line. In the end, everyone was basically just in standby at that point. Queues got messy, people started mobbing different entrances, and then the cast members had to re-organize the lines and I got redirected from the main building to the ACC North building to queue in some large holding area they had for most people.

The hall filled pretty quickly, and when 9:00AM hit (the official start time of the convention), they started allowing the lines of people to move from the ACC North building to the main building. Being queued up in the ACC North building was pretty inconvenient since you had to walk from one building to the other after the convention had already started. In 2024, the standby queues were in Hall D, so at least when the convenient started you just had to walk onto the show floor. This movement from building to building caused more chaos as people were trying to push past each other to get to the main building. Luckily, because I was somewhat “early” in the ACC North queues, we were able to exit while things were still orderly (~9:20AM). But I saw at least from videos online that soon after, things got super chaotic and people didn’t even follow the lines anymore, they just bum-rushed out of there.

We arrived at the convention around 6:45AM that morning and didn’t get into the show floor until around 9:30AM.

Day 2

Because Day 1 felt like such a difficult experience (we didn’t get to the show floor until ~9:30AM), we decided to just wait until the convention started to enter to avoid all of that chaos if we didn’t get an early shopping virtual queue spot. Since neither of us got one, we didn’t get to the convention until around 8:50AM.

From there, we waited outside the main building where they metered people into multiple other queues before we were all allowed into the show floor. Even with all of that, we still got into the convention around 9:15AM, even earlier than Day 1!

Day 3

Day 3 was even more chill. We got to the convention around 8:45AM, somewhat similar to Day 2. Security was a breeze and the queue to get let into the main building was pretty smooth as well. They also let us into the building a little earlier than the other days, so we were on the show floor as soon as the convention started for the day at 9:00AM!

Show floor experiences

There were some cool experiences to check out this year! While I did feel like there might have been less freebies(?), there was still quite a lot to do. Here were some of my more memorable ones!

Disney Rewards

How was it so perfect that Disney Rewards had a whole booth dedicated to my favorite Pixar movie of all time, Up?? The photo op here was by far THE BEST.

And if you have a Disney Rewards Visa card, they gave you a special badge! Since I was dressed up as Kevin for Day 1, this was the perfect spot for me!

Pixar Mundo Experience

This was one of the experiences that had a long line throughout the entire day. We made it our first priority on Day 3, so we were able to reduce the amount of time spent waiting in the queue that way.

This is a miniature version of the full Mundo experience where they have these immersive rooms based on different Pixar films. The two rooms they brought to D23 were Andy’s room from Toy Story, and headquarters from Inside Out. They were both so cute and fun!

Imagineering Horizons

It’s always cool to see what Imagineering is up to and what they have planned!

We got to see Anzellan animatronics on display which was so adorable and cool to see so up close!

And then we got to see a whole diorama of what Piston Peak is going to look like in Magic Kingdom! Definitely got me excited to go back to Walt Disney World when it opens.

And one of the sweetest things - for the upcoming Coco ride, guests were invited to write down their favorite Disneyland memory that will be incorporated into the foundation of the ride! Such a sweet idea.

Heinz

This is a funny one - we literally walked by it and wondered what could possibly be at a Heinz booth. Turns out, this was the booth we visited the most often all weekend!

Guests received 4 yet-to-be-released sauce flavors from Heinz to try, and there were a few photo spots as well. But the best part was their sauce mixing vending machine where you could customize your own sauce! The line for the vending machine was separate from the line for the experience, which I liked because we kept going back to the vending machine to get more sauce!

Loungefly Pier

Loungefly’s booth was so cute and had a great theme! They had a carnival-style booth where they offered 5 different carnival games. Guests could play 3 out of the 5 games to earn tokens for a chance to some fun mystery prizes like pins, backpacks, and t-shirts.

On Day 1 and Day 2, you could line up just to play the games, but we didn’t realize that until Day 2. But on Day 3, they actually required that everyone make a purchase in order to play the games, so even though it was free on previous days, it wasn’t on the last day.

Day 2 was also great because they metered how many people were in the carnival area at once playing games so that there was more space and people could actually queue for the game they wanted to play. On Day 3, it felt like bedlam. Everyone was in the carnival area, you didn’t know what you were queuing for because people were just mobbing around different games, and game rules changed so all the games also took longer to play. I’m not sure the reason for this particular change, but it was less pleasant of an experience on Day 3 than it was on Day 2, which was odd since you’d think there’d be less people on Day 3 since they required a purchase to be made.

Walt Disney Archives: Uncrated

This was a really cool booth! If you enjoying seeing movie and show props, this was a fun booth to visit. Every day, they actually unveiled more and more props such that by Sunday there was so much more to see than on Friday.

Meet and greets

standby line for meet and greet with Pete Docter on Day 2

I’m not typically someone who enjoys meet and greets because I never know what I’m supposed to say to the person I’m meeting (and I’m super awkward all the time). But this year, I had two meet and greets I wanted to make happen: Pete Docter and Wall-E and EVE!

I, of course, did not get an RSP for either of those, so we had to resort to standby.

At Talent Central, where most of the meet and greets are, they have separate queues for the standby queue and the virtual queue. Standby queues open around 1.5 hours before the meet and greet starts, so if you really want to meet someone, you should definitely wait early in the queue, or even ask a cast member what time they open the standby queue for that person so you know exactly when to come back.

For Pete Docter, we got to the standby queue about an hour before his meet and greet started and the standby queue was already sooo long. We were told repeatedly by cast members that the likelihood of us getting to meet him was VERY LOW and they kept encouraging us to leave so we wouldn’t waste our time. Though they did say they would try to get everyone through. We remained determined so we waited it out. Luckily, they actually extended his time by about 10-15 minutes and we were one of the very last people to meet him before his time was up!! Pete Docter is one of my favorite Pixar creators, mostly because he created Up which is my all-time favorite Pixar movie. My attachment to Russell is absolutely unmatched and watching Up changed my brain chemistry forever. And because I dressed up as Kevin for the convention (on Day 1, not Day 2!!), I made mini baby Kevin crochet amigurumi that I really wanted to give him! And he so graciously accepted my gift and even took a picture of us!! I just hope he knows what an impact his storytelling has made to so many people, and I’m so thankful to the cast members who helped us get a chance to meet him and to say thank you. (shout out to Kendall!!)

After the stress of waiting in the Pete Docter standby line, we knew we had to be READY for Wall-E and EVE. So on Day 3 when Wall-E and EVE were doing their meet and greet, we made sure we were there as soon as the standby queue opened at 5:45PM and we were the very first ones. We had our meet and greet with ease and I loved getting to see them again. I will never pass up a chance to see Wall-E and EVE in person!

Freebies

Here were some of the cool freebies we were able to pick up at the different booths!

Most of the freebies were buttons or pins, which is cool, but I’m not a big pin collector, so these will likely all just end up in a pouch in my drawers. I do love the posters though! (even though they also end up in my closet…)

Panels

We unfortunately didn’t get to do too many panels this year! We only did the one panel that we had a reservation for that we could make in time which was the Making Magic with Ron Clements panel, and I’m glad we were at least able to do that one! Hearing from these incredible filmmakers about their processes and the work behind their storytelling is always such an inspiration.

And even better yet, this panel had so many guest stars who came onstage to talk about the behind-the-scenes of making their films with Ron Clements and John Musker. I didn’t anticipate getting to see 4 Disney princesses this weekend!!

If there’s a panel you really want to do but you don't get a reservation for it, though, there is always the standby line! Since we didn’t do standby for any panels, I’m not sure exactly how early you’d need to be for those, but I’d imagine around 2 hours before the panel starts would be a good idea, or even earlier if it’s a highly coveted panel like the Disney Style panel this year!

Evening showcases

All of the evening showcases for the weekend were streamed on Disney+! In some ways, I think this is cool because it allows everyone to watch, but at the same time it makes me wonder if that makes it less enticing to be there?

I will say, as someone who attended all of the evening showcases in 2024, it was really cool to see all of the performances live rather than through a stream. However, if you’re there for the news and the updates, you can probably get what you want out of it by streaming and save yourself the headache of getting to the Honda Center and back. I’m certainly glad I avoided the debacle of Day 1’s panel when people were stuck trying to exit the venue and get their Oswald cards.

I lean more towards the showcases not being totally worth the trip since you have to leave the convention early to make your way to the Honda Center. If you’re taking the shuttles there then there are long lines to get on the shuttles there and back. If you’re driving you have to deal with traffic and parking. If you’re ride-sharing you still have the extra cost of being transported back and forth. It just seems like quite a hassle, and you have to miss out on some cool stuff that happens at the convention in the evening like the rewind concert or other panels!

I do think that the Legends Ceremony is still worth going to if you enjoy that kind of celebration! The Legends Ceremony is the one event that isn’t streamed live - it’s actually streamed a couple hours after the event ends, so it’s possible that they’ll cut things out of the stream that were at the live event. However, it might also depends on who’s being inducted and if you’re a big fan of any of the new Legends. I can see this being not very exciting if you’re not super excited about the new class. I’m personally SO happy we got to be there to watch the Lin-Manuel Miranda medley live because it was INCREDIBLE. Not to mention, we got to see Mandy Gonzalez and Robin de Jesus perform live?! (I’m a huge In the Heights fan!!)

Crowds

Surprisingly, Friday (Day 1) felt the least crowded? Even though it was the most chaotic in the morning because of the way we were queued up before entering the convention, it was probably the day where we got to do the most. Saturday was pretty busy throughout the convention and Sunday honestly felt the most packed.

It could be because D23 offered a Buy 1, Get 1 Free ticket option for Disney Visa cardholders for Sunday that more people were able to go, so it definitely appeared to be the most crowded of all the days. Even the booths that didn’t have very long lines on previous days were so busy! I mistakenly thought things would die down by Sunday and everything would be easier to get to, but I was wrong!

D23 Tips and Takeaways

My D23 tips from 2024 still stand, so go check those out, but here are some other things that I would like to add after experiencing the convention in 2026.

Information changes rapidly

Seriously. Things were changing up to the date, the day of, all the time.

On Day 1, doors didn’t open until 7:00AM and the website stated that official queuing would not be allowed until 6:30AM. Then by the end of Day 1, they updated the website and sent out push notifications on the D23 app that starting on Day 2 doors would open at 6:00AM and queuing could begin at 5:30AM. These are important things to know when you’re planning on what time to arrive. So be prepared for things to change even if you swore you saw one thing stated just a day ago.

Even shopping virtual queue opportunities were updated on Day 2 for Day 3. Yet another reason to make sure you download the D23 app so you get all the updates as soon as they happen.

This is also an important thing to keep in mind when engaging with cast members and convention workers. They may also not have the most up-to-date information and they’re trying their best. So please remember to be kind to them!

Don’t wait to “come back later”

If there’s something you want to do and you have time to do it, DO IT. There were several instances throughout the weekend that we told ourselves we’d come back to a booth for something later and then just didn’t get around to it, or the line ended up being longer when we did.

Ask clarifying questions before you wait in line

If you’re unsure what’s available at a booth, ask a staff member!

When we visited the Disney Music Emporium booth, the line was HUGE. We talked to a staff member and she let us know the line was to spin the wheel, but if we wanted to just look at the booth we could go right on in! So it was helpful before we hopped in the line thinking we needed to wait just to get in.

For the Loungefly Pier booth, we thought you were required to make a purchase to play the carnival games on Day 1 and Day 2. It wasn’t until we asked the employee towards the end of Day 2 that we found out you actually didn’t need to make a purchase, so we hopped in the line! But then on Day 3, we falsely made the assumption that the rules were the same and got in the line and then waited over an hour to find out at the front of the line that you actually did have to make a purchase to play the games! It wasn’t the worst thing in the world since we got a cute pin, but I wish I would have known that before getting in the line.

How does D23 2026 compare?

Because we didn’t have the Honda Center showcases for Friday and Saturday, we had so much more time on the show floor this year compared to 2024. So I actually thought we were able to get to pretty much everything we wanted to see! But it also felt as if there was less to do this year than there was in 2024. I really enjoyed some of the activities they had in 2024 like the Disney Store claw machine and Pixar Putt. It was cool that they had these different things you could do around the convention without having to pay extra, but this time around it seemed like most of the free activities were primarily photo ops.

Truth be told, as a regular attendee going around the show floor, it just felt like almost every booth was just there to sell you something, and even more so that they were all big companies that already have so much dominance in the Disney space. It would have been cool to be able to see more local or smaller businesses like I hear they used to have at D23 to really give it a more communal fan-based atmosphere instead of the more corporate feeling that I got from most of the booths.

Granted there were still some cool things like the Disney Hulu+ theater, which we didn’t participate in because the line was long, and the Disney Music Emporium which had a listening lounge where you could listen to some of the records they had, but mostly everything else was shopping-focused? Not only that, all the shopping experiences felt chaotic and high-stress (especially for the pins!). I’m also not a huge shopper so most of the store booths were not that interesting to me.

I was really happy with the meet and greets I got to attend! Though I’m bummed I missed out on some pretty great panels since I didn’t wait for them in standby, with all conventions and all things, you can’t get to everything that you want, so it really helps to manage your expectations and be okay with missing some things. What matters most is having fun and prioritizing the things you enjoy, which you can still do among the chaos! So I would say that I had a pretty fun and successful convention weekend!

Did you attend D23 this year? Would love to hear your thoughts on the event! Or if you’re planning to visit in the future, what are you most looking forward to?