Last week we had the chance to attend our first Disney D23 fan event! If you’re not sure what D23 is, you can read all about it here! This fan event was a pre screen of the new Planet of the Apes movie and included a reception beforehand and an early viewing of the movie at the AMC Theater in Disney Springs. As I said, this was our first time going to something like this and we were really impressed! We will absolutely go again when one is offered and felt like this was the most reasonably prices Disney event we had ever bought ticket for! So of course I am going to share it all with you this week!
Tickets
Tickets were available to D23 Gold Members through the D23 website and there were two options. You could do what we did and pay $40 per person for a ticket that included access to the reception and the movie or you could do a just a ticket to the pre screen of the movie for $15. Both tickets included a Planet of the Apes poster, popcorn and a drink at the theater.
The Reception
The reception started at 5pm at the Stargazers bar under Planet Hollywood in Disney Springs. It said it included food and drinks but I was honestly just expecting finger foods and maybe soda, beer and wine. We were pleasantly surprised! The four included three different kids of pasta, a fajita bar with steak and chicken and a dessert table that was all you could eat. The food was pretty good and there was plenty of it to go around. The longest line was for the fajita bar!
As far as the drinks go….it was an open bar! They had sodas and regular drinks as well as beer, wine, cocktails and a signature “Ape-erol Spritz” that you could have as many as you wanted. I could not believe this, if you’ve ever had cocktails in Disney you know they are $13-$15 a piece so to be able to have as many as I wanted for $40 seemed nuts! I love a spritz so that was my drink of choice for the night and I even got to take one to go for the movie.
There were fun D23 photo ops set up and the TV’s all had the Planet of the Apes D23 pre screen event on them. The cast members working the event were great and seemed excited for it which made it extra fun too. If we had gone to dinner at Planet Hollywood with the same food and less drinks we would have probably spent about the same and not gotten to see a movie!
Movie Time
It was pretty hot the night this was going on and Stargazers is an open air bar so they opened the theater we were watching the movie in up a little early so if we were done at the reception we could go enjoy some AC. We entered through the backside of AMC between the Orange garage and Ever Glazed Doughnuts which the boys thought was really cool because they go to see a little bit of backstage Disney.
We were in one of the bigger theaters and as we entered they gave each person a voucher for a free popcorn and a free drink. So again, think about how much you spent the last time you went to the movie between buying a ticket, a popcorn and a drink. This really was a great deal!
So How Was The Movie
Honestly, we all really like this movie! Is it a super Disney movie, of course not but it had a great story and characters. We have watched all of the other Planet of the Apes movies and while they are not my favorite movies, I do really enjoy them. Whether you have seen the rest of the movies or not you can watch this one and not feel lost. It is a continuation of the other movies but far in the future so it give you a little recap of the important stuff you need to know. I’m not gonna give any spoilers away but I think we will definitely see more of these movies made to finish this story! I would tell you to, for sure, go see Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes!
Conclusion
We had the absolute best time at this event! It was definitely the most bang for your buck of any Disney event we have ever attended. We have been D23 Gold members for over 5 years now and other than getting to go to the one day of Destination D23 last fall with Corkcicle we had never been to a D23 event. So it is really cool that there are events close enough that we can get a ticket and go to randomly. I would absolutely tell you to get the ticket for the event if you have one in you area or you one you can travel to, it was well worth the money. We can’t wait to do another one!
As always, thank you for reading along and I hope if you are a D23 member you get to experience one of these events. There is another couple coming up in June for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure! Sadly, we will not be able to do those but hopefully someone else will and will share all about it so we can feel like we are there. Make sure you go see Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and have a magical day!
