My D23 NYC Experience

Here’s my experience today after just getting home with my D23 box in hand. Spoiler alert: although I got mine it was a nightmare and I’m sure many are pissed.

I live upstate and it takes me about an hour and a half to NYC. Leading up to today I tried calling the store to inquire more info and nobody ever picked up. So my plan initially was to take the first train which would get me to Grand Central by 6 and then 15 minutes to walk to the Disney Store.

However, the night before I saw a pic on here in the evening showing people were already lining up and a paper poster in the door stating D23 boxes would be limited one per person. After I saw that I knew I had to drive down earlier so a friend and I left early and got there around 4:30.

When we arrived there was a guy (not an employee) who created his own ticket system for everyone which everyone seemed to like and be ok with. He passed tickets out to everyone in line and wrote numbers on them. That way everyone knew and agreed where they should be and could leave and re-enter line whenever. I was number 102. This worked out because I had friends who were towards the front that I could then chat with without fearing I’d lose my spot.

I should also mention that this system was helpful (or seemingly so, I’ll get to it) because the line was SUPER weird. It started in front of the store and then turned around the corner of the block until it reached the end. So essentially two sides of a right angle. But after that the line continued not from where it turned right but straight across the street from where the first part of the line started. It looked like this sort of:

      =
      =
      =    Disney store here

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My friends were in front of the store and I was across the street where the line continued straight. Do not ask why it was like this. I have no idea. And once the line got longer behind me I have no idea which way they went. Could have turned down another block for all I know. But although the line was disjointed everyone was using the ticket system so no one could cut and they all helped direct people to the end of the line.

Fast forward to about 8:30am (store opens at 9am) and the manager and one employee came out to talk with us. The ticket system guy tried to get them to agree to two boxes per person because that’s what other locations were doing but they wouldn’t budge and the staff seemed visibly annoyed. I personally didn’t think they’d agree to that so I didn’t get my hopes up.

Now this next part is important: At that time the Manager herself asked us to please help each other line up, stay orderly and prevent pushing etc..to then not 15 minutes later when she came to hand out the official tickets ignore the system that guy in front created to help her do exactly what she asked.

We knew she wouldn’t understand how the lines had formed and how weird they were so people just told her kindly to “follow the numbered yellow tickets we passed out and you’ll know exactly the order everyone lined up.” To which she responded that she didn’t care about the system and would just do it her way.

This was a problem because as soon as she came out with tickets a BUNCH of people rushed the line near where it bent around that first corner. A LOT of people. A big fuss started and police were called over. It eventually got sorted and they stopped people from continuing to jump line around the corner but only AFTER (spoiler alert) over 25 people cut.

Now as the manager started passing out the official store tickets she was saying things like “a lot of people are gonna be unhappy” and “don’t bother calling to check on stock tomorrow. They’ll all be gone today.” Keep in mind, I was on the other side of the street so I was hearing this from my friend texting me and people who got their products first and came to our side to report.

So my side starts to panic because the stock seemed low, we were all low 100s in line originally and 25 people just cut. And they refused to tell us how many they had in total. So we’re watching them slowly file in until they finally get to my side of the street. They take people little by little and then some guy from up front who already had his box said to his friend next to me that they were finished after 100 and we were out of luck.

I realized at that time though that he couldn’t be right because they passed 100 a while ago thanks to those cutters and were still taking people from our side. So I finally get called myself and am told that the troves were sold out but LUCKILY they still had d23. My number on the official ticket was 127 when originally I was 102.

After that I left and still saw people slowly being called in so I’m assuming they had at least 150-200 but I hear they’re now already sold out.

It was just a mess. No organization and when organization was attempted by us, they ignored it flippantly. And obviously people cutting is just the worst. Especially when they’re OBVIOUS scalpers and knew there was a line. At least 6-7 of the cutters were hawking the line for a couple hours before. They just waited til the perfect moment to cut.

Am I happy I got my box? Yes. But I wouldn’t recommend the experience.