Hi all,

The last week or so has been fairly quiet overall (again) for character news, but I have the following to share.

Not character related, but Disneyland Paris have now launched an official fan survey, where you can give quite in-depth feedback. There is a section on there to mention websites that you frequent for all you DLP news and information needs - so Jon and I would be eternally grateful if you would list us!

Staying with Disneyland Paris, and after months of speculation, and nearly happening (I mentioned this back in June I think), Disney's Stars 'n' Cars has finally dropped the show part of the show/parade at the Studios.

It has always been a bit of a struggle for them to make it work feasibly, ensuring everyone can see the show and the parade, and so now I guess they finally gave up trying. With the limited space and many disappointed guests who cannot get to the show part in time enough to get a good space, a straight out parade seems the most logical option.

Of course, they do now need to beef it up a bit with some more characters or performers along the parade route, but we'll see what happens...

Earlier in the year, when I was discussing the upcoming changes to the Once Upon a Dream Parade in DLP, I mentioned that the Dreams of Power (Villains) float would be dropped. Although this is still the case, we have heard that it will be back for Halloween next year, implying maybe that DLP are going to make a return to some special Halloween additions to the Parade, which were dropped for the first time this year, with much uproar from the fans. Maybe they learned their lesson?

Be sure to check out the latest instalment of my Grand Circle Tour of DLP which of course includes some character encounters, and stay tuned for the next part coming this week.

Finally for Paris, construction on Mickey's new meet 'n' greet location at the former Fantasy Festival Stage has begun, and you can check out my special report on it here. Discover the wonder and magic of this new location in Fantasyland!

Jumping across the pond now to Florida, and I realise I'm a bit late on this one, but the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Parties have started in Florida, and as expected, no-one really special has showed up. Although Phineas and Ferb are appearing in Christmas hats and scarves, which is a nice addition to their usual costumes (they normally meet at DHS in the daytime).

Also in Florida, Holidays Around the World started this week at EPCOT, and saw the return of many favourite characters including Father Christmas and Nowell the Lumberjack.

Florida has also had some sort of divine inspiration this last week or two, and our friends on the ground have been reporting some cool random appearances, including Li Shang in China (who will be back on December 1st - so go check him out!) and John Smith. Ther have been some others too, but they were the most exciting ones!

Over in California, Loren posted his latest report, and includes some of the character related Holiday happenigs there.

Finally, Hong Kong Disneyland opened it's brand new Toy Story Land, and Woody, Jessie and the Green Army Men are reported to now be appearing regularly.

Ok I think that's all for now. Nothing extraordinary, but good to catch up nonetheless!

Dan.

Hi all,

After a quiet couple of weeks on the characters news front, like buses, it all comes at once today!

As Halloween Season across the parks draws to a close tonight, I have a few things to mention.

Disney's Animal Kingdom, which for as long as one can remember has featured the Pooh and Fab 5 characters in Halloween outfits during the last few days of the season, has this year dropped this tradition. It was the only place across the WDW Resort you could meet any Halloween characters without having to pay for the parties (with exception to Duffy at Epcot this year). So we say a sad farewell to scarecrow Mickey, mummy Eeyore and all the other cool costumes from years passed.

Over in the Magic Kingdom at the parties, it was reported that Donald has been seen in his pirate outfit on some random occasions even though he is supposed to be meeting as the pumpkin this year.

Moving across the pond to Paris, and this weekend saw the Terrorific Nights return, this year with the addition of some Disney Villains. The event in it's two previous incarnations had billed itself as being the more adult, and much scarier event, with very little Disney influence at all.

This year saw all the regular Villains from DLP's main Halloween Season and parties appear at the Studios events, including Shan Yu, The Witch, Hades, Frollo and Jafar.

I had previously said that the Headless Horseman was making a surprise appearance at the Halloween version of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show for all performance in the last week of October, and much to everyone's surprise, he even made it over to Terrorific Nights as well!

Staying with Paris, but jumping ahead to next week, and in preparation for his Christmas Season public début, Duffy the Disney Bear is appearing at a special Annual Passholder event tomorrow at the Newport Bay Club. From 1pm to 2.30pm, Duffy will greet his fans who hold the Dream pass. I have no working link for the sign up, so you will have to contact Disney if you want to attend.

Over in California, Loren keeps us up to date as always with any character developments there. His latest post can be found here, and includes details about the Christmas Day Parade taping at the park this coming weekend! It is likely to be awesome, but also very hectic, so make sure you read his post about all the events before you go!

Over at WDWMagic, our friend Drew posted that Talking Mickey will be making appearances in WDW this week at Town Square Theater. Disney will probably not release any details about this, and it will be pot luck if you get to meet him. Let us know if you get to see him!

Don't forget to check out all the latest additions to the site.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Dan.

Hi all,

Yesterday insidethemagic posted some new pictures form the new Mickey and Princess meet and greet rooms at the new Town Square Theater in the Magic Kingdom. The brand new locations have been open on “soft opening” test runs.  [ Read More... ]

Hi all,

The Disney Parks Blog the other day made a post about the opening of the new Mickey meet ‘n’ greet in Town Square. In the post they mentioned magician Mickey, to which I, and the rest of the Disney community took as meaning he will have an actual magician’s outfit. But it has now come to light that this is not the case, and it will be just regular Mickey. The “magician” part simply implied, well, that Mickey can do magic I suppose. The post doesn’t make it too clear and caused quite a lot of confusion, but sadly regular Mickey will be greeting Guests. We will be there in just over two weeks to check this out for ourselves. The new area does look neat, and today Stitch Kingdom shared two (albeit blurry) images taken by someone on the inside!  [ Read More... ]

Hi all,

Friday night saw a special preview event at Disneyland Paris for the new Magical Moments Festival, due to start in less than weeks at the Resort. The event consisted of special previews of the brand new hub show, and the Disney Dance Express (the latest incarnation of the Character Express/Casey Jr).  [ Read More... ]

Hi all,

The Disney Parks Blog today announced that when the brand new, near-completed Expo Hall meet 'n' greet location opens, Mickey will be greeting his fans in a magicians outfit! I have to say we are quite excited about this, and hope that the new area is completed for our trip in three weeks time!

The princesses will also be moving into Expo Hall until the new Fantasyland is at a stage where they can go back up there. What will become of the extra queue area once they move out of Expo Hall is also unknown. Hopefully WDI have something up their sleeves so that it does not become yet another redundant area of the park! (Especially since the Mickey meet will be permanent and so cool looking, we don't want disused areas making the place look untidy!)

As the comment replies from Staff explain, there is currently no idea of how the FastPass system for the meets will work.

Sadly there isn't anything else character related to report this week, but I'll keep you posted as always.

Dan.

Hi all,

This week I heard from a friend that Merlin made an unprecedented appearance in Disneyland Park in Disneyland Paris. For the first time in many years during regular hours (besides ticketed events), Merlin was found in the Castle Courtyard trying to find the new King of England in the much pined for Sword in the Stone Ceremony!  [ Read More... ]

Hi all,

This weekend saw the St David’s Welsh Festival hit Disneyland Paris. This annual event usually comprises of Mickey and Minnie in their traditional finest, a small pre-parade, fireworks and other entertainment throughout the park. Our friends at Characters Photos Blog were there, and their photos will soon be on their Facebook page. They have already uploaded this video to their YouTube, so check it out!  [ Read More... ]