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Hello everyone,
Today the Disney Parks Blog made two announcements regarding character offerings coming to Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort.
In the first, it was announced that Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps from the latest animated movie, 'Zootopia', would be coming to both Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort. At Disneyland guests will be able to meet the pair on Hollywood Boulevard, at Disney California Adventure. At Walt Disney World, unfortunately, you will only be able to wave to them - and maybe dance, depending on how they use them - from the sidelines, as they appear in Move It! Shake It! Dance and Play It! Street Party at the Magic Kingdom.
While I generally try to remain neutral here on the blog in most cases, I have to say that it is immensely disappointing that, once again, Walt Disney World are getting the bad deal out of new characters. For example, Olaf has been greeting in Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland for what seems like forever now, yet he is nowhere to be seen at Walt Disney World. It is very frustrating that guests to Walt Disney World are going to have to suffer watching the street party in order just to see the characters, when guests in California can meet them. In addition, while the movie comes out this week, we will have to wait until "later this spring" to even see them, whenever that may be!
The second announcement is just about as frustrating as the first. It was revealed that during the "summer" (again, with no definitive time frame given), guests will be able to see Kristoff and Olaf at Disney's Blizzard Beach Water Park, hosting "Frozen Games".
To quote the Parks Blog:
"Guests visiting the waterpark can to join "Team Kristoff" or "Team Olaf" and participate in a variety of activities, including Ice Pail Relays, a Snowball Toss to Ski Pole Limbo and Slide Races.
Olaf and Kristoff will join the Winter Games Committee members in the games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and will give updates throughout the games to report on their team’s achievements."
Clearly Disney understand that these characters are popular, so why aren't they out greeting? As I said above, meanwhile at the other parks, guests can meet Olaf.
I have created a poll for this blog post, which you can participate in by logging onto our forum and clicking on this thread, here.
Have a great week everyone,
Dan. |
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Hello everyone,
We have been exceptionally busy over the holiday season, so I have been a bit behind on the news front, but I finally have time today to provide a few small updates.
Earlier last month the new Star Wars Launch Bay opened at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. They feature meet 'n' greets with Darth Vader and Chewbacca, as well as random appearances by some roaming characters such as Greedo and the Jawas. With the opening of the Launch Bay and preparations for Star Wars Land, we now know that Star Wars Weekends will not be returning, which is a huge shame.
Captain Phasma made her Disney parks debut at the Christmas parade taping during Christmas season at the Magic Kingdom, and subsequently appeared at a special post-premier event at Disney's Hollywood Studios. She has since appeared on the Star Wars float during the Rose Parade in California, where Kylo Ren also appeared, marking his Disney debut, albeit not in the parks.
Along similar lines, the Seventh Sister now appears during the new version of the Jedi Training Academy in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
Finally for Star Wars, the First Order Stormtroopers now appear randomly, not just at Disney's Hollywood Studios outside the Launch Bay, but also in Tomorrowland at Hong Kong Disneyland.
Baymax made a welcomed return to Epcot last month, at Innoventions, and it is strongly rumoured that Joy and Sadness might be appearing there soon, too - although that is purely rumour and unconfirmed right now.
Tow Mater, Lightning McQueen, Phineas and Ferb are leaving Disney's Hollywood Studios next week, according to various internet reports. This will mark the end of an era for the Disney Channel superstars, and their final appearance at DHS will be the last time they will be seen regularly at any Disney park.
At Disneyland Paris, the sorely missed hotel greetings have returned for a limited time, until the first week of March, 2016. The hotel characters were a staple of on-site stays for twenty years, and there was much uproar when Disney ended them last year. It is unclear as to why there has been a sudden, if only temporary, change of heart, but we can only speculate that the in-park greetings haven't been as well received as they'd anticipated (with many complaints about the long lines, limited numbers of characters out, etc).
Disneyland Paris also recently confirmed that there would be an increased character presence in Disneyland Park until the spring. Of course, what was really confirmed was the characters that already appear "randomly" (not on the schedule), but are actually always there, will now be made more available and easier to find, with (hopefully) longer hours, a queue line and some sort of schedule listing.
Finally, DLP has been working on a new show for the Chaparral Theatre, "The Forest of Enchantment", which is due to start on 10th February. Sadly it looks to only be a temporary show (ending 8th May), which is weird since they appear to be putting a lot of effort into it. We can hope that it'll run past the official end date and will be more permanent, as the park definitely needs some more permanent stage entertainment.
Ok, that's everything for now!
Have a great weekend everyone,
Dan. |
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Hello everyone,
We were travelling yesterday and so I couldn't post an advent calendar blog, so today I'll share two photos instead of the usual one.
Let's see who is behind the doors today!
[ Read More... ] |
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Hello everyone,
The other day the Disney Parks Blog announced that Spider-Man would be making his US Disney Parks debut on November 16th at the new Super Hero HQ, in Tomorrowland at Disneyland. In the comments section, Communications Manager, Shawn Slater, confirms that Captain America would be leaving Disneyland for the time being, but didn't rule out his return in the future. Spider-Man made his grand Disney Parks debut eighteen months ago, in April 2014, at Disneyland Paris. We were the first guests in his line, and have met him numerous times since. The meet 'n' greet there is well set up, and we have no doubt that Disneyland will do an equally good job when the Super Hero HQ opens next month.
Before we move onto the other news for this week, let's take a moment to [ Read More... ] |
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Hello everyone,
Last week Jon and I spent five days at the Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland in California. This was our third trip to the Disneyland Resort this year, and our final one this year until next year.
We went to (finally) see the 60th anniversary celebrations and celebrate Halloween Time. It had been four years since we had been at Disneyland Resort for Halloween Time, and so we were excited to go back. Unfortunately, we already knew that Disneyland had made many cutbacks to their Halloween season this year, but despite that, we were still looking forward to seeing the things that were spared.
I'll organise this report into themed groups so that we don't jump around all over the place. Let's start with the Halloween Time offerings, and meeting Mickey and friends on Main Street USA in their Halloween costumes. [ Read More... ] |
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Hello everyone,
Last Friday night (25th September) Jon and I attended the first of this year's Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland.
We had previously attended Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland four years ago, and due to lots of other travelling commitments, have only just now managed to make it back again for the party!
I was anxious because it was the first one of the season, and obviously things can change from year to year. So although I had some idea from looking at details from last year, I didn't really know what to expect this night.
Around 4pm on Friday [ Read More... ] |
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Hello everyone,
Today I have a round up of the latest character news out of the Disney Parks around the world, including Tokyo Disney Resort where is there is a huge amount of information about the coming 18 months at the resort.
Let's start with Walt Disney World in Florida, where this week saw the first of the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Parties. This year there is a new stage show, titled "Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular", featuring the Sanderson Sisters, and other Disney Villains, including [ Read More... ] |
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Hello everyone,
It has been a while since I have had chance to make a full news post here on the blog, but today I thought it would be nice to finally share some of the things we have learned recently.
Let's start with Disneyland Resort in California, [ Read More... ] |
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 | Throwback Thursday - Celebrate! A Street Party | |
| DisneyDan
Thursday, August 13, 2015 8:58:07 AM |
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Hello everyone,
Today's Throwback Thursday is to Disneyland's "Celebrate! A Street Party".
Celebrate! A Street Party replaced the much loved Parade of Dreams, opening on 27th March 2009, during the "What Will You Celebrate?" campaign at the US Disney Parks. Unfortunately, Celebrate! A Street Party was no comparable replacement for the Parade of Dreams, and was widely unpopular with regular Disneyland guests.
Celebrate! A Street Party featured twenty-three characters, ranging from Mickey and friends, Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan and Woody, as well as many talented performers. The performance was not so much a parade, but more what the name suggests, a street party. In general, there was nothing wrong with this concept, but when you take into account the fact that this replaced a much loved day parade, which featured beautiful floats and great music, this was not going to cut it. It would be like the Magic Kingdom ending its day parade and advertising Move It! Shake It! as the main parade for the day - and we all know how awful that is.
To its credit, the street party did include new costumes for Mickey, Minnie and Clarabelle Cow. Chip 'n' Dale's sweet heart, Clarice, was also featured in the party; fans will know that, sadly, Clarice doesn't get out much in the US parks, so it was good to see her.
Celebrate! A Street Party featured the (actually not-so-bad) Disney created campaign song "Celebrate You", along with a remix of King Louie's "I Wanna Be Like You", and even Ricky Martin's "Ole Ole Ole". Overall, the idea of having a street party with popular characters is not a bad one, but when you look at the characters they included, and then listen to the soundtrack, you can see why it didn't work! Mary Poppins, Bert, Geppetto and Winnie the Pooh, all dancing along to "Ole Ole Ole" is not really within those characters' genre. Combined with the fact that this was the replacement for a wildly popular parade, it simply didn't work.
Celebrate! A Street Party ran for a year and a half, and ended at the start of the 2010 Christmas season. It did not return in spring 2011, and was replaced with the much more appropriate, and much better received, Mickey's Soundsational Parade, which still runs today.
Let's take a look back at some photos from both August 2009 and August 2010, when we watched Celebrate! A Street Party.
[ Read More... ] |
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 | Happy 60th Anniversary Disneyland! | |
| DisneyDan
Friday, July 17, 2015 9:31:13 AM |
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Today is the 60th anniversary of the grand opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
We have had many character filled adventures at Disneyland over the years, and so I am going to share with you some of our favourite moments.
For my non-character related tribute post, head over to our new Two Lost boys blog.
Happy 60th anniversary Disneyland!
Dan. |
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