Mousekingdom Blog

The retail department of the Walt Disney Company seems to be in the mood for some changes since Michael Eisner left TWDC. After the sudden end for the traditional Disney Catalog (as reported yesterday) Disney now, without any big fanfare, has ended its collaboration with ebay.

In the past limited edition pins and other collectibles including high-profile items - like the original letters of the giant “Disneyland” sign that guests greeted in Anaheim - were auctioned off on ebay. With immediate effect all of this business has now been moved to a platform operated by Disney itself - DisneyAuctions.com. The amount of Disney auctions going on at every time sure does justify such a move. The big question is only: why wasn’t it announced with more fanfare? Especially since DisneyAuctions according to its Conditions of Sale ships at least some of the items offered also to international destinations.

Little news like this one just make me wonder more and more often: what happened to the famed press and marketing folks at Disney? Or is it all just a ploy to help us independent Disney sites and blogs get more attention?

This sounds like a very cool book. It will be available as from 1 March. It is by Jeff Kurtti, who wrote a whole lot of other Disney related books but nothing much is know of this book yet. When searching the web I find the book on your regular sales websites like Amazon, but never is there any information on the book itself.

I do love these kinds of books so I’ll get it for sure. Anybody who has some, or found some, information on this please share it with us.

Let’s get this straight: I am not trying to shoot down Hong Kong Disneyland. Heck, I was interested to go there before it opened and the recent stories posted by Andrea about his visit make me want to go their really, really soon… But it seems the local management just can’t get a positive handle on the press coverage.

Thanks to the press agency DPA now another story fills print and online media, detailing how a Singaporean woman announces that she will file a suit against Disney in Hong Kong and the US since allegedly Disney did not react to her mother falling ill in Hong Kong Disneyland properly, but forced her take a regular shuttle bus to the Disneyland Hotel, where cast member, so the claim, originally refused to call an ambulance, turned the ambulance away when it finally showed up at the front entry and send it to the back entry - all in all resulting in a three hour delay. Unfortunatley the guest later died.

Now this is a terrible accident and our heartfelt wishes go to the grieving daughter of the deceased. Still this is a Disney related blog so let’s look into the story from another point of view…
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Well I thought I would write a bit of a post about the Disney Insider Yearbook that has been announced by Disney (This may turn into a little bit of a rant, however all will be revealed)

A few months back, possibly even before Christmas, I received an email from Disney advising me of their intention to release a yearbook for 2005, this will be the first time they have released a yearbook. The email invited me to register my interest, so I followed the link and registered my interest in what looked to be a very interesting annual publication…

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