Mousekingdom Blog

AmusementBusiness reports that an official opening date has been set for the Tower of Terror in Tokyo DisneySea. According to the news the third incarnation of the ride will open to the public on September 4, 2006 - and therefore AFTER the high season summer months.

On an interesting side note the news mentions that a show called “Tower of Terror Memorabilia” is supposed to open on the 1st floor of the building. The latter sounds strange Both in the version in the Disney MGM Studios in Walt Disney World and in Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim guests are exiting the show building through the shop, the shop has been placed on the rights ground level.

To prepare for the experience take a look at the post of Joost on the DLP.info Forum in which he provides the complete story of the ride as it will be experienced in Tokyo - a few mild spoilers included. Sounds like a really different version with some great new effects, especially in the pre-show room, which hopefully will find their way to the version under construction in the Walt Disney Studios Paris as well.

Sorry … it needs to read “Built OUT OF Sand”. Ok, it is not the hottest “news” or link but I just thought it was so cute, that I HAD to share it: Raquel’s Photo Blog has a great collection of giant sand sculptures recreating scenes from various Disney and Pixar features which were taken at a sand sculpting exhibition 2004/2005 at the Docklands, Melbourne, Australia. These life sized scultpures of Mickey and Minnie with the gang in a Christmas scene or the the bugs from a Bug’s Life are just incredible like the characters from The Incredibles … WOW!

On DLP.Info we informed the Disney fans about the Cars parade, currently running in the MGM studios would “drive” its way into the Walt Disney Studios. Now rumors appeared that MGM would get a new parade as of 2007, making the rumors for Disneyland Resort Paris even more believable. Doesn’t mean they will not see anything new at the MGM studios as Screamscape reports that two new cars from the upcoming Disney/Pixar movie Cars will be added. The cars would start to run their engines during spring time. In that case the new cars would only run for 1 year over at Walt Disney World.

Jim Hill published the URL of a new blog titled Re-Imagineering in which current and former Imagineers and other employees of The Walt Disney Company as well as Pixar and other professionals of the themed entertainment industry are supposed to discuss how to improve the guest experience in the Disney parks. Or in the words of the owner of the blog: “catalog past Imagineering missteps and offer up tenable practical solutions in hopes that a new wave of creative management at Imagineering can once again bring back the wonder and magic that’s been missing from the parks for decades”. While not descernible as an official blog according to Jim Hill it has been sanctioned of by the assistant of John Lasseter, who is overseeing Imagineering since the announcement of the Disney Pixar merger.

Interestingly so far Disneyland Resort Paris has not been really a subject, even so a photo of the sword fighting Audioanimatronics from the Paris version of Pirates of the Caribbean has been published to illustrate one post and one comment mentions that Captain Hook’s galley got painted in all brown colors not true to the original design. Still it is interesting to follow the posts and especially the unfolding discussion whether to bring back old attractions or create all new experiences.

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