Mousekingdom Blog

Most people know Epcot’s Mission: Space is being toned down this summer to provide the option of a more passive (and less nausea-inducing!) ride. But there is another new experience in Central Florida which provides an astronaut’s taste of The Real Thing.

Just announced at the big Pow-Wow travel convention in Orlando is the ZERO-G experience, a chance to feel what it is REALLY like to be weightless in space. Flying from the Kennedy Space Center (but as a separate company, the Zero Gravity Corporation), they offer 27 people at a time the chance to go up in their customised Boeing 727 and enjoy a zero-gravity feeling for up to 30 seconds at a time as it flies a parabola at 24,000ft.

It sounds like an amazing opportunity, and it is linked with some real astronaut training and briefing (under proper supervision from their astronaut team). The downside? It costs $3,750 per person (plus tax!!).

Susan and I are just drawing breath again after the big International Pow-Wow travel convention in Orlando, which is America’s biggest annual travel trade forum, with all manner of conferences, media events, travel shows, exhibits, tours and receptions (plus the occasional party!). The focus is obviously only on the US - hotels, attractions, car hire, cities, travel organisations and more - but that is still a huge area of interest. And, as it was in Orlando, there was a big focus on Florida, and the theme parks. And that’s where our Encounter with an Imagineer came in.

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If you love gaming then you’ll either be at Los Angeles or you wish you would be at Los Angeles for the annual E3 gaming convention right now (from May 10th to May 12th). Of course there are a lot of Disney products to be found at the E3 convention. Some of the Disney game titles on the convention, presented by Buena Vista Games, are; Disney’s American Dragon: Jake Long, Attack of the Dark Dragon, Disney’s Chicken Little: Ace in Action, Disney’s Kim Possible: Global Gemini, Disney’s Kim Possible: What’s the Switch?, Disney’s The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure…

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Do you remember the Pride Mountain concept Colin found and shared here in the blog? It was an amazing piece of artwork that could (and should) fit into the ranks of an Imagineering team. I just got a mail from Tim, the creator of the Pride Mountain, inviting me to have a look at his latest creation.

This time he attacks (literally) the Tower of Terror. To be more precise, the Tower from the Walt Disney Studios park in Disneyland Resort Paris. Although the Paris version is not ready yet, here is a version our hobby imagineer would have loved to seen build instead of the Anaheim clone Paris will be getting.

Read about this “fantasy” attraction on the Theme Park Review forum and enjoy a dream of an imagineer in the making.

Apple.com has added a new Cars Trailer online. This one gives a lot of information on the story and I can tell you now; it looks good. I am sure that we will get yet another fantastic PIXAR movie. Check out the great trailer.

The premiere is not far away anymore. CARS will Premiere at Lowe’s Motor Speedway on Friday, May 26th but is already completely sold out as mentioned on LUXO, a blog on PIXAR animation.

In case you would still like to get some tickets you can visit two auctions on Ebay. The first one offers 4 tickets and bidding will end on May 15th. At the time I wrote this entry the tickets where already on a $430 bid. The second one has 7 tickets offered. However selling them a piece and going at $35 per ticket at this time. The bidding on this one ends on May 16th.

Map from Orlando Sentinel showing the future of Pleasure Island.

Now here is a great picture on a Disney Calendar. The Picture comes from the official Tokyo Disney Resort Fanclub calendar and was send to us by Xavier M. (Thank you). It shows the Tower of Terror at DisneySea on the page of month September, the same month first guest will be able to ride the new attraction. The picture in the calendar looks great, it proofs that you not always have to dig into the archives and use old pictures for a calendar, like they seem to do at Disneyland Resort Paris, but that you can share upcoming new attractions with the fans in a newly created picture like the one shown here.

What a way to promote a new ride. Using a calendar, giving fans early access to what to expect, and for sure a great reminder to book a next visit to be at the park during the opening of the new adventure.

Interesting on the picture is the ghost showing at the left hand side. His eyes are glowing, looking down onto the people who are riding the elevator, promising a new story for the attraction. And looking at the peoples faces, it looks like Disney wants to go the scary road with this one…

I am thinking maybe Tokyo should be my next Disney destination.

It look like Disney will not leave the Happy Meals behind as Robert A. Iger defends McDonalds and explains the  power of the  marketing tool in this article on Forbes.com

“To set the record straight, we have had a very positive relationship with McDonald’s for the last ten years,” said a Disney spokesman in a statement. “While our contract with them will expire at the end of the year, we look forward to a more flexible, non-exclusive relationship where we will be working with them on a case by case basis.”

The big chance will be that Disney will not be exclusive anymore once their contract with McDonalds expires. Now other entertainment giants can (and will, like Dreamworks has planned to do) add their toys in the mix.

The future looks bright for the Mouse. The ABC hits “Desperate Housewives” and  “High School Musical” are bringing in high profits for the Disney Company. But also the park, or at least some of the parks, are taking care of a healthy growth: TV, parks lift Disney profit to 12% gain

Disney’s theme parks helped too — despite troubled performances in Paris and Hong Kong — according to the second-quarter financial report Disney filed Tuesday.

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Well, well, well … how fast things can change … only two days ago fellow blogger Andy reported here on Mousekingdom Blog that Disney and McDonald’s had ended their partnership which gave Disney exclusive access to the McDonald’s Happy Meals. According to US-newspapers (as the Orlando Sentinel which he quoted or the LA Times) Disney did not renew the contract despite yearly license income of 100 million US-$ due to the increasingly negative image of fast food in the US. But it must be questioned whether they expected this reaction of the golden arches… (more…)

Disney’s forever themed its parks to hide the real world and bring movie magic to life. They are all guilty of it, but now for the ultimate peek backstage we don’t even have to pay an entry fee.

The latest aerial photo websites such as Google Earth and Windows Live Local are providing some stunning shots of the destinations we love so much. From the far west to the far east, Africa and the Himalayas, fairytale European villages and the land of Tomorrow; these sites are proving it really is just a small world after all.

After a bit of searching and some help from my friends, you might be interested to have a look at what I found for yourself and see which backstage details you find. Tip: Look for parade floats, attraction buildings and larger than life “hidden Mickeys”.

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This is it; blog entry 100! The first 100 entries of this new blog are the first steps towards many, many, many more. Just over 3 months have we been working on this new adventure and it has been a success beyond our wildest dreams. Since the beginning we had hundreds of unique visitors every day, well over 500 – 600 a day even, making this project a success from day 1. No, no, don’t worry… we will not get big headed about it… it is just a pat on our backs.

The people we should realy thank are all the visitor that stop by and read our entries. You’ve made sure that we got this far. So, thank you to all of you. Now all we ask from you is to get interactive and react to the articles! This would make it even more fun and we want to hear from you as we are all part of this one big family. The Disney family.

Let’s get this to a 1000 entries now. Thank you to everybody who visits; now “on with the magic”…

Mission Space is dealing with bad press because of the second death since the rides opening. None of the fatalities are the fault of the ride system, both had bad health conditions while riding the attraction, but none the less the ride triggered their unfortunate faith. Now Disney decided (although Disney says that this decision is not related to the 2 deaths, but the general complaints of the ride being to intense) to make a “tame” version of the ride for others, who do not feel up to the full version, to enjoy. How will Kennedy Space Center react on this with their planned $60 million project Space Shuttle Launch Experience?

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Can’t wait to for the second installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series? Now here is something to keep you busy while waiting: cheering on the REAL Black Pearl! The Black Pearl is the name of one of the racing boats currently participating in the Volvo Ocean Race, which is a quest for single hull sailing boats around the world in 9 legs.
The race started on November 5, 2005, in Sanxenxo and then went from Europe all the way past Africa, Australia and New Zealand and back up along the USA, where the fleet is currently battling it out near New York before finishing in Europe again.
Got interested? Disney certainly provided the real Black Pearl with its own impressive website offering plenty of photos, news, audio and video material … Black Pearl Racing.

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