Mousekingdom Blog

One million views and counting! Time to celebrate ClickMagique’s PicParade…

ClickMagique’s PicParade is loaded with more then 8000 Disney related pictures and recently had the honors of the 1.000.000th picture being blended in. Only the pictures that are actually opened will be counted, so we can honestly say that this is an impressive result. This result can only by accomplished because of you, the fans and visitors, so a big thank you for sharing your pictures on ClickMagique’s PicParade and a big thank you to all visiting and looking at the pictures too.

The picture that was blended in on 1.000.000 was the picture of Tigger walking past “It’s a Small World” waiving at the photographer in Disneyland Resort Paris. A very nice picture to celebrate this mile stone. But it isn’t enough. We want more!

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Disney is doing very well again with a better than expected 22% rise in profit. Especially the movies National Treasure: Book of Secrets and the fairy tale “Enchanted” together with Disney theme park attendance are taking care of the big profits in their last quarter.

Even with the frightening economic situation at the moment, Disney seems unstoppable boosting their profits and making their shareholders happy.

“All of the big media companies are doing fundamentally very well and the market just refuses to acknowledge it,” (Reuters)

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Hong Kong Disneyland has opened their version of “It’s a Small World” only days ago. Their version differences itself from other worldwide version by adding 38 Disney Characters to the classic ride. Disney fans and purist where horrified by the idea that a classic ride would contain Disney Characters. Especially since the news came out the Disney company would be adding the same Disney characters in the Disneyland Anaheim version. Disney fans stood up and let themselves be heard by expressing their thoughts and feelings all over the web about the upcoming changes Disney wants to do. (Example Save the Rainforest website). They didn’t like it…

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Night Kingdom rumors have been going for a while and although I thought that’s it, those plans are shelved, the rumors are alive again. This time you can find some info on the always great screamscape.com site where it is claimed that Disney is creating some new experience.

The big attraction and icon of the park, right now, appears to be a large central Disney-made mountain structure where guests will be forced to ‘rock climb’ to the top, take zip lines down again and explore a serious network of caves. The goal is for this to be a very interactive game based adventure experience, with both mental and physical challenges. (Screamscape.com

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Ed Grier, Disneyland Resort president, is talking about a possible third gate for the Disneyland Resort. While many thought that with the big rehab of Disney’s California Adventure a third gate would be something not for the near future but now Disney talks about it themselves. Obviously they did not give any more information other then the location of the possible 3rd gate expansion.

A third theme park was hinted at by Grier on Wednesday. “We do see a tremendous opportunity on our 88 acres of land,” Grier said. (OC Register)

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Last year’s visit of the Disney Cruise Line to the Mediterranean wasn’t much of an event for the European markets. Sure DLRP did do a small event in Spain but due to the selection of invited press the event pretty much turned into a non-event. What could have been the big entry of the Disney Cruise Line into Europe’s booming cruise market (especially Germans are more and more turning to this type of vacations) and could also have opened a new market for DLRP of guests combining a Disney cruise with a visit to DLRP just didn’t do anything.

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We are still waiting for the May 16 opening of the second installment of the “Narnia”-series, titled “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” (or even longer for some of us here in Eruope, where at least in Germany the movie won’t open till July!) … but the powers at Disney and Walden (the partner of Disney for this franchise) already proof all the gloom sayers on the internet wrong by announcing, that Disney and Walden are NOT abandoning the franchise!!

While some popular sites already declared the series dead or nearly dead unless the second movie did outstanding business the partners used the Comic Con in New York to announce that filming for the third movie in the series will commence as early as October of this year!

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Today, April 22, 10 years ago Animal Kingdom opened its gates to the general public for the very first time. The park opened with 5 attraction, 9 exhibits and 12 live entertainment show on a 500 acres location. The main attraction of the resort are its inhabitants, the many incredible animals.

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How many families dream about a Disneyland visit, How many do so today and how many did in the past. No matter what time, the dream stays the same. One family in 1956 had a dream like this, a dream that was fulfilled after buying scotch tape and winning 1 of 25 Disneyland trips. This happened in 1956. Now, in 2008, everybody is invited to a look into the past and enjoy a holiday Disneyland movie from the wining family made in 1956 by “dad”. The movie runs a good 34 minutes, but with fun editing and the added narrating it’s a nice look into the Disneyland past.

On April 15, 1983 Disney opened their very first park outside the USA; Tokyo Disneyland. While Disney Imagineers designed the park, “The Oriental Land Company” is the owner of the park, paying licenses to the Walt Disney Company. The success in Tokyo was (and still is) overwhelming and brought the “The Oriental Land Company” a lot of profit. (And Disney decided never to have an external company become owner of a Disney theme park again) In 2001 a second gate opened to the public; DisneySea, an amazing looking park.

Happy 25th Birthday Tokyo Disneyland

I hope to visit you soon as I would love to see DisneySea. (and as it is my dream to see every Disney park in the world)

Michael Eisner announces, “Et maintenant je déclare Euro Disneyland officiellement ouvert”

And that’s 16 years ago, but with the whole 15th anniversary going on one would (almost) forget about it. So happy Birthday to my home park that I love, cherish and miss as it has been way to long since I visited it. (Can I say that with a February visit behind me when it’s only April)

Happy Birthday Disneyland Resort Paris.

Picture copyrights Disney

The 2008 Star Wars weekends that will take place in The Hollywood Studios, Walt Disney World in June are taking form. Warwick Davis will be the host for every Star Wars weekend while other celebrities will visit the park on selected dates.

June 6-8: Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett, Captain Colton) & Daniel Logan (Young Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones, all the 10 year old clones on Kamino)
June 13-15: Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) & David Prowse (Darth Vader)
June 20-22: Amy Allen (Aayla Secura) & Matthew Wood ( Episode III’s Supervising Sound Editor, voice of the evil General Grievous in that movie as well as the upcoming animated series, The Clone Wars)
June 27-29: Dave Filoni (Supervising Director of The Clone Wars animated feature and series)
(StarWars.com)

Will the program already looks nice I can’t wait to see what the special merchandise this year will be.

Disneyland Resort Paris has a new chairman. Philippe Gas, a 17 year Disney veteran, and currently Human Resources director, will be taking over the wheel from Karl Holz. Karl Holz has been the Chairman for the Paris park since May 2005 after Andre Lacroix left. Holz will go to the USA and will start a new role as the president of the New Vacation Operations for the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

For more Disneyland Resort Paris news and information  make sure to also visit our DLP.Info site

The Haunted Mansion, one of my favorite rides at Walt Disney World, and I am not alone. There are a lot of websites dedicated to this ride that proofs how loved this attraction is. There are also stories about real ghosts inside the attraction. One story is about “the man with the cane”. Orlando United says to have proof of this ghost and shows a picture taken during a visit not to long ago.

Skeptical, like me, or believing it? It doesn’t matter as the stories are fun, especially considering the environment. What better story then the those about a haunted Mansion that’s haunted for real. Like some more haunt stories? Visit Doombuggies.com (a great site if you want to know everything “Haunted Mansion” there is to know), where they have a collection about “real” haunts.

Can’t get enough of the Disney parks and want to see even more when your home in front of your PC? Then maybe DIS TV is the channel for you. It’s promised to run 24/7 with all kinds of Disney park and resort stuff. I already had some fun watching Epcot on it.

It’s a good thing I work with two screens on my main computer and even better I have multiple computers as with all the Disney stuff that is out there one screen (or one PC) is no longer enough.

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I was surfing the web as usual for some nice Disney news and for some information so to pin point the last details of my next trip (next week that is) to Tokyo and the ever marvelous Tokyo Disney Resort. Well i stumbled on this photo taken by the ever present board member TDLFAN . Well it seems that Stitch is taking over Tokyos enchanted Tiki room, which already since the late 90’s was playing its own version of the show entitled “get the fever”!  I’m not one of those who wants to get into the debate “never change attractions etc” (plus this is Tokyo ad not Disneyland Anaheim) but i am actually excited to see what WDI-Japan (guided by the great Joe Lanzisero) will come up with here!The Stitch AA in the Magic Kingdoms Stitch encounter attraction was really impressive (besides being the only good thing about the attraction ) so I’m actaully looking forwards to seeing this one! 

DVC… one more… as in one more contract added to my small collection. 50 points of Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas. Was thinking for Saratoga Springs but as I love the Animal Kingdom Lodge and I don’t mind being a little further away from the parks I called the Timeshare store and the contract is mine. That’s if Disney doesn’t use their Right of First Refusal. If not I can add the 50 points to my 65 points I have at Old Key west. With 115 points in total I would still be a “small” owner, but for me and my family and our Disney needs that is sufficient.

… for now at least, as you never know what the future will do. Who knows, after a couple of years I might want some more.

Picture Copyrights Disney

Most of you might already have heard the news about the changes in the Disneyland attraction “it’s a small world”.

New Disney characters, including Alice in Wonderland, can be expected in an upgraded version of the classic ride. Together with the new figures one of the scenes will be changes too. If reports are indeed correct the Papua New Guinea rainforest show scene will be replaced with a tribute to America.

Not everybody is happy with this decision so it didn’t take long before people would react.

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Several people have mentioned that the Beastly Kingdom expansion for Animal Kingdom is back in the rumor mill. Several concepts are on the table, with constant changes that are or could be made to the original idea.

I guess Disney is well aware that expansion brings in the people. Especially Expedition Everest has proven that guest will come and return to the park. With all that is happening in around the Orlando area I am convinced Walt Disney World will bring us some news in the near future of their next big project to make sure that Disney will not loose (to many) guest to Universal and their Harry Potter expansion. Beastly Kingdom might well be the answer.

Remember, these are rumors and my vision, but in a couple of months, weeks or maybe days this might be different again. Nothing is solid until Disney says so.

While there have been several rumors and news been spread around the Internet that there are problems with the new Disneyland Mark VII Monorail system, the L.A. Times ensures us that there are no problems. The monorails are doing nightly test rounds and the Blue monorail can be expected somewhere between Mid April and Early May.

Sending the new Mark VII back to Canada was never considered.

After the test-and-adjust phase, Monorail Red will undergo state inspections, and Disney employees will be trained in the operation of the five-car burgundy train before visitors get their first ride. (L.A. Times)

Picture copyrights Disney (via L.A. Times)