Mousekingdom Blog

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)

What happens if you want to write an article about spending 5 days at Walt Disney World without kids but are not open minded towards this experience. Seth Stevenson does it in his “well-traveled: Dispatches from the front lines of travel The Mecca of the Mouse” article. He already starts the article with the false assumption it’s a place for adults with children only. (and adds, later in the article, that all visitors are annoyed and cranky by the end of the day)

Why on earth would I, a childless adult, visit Disney World by myself? (Slate; Part 1)

Walt Disney World was not even given the chance. A negative view was needed, for whatever reason (Page Hits?), and that’s what you’ll get when you read these first two parts of what will be (I think) 5 part negative Disney rant.

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It may seem odd to be focusing on 2009 already, but Susan and I certainly have to have at least one eye on next year as we have recently started the process of up-dating our Brit’s Guide to Orlando and WDW for the next edition.

With that in mind, we would like to invite people to share in (some of!) the process with us as we will be posting (semi-)regular blogs on our Veness Travel Media website of our travels, meetings and park visits along the way for the next few months.

So, for a little insight into travel-writing, researching and also having a bit of fun with our work, join us on the following Blog link and we’ll try to keep it up to date and interesting!

http://www.venesstravelmedia.com/id75.html

If you want to go to Walt Disney World you need some (actually a lot) of money. Some people try to make some extra, selling some of their collectables on Ebay, using the money to sponsor the trip.

In 2002 I paid my flight trip like this myself.

While I tried to make a little extra with my more “normal” collectables, other people will try to get some of the money together by selling food in the form of one of the US states…

The Great Illinois Corn Flake is one of them. It has been offered on Ebay before and reached about $200.000 before Ebay pulled the auction for violation. (Food cannot be sold when opened).

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1 more day and the yearly Flower and Garden festival at Epcot starts. Visitors will have the time until 1 June to go and see the festival and to enjoy many topiaries, beautiful flowers and amazing colors.

But don’t take my word for it! Just look at the gorgeous collection of pictures on MouseSteps.

A picture says more then a thousand words!

Picture copyrights MouseSteps

Imagine you could own a piece of Disney animated art for only a couple of dollars! This was the case back in the 1960 when fans could buy the art in Disneyland for only a couple of dollars. Today this original art would make more into the region on $20.000 to $30.000.

Nearly 5 decades ago Disney shipped some of its 1959 animated movie Sleeping Beauty artwork to Japan. It was presented to the public at Mitsukoshi Department Store and toured to another16 stores after that. Once the exhibition finished the artwork stayed in Japan, locked away for most of the time, an “almost” forgotten treasure.

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TEA and ERA published their annual report on amusement attendance for year 2007 and to nobodies surprise Disney dominates the list again. The top 25 of the world has 10 places reserved for Disney parks. Even better then that, the first 8 places are Disney park.

1 MAGIC KINGDOM at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA 17,060,000
2 DISNEYLAND, Anaheim, CA, USA 14,870,000
3 TOKYO DISNEYLAND, Tokyo, Japan 13,906,000
4 TOKYO DISNEYSEA, Tokyo, Japan 12,413,000
5 DISNEYLAND PARIS, Marne-La-Vallee, France 12,000,000
6 EPCOT at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA 10,930,000
7 DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena V 9,510,000
8 DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL 9,490,000

And the other 2 parks also in the top 25 are at place 13 DISNEY’S CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE, Anaheim, CA, USA 5,680,000 and at place 21 HONG KONG DISNEYLAND, Hong Kong, SAR, China 4,150,000.

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As many of you might know I am in love with music from the Disney movies and theme parks. Therefore, I was especially excited, that Randy Thornton - producer of the most recent “Official Album” releases for the US Disney resorts and thereby responsible to decide which tracks make it onto the 2-disc sets - over on MagicMusic.net  has revealed which new tracks will be found on the new OAs for Anaheim and Walt Disney World.

Interested? It is all revealed under the break…

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Already explained how I feel Disney is missing the opportunity to get more European visitors in the previous Dollar vs Euro blog entry I wanted to take the time and take it even a little further, proofing that the Disney Company should really look into getting those Europeans to their parks. The European market is a big one, one that could generate a lot of extra guests and money. Other players on the market will not wait for the European to find out about their offers, they’ll make sure to make themselves noticed on that market. Look at Dubai (again), will they wait and only try to fulfill there goal by only targeting the Arabic world? I don’t think so. The European market will be a big one for them and they will make enough advertisement around the whole of Europe to make sure they will visit their new parks.

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About a month ago rumors popped up on the internet about a possible new Disney experience for Walt Disney World. While I didn’t talk about the “Night Kingdom” on the blog myself yet, I did try to follow and get informed about the possible new project. Rumors , forums and news sites talked about a new gate or experience during night time where a possible encounter with animals would be the central concept. Animal Kingdom quickly became the rumored park that would be a nightly experience where a more adult orientated public, with a little more than your normal average to spend, would be the target audience.

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A couple of days ago I got a CD in my postbox from Lou Mongello who brings us Disney news every week via his WDWradio site and podcast. Lou started a new project where you can listen to a CD full of Disney tidbits, knowledge, information and more; The Audio Guide to Walt DIsney World. His first CD takes us to Main Street USA in Walt Disney world. I took the CD, got into the car, put it in the player and started listening. A couple of minutes later I felt like I was walking around Main Street and enjoying the magic that so many people forget about or don’t even notice.

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We have recently got involved with helping a new fan-based Disney organisation in Orlando who are geared towards helping fellow WDWophiles have more fun in the parks for specific occasions.

It is the same group (essentially) who pioneered the superb Celebration 25 event at Epcot last October for the park’s 25th anniversary, and they have translated their efforts there into a new, year-round fan-based organisation called WDWCelebrations.com.

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Let’s get this out of the way first: besides families animated Disney features and the theme parks always have had a notable amount of gay fans. But while some minorities regularly raise a ruckus about their underrepresentation or any supposed to be “inacceptable” representation there has been but a peep from the GLBT corner - and when was it that you saw a character in an animated Disney feature that would be a member of the GLBT team?

[Keep reading after the break ... especially if you want to find one of the best spoofs ever of a scene from Aladdin!!]

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I’d like to come back to Andrea’s post about last year’s Halloween Parade at Tokyo Disney from a few days ago … cause there is a really interesting backstory to one of the guys behind “Disney’s Halloween Happy Haunted Parade” as the 2007 daytime parade was officially called.

While the catchy song “One More Ghost” (I wonder when Vasile Sirli will re-purpose it for Disneyland Resort Paris) plays during the stop of the parade, the loop playing while the parade moves includes another all-new song specifically written for Tokyo Disneyland: “Our Halloween Party”. The latter song was composed by Rick McKee!

You ask: what’s so special about that?

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Anyone still remembering the concept of the “Nature Villages” to be added to the Disneyland Resort Paris? Announced officialy as a potential concept on May 19, 2003 by EuroDisney S.C.A. jointly with Pierre et Vacances the “Nature Villages” was supposed to be a magical combination of the big draws of the resort and its offerings with the typical features of “short break resorts” such as Center Parcs and Gran Dorado resorts, both chains operated by Pierre et Vacances (for details check out our extensive report from 2003 over on DLP.info). In the meantime it has become rather quiet around this concept.

But it seems Pierre et Vacances still sees the advantages of combining its “short break resorts” (read now: Center Parcs) with a theme park… (more…)

Can I have Your Credit Card Number Please? How often do you get asked that? And how often do we give it without thinking about the risks attached to it? Especially when you’re at Walt Disney World, do you expect to be conned by a scam artist. (they really should find another name for them as they are NO artist.)

Unfortunately since a couple of weeks people are being scammed while they are at WDW.

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Would you like to own a Disney hotel? How about the Disney’s Yacht & Beach Club resort? It is possible!

Well, maybe not the real deal, but you can get your hands on the original 1/32″ Scale Model Prop used to present the resort in full details before building it at Walt Disney World.

The model looks amazing with stunning details and beautifully presented. A unique one of a kind Disney collectible. Starting bid is $49.999 and comes with a trip to Walt Disney world (staying at the big version of the offered resort) to see the model at the Mousesurplus warehouse before it gets shipped to you anywhere in the US.

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No info has leaked on the Internet regarding any accident on Disneyland Resort Paris Big Thunder Mountain attraction but when I checked my mail today a reader sent me the picture he took on Thursday. The ride was closed for the rest of that day, but reopened the next morning.

I was at the park on Thursday myself but didn’t catch any of this, on Friday I even went on Big Thunder Mountain myself…

Anybody knows more? Let us know!

Picture by Edwin Hendriks

After a good night rest it was time for the General Shareholders Meeting. Now, there where a lot of numbers they talked about. Especially those that gone up; more visitors, more rooms booked, more spending per person, more cash flow, and so on. Only during the Questions and Answer session did we get to hear some other things and issue that some shareholders had. Will shareholders ever get dividends, what will happen when Euro Disney S.C.A. Has to start paying back its Hughes depths in 2011 but Karl Holz always had an answer ready, even if this answer was always the same, that they made a big positive result, that they are on the right track and that this is the track Disney management is going to follow for the future.

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On my last Walt Disney World trip I could see the Disney Tree house villas when I floated on the transportation boat from Old Key West to the Downtown Disney. It looked like a fun place to stay, but at that time it looked like it was something that was going to be lost to the Disney fans. The villas are closed since 2001 (after 09/11) and have only been used as private residences for Disney’s International and College Program Cast Members after that. Although Disney has been looking in re-opening the villas as from 2002, it could not be done without following some tight rules regarding the “Warren S. Henderson Wetlands Protection Act” legislation of 1984. The Villas are located on protected wetlands where any additional construction is prohibited.

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