Mousekingdom Blog

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)

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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