Mousekingdom Blog

A group of Korean investors is looking at building a new Theme Park just three miles south of Disneyland.

After years of failed efforts to land some sort of tourist attraction, the Garden Grove City Council has agreed to let an investment firm move forward with plans to construct a $4-billion amusement park in a city best known for its annual strawberry festival. (Source LA Times)

While they say it doesn’t look to compete with Disneyland in Anaheim they must hope that visitors of the resort would hop over for a visit. They are taking Islands Of Adventure as an example of what they want to have in place in California.

I must admit that I love Islands of Adventure and every Walt Disney World visit has brought me to the Universal Studios resort for a visit.

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We all love Disney and its movies and Theme Parks (we would not be on this site otherwise) and make the Disney Dream a little (or big) part of our daily live. With Disney being a big player others also like to use Disney to spoof and joke with to enhance their product or story. And let’s be honest, the best jokes and spoofs you can laugh with are from a product you know or love yourself. It is the part that makes you understand the joke and that makes you laugh. Just imagine there would be no Disney… how many other movies (and parks or products) would not exist.

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This morning a fire blazed at Gatorland in Florida. Most of the main building is destroyed, including the main entrance that was a big crocodile mouth with big white teeth that used to welcome the guest. Although the entrance is still there, the fire damage might be to big to save it they way we know it. Luckily nobody of the employees was harmed, however some animals left their life in the fire. You can follow more news on OrlandoSentinel.com.

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Ciao my friends,

today I want to point out a sad, sad story.

Once upon a time, say 40 years ago, there was a small park built near the shores of a sunny Italian beach town (Rimini) all themed on fables.

As the park was themed on fables it’s management wisely decided to call it “Fiabilandia” (= “Fable land”) and all it’s themeing, walks and attractions where built around fables, fairy tales and imaginary creatures. ….you could call it a similar concept to Efteling!

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Whenever I go for the “sweet” Walt Disney World Halloween experience I will not miss another Haunt when I am in Orlando. Like I said it the first part; I love Halloween, so it is impossible to celebrate without a visit to some really scary haunts. The best place to do this when visiting Walt Disney World (in my opinion) is going to Halloween Horror Nights in Universal Studios. (starting 29th September)

Now the last thing I would do (as the Disney fanatic that I am) is lure away people from WDW to visit another park, but admittedly there is a lot of fun out there that will tempt me to get off Disney property and enjoy it.

Halloween Horror Night is one of those and one of my favorite events. I go to Mickey’s not so Scary Halloween party, but I will make sure to go to some (multiple) Halloween Horror Nights too during a “Halloween” visit

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Susan and I have spent pretty much all of the last 6 weeks or so on a major travelling adventure (as goes with the job) around parts of the USA, looking at new writing projects and coming across some unique insights and attractions along the way, some of them Disney-related and some not.

We’ve been in theme parks (notably Cedar Point, Ohio, Hershey Park, Pennsylvania, and Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Virginia), along the coast, to historic sites (notably Gettysburg, Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown and the Shenandoah Valley), scenic sites (The Blue Ridge Parkway, Skyline Drive and Natural Bridge, all in Virginia) and even on a Caribbean cruise (with Carnival, not DCL, but still with positive results). And it has to be said, Disney and Co have a LOT of competition nowadays, especially from the likes of the cruise lines.

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Psst … I need to tell you a secret … there is a world full of wonders outside the Disney resorts as well. But shhhh … don’t tell anyone, we don’t want them to run all over the place

Enough of the kidding - but there is something true about that, after all when we as Disney fans finally get to a Disney resort there is a certain urge to enjoy as much of the offerings from Disney as possible, which also means there is less time for the famous tourist highlights and especially the hidden gems in the vincinity. That (and the fact that I realized that I tent to not post as much here as I originally promised) has prompted me to come up with a new series which I hope to publish more or less regularly every Saturday or every other Saturday: DETOUR

For the inauguration part I thought I bring something up for all of us visiting the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. After all with the 50th Anniversary celebrations still going strong their is already a strong urge for us fans to drop by Anaheim..

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