Mousekingdom Blog

It’s still over a year away but it will be here faster as you might think. The 40th anniversary of Walt Disney World. So we can start to expect some news about this special Disney Milestone.

One department that will work hard to give the people something special for the celebration is the merchandising department. To nobodies surprise, we will get a lot of goodies with “40” written all over it.

A whole collection of new pins have been announced for the 40th birthday of Walt Disney World. Many of these pins will show some of the most beloved attraction and one of the many Disney classic figures like Mickey, Donald and Goofy. There will also be a very nice Cinderella Castle puzzle pin. The puzzle pieces will have artwork on them from different Disney posters. This pin set will be limited.
(more…)

In May Star Wars will have a big celebration as it has been 30 years since it was first released. During this month the Star Wars Weekends will kick off in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. For 4 weekends long Star Wars fans will have the chance the celebrate inside the Disney’s Hollywood studios and meet some of the Star Wars actors.

This year’s hosts for all four weekends are Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) and Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka). A list of all other guests can be found below.

(more…)

There have been some rumors on the web about this but now it looks as it is official; Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom is closing down on June 27.

That’s only about 2 months after the opening of the new show. The first show took place on May 5th.

Although Disney officials would not give specifics on why the attraction that debuted just six weeks ago will close, they did say the theme park “regularly evaluates and adjusts” its attractions and sometimes eliminates them. (Bizjournals)

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the NFL franchise located a short drive from Walt Disney World in Tampa Bay, FL, used to hold its annual training camp for the past 7 years at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, with team and players staying at the luxurious Celebration Hotel at Celebration, FL – the Disney imagineered community. However, this summer, the Bucs will hold their training camp under their new management and head coach directly in Tampa Bay on their own training facilities which opened in 2006 and are widely heralded as one of the most state-of-the-art in all of the NFL.

While this will free rooms at the Celebration Hotel for the summer season (a highly recommended location for guests looking for a luxurious, non-Disney-fied hotel with top-notch service whi can provide their own independent transportation and do not need to or want to stay right next to the theme parks), the decision certainly will have a negative impact on the bottom line of Walt Disney World as well. Not only will WDW loose out on any payments from the team for the training facilities at Disney’s Wide World of Sports but also on related revenue. Afterall the Bucs always attracted hundreds of fans watching the training work-outs and sparrings on property of Disney’s Wide World of Sports, who then spent considerable amounts of money. With the departure of the Bucs WDW lost one of its main professional sports related offerings. Not good news for WDW in the current economic climate, especially since the training camp did not only attract regular guests of WDW (already on property) to the Wide World of Sport’s complex that most guests do neither know about nor visit, but also attract local fans of the team to visit WDW in the first place.

Considering that the Bucs still need to come up with a concept how to seat fans during the work-outs at their own training facility and how to deal with the crowds in the first place (something that was always taken care of by the cast members of Disney’s Wide World of Sports) fans and WDW may hope that the Bucs will return to the state-of-the-art facilities of WDW in the next year.

The year of a million dreams promotion might be at its end but the possibility to stay at the Cinderella Castle suite at Walt Disney World is not. You can still win a stay at the suite in 2009, although the chances might be a little slimmer (even more) as the room will only be used on a more limited basis.

The room will continue to be available for use as the prize for promotions, including some run by outside companies. For starters, the room is being offered as a prize in a sweepstakes called “Inside Your Celebration,” organized by the Internet travel portal Orbitz. (Orlando Sentinel)

One can only dream…

Picture Copyrights Disney

The Walt Disney Parks and Resorts department announced today that if you come to a national Disney park (Walt Disney World or Disneyland) on your birthday, you’ll get your day ticket for free. This is part of the new campaign “What will you celebrate?” that will kick of in 2009. While Disney already has a big chunk of the birthday cake from people like me, who love to celebrate inside a park for their birthday, they will now get even more people to visit the park.

This is one great move by the Disney company as the free Birthday boy or girl will bring in more cash then Disney would loose on giving away the ticket. The birthday person might be in for free, but who wants to celebrate alone? So there comes the rest of the family and friends!

I can already see an increase in sales on birthday cakes and special birthday gifts… And it is easy to say “I got my ticket for free, so I can buy an extra Disney gift for myself with the money I saved”. Brilliant move by Disney.

(more…)

On the Hong Kong Disneyland website you can find a video about their upcoming Halloween event. The video is fun and even a little (for the smaller once) scary. It gives you a nice idea what to expect and is fun to watch. Even if you would not make it to that park (I guess I am not the only one living a little far away from Hong Kong to just go over there and pop in), make sure to watch the Hong Kong Disneyland site and watch this video.

Things that really caught my eye on the video (for me at least) is the “Adventure Haunted Trail” where zombies and pumpkin men will be waiting for you (I wonder how scary they are going to make this) and “Demon Jungle”. “Demon Jungle” is another scary looking theme where you’ll meet… well… demons. Sounds scary for a Disney park, but to me it sounds like great fun…

(more…)

One who loves the Disney live might well be, or consider, living in Celebration. This town, not to far of Walt Disney World and created by Disney, might be the dream home for many Disney fans. Like every town expansion is something that happens once and a while, no difference for Celebration.

On the Celebration Blvd, there is one of those construction sites. On this new construction site, near LaRosa and the Medical Building, a new building is going to be the new Corporate Headquarters for the Disney Vacation Club. The contractor is Duke, who already worked on the Celebration Business Center.

Although our source is reliable, as far as we know there has been no known official word from Disney regarding this project yet. Any other information always welcome.

15 candles on the cake, or should we say on the castle. You could already see some pictures of the Castle with the decorations in a previous entry, but I still have to give you our trip report on the little celebration that take place in front of the castle.

Candleabration is the celebration taking place in front of the castle to celebrate 15 years of Disneyland Resort Paris. For the duration of this festivities the candles placed on the castle will be lit up… during day time!…

(more…)

Disneyland Resort Paris celebrates 15 years of magic and I had high hopes for some good collectibles. On my last trip, after I left the parks, I was a little unhappy about the missing merchandise. I was willing to part with some of my money, but there was really nothing new that catch my eye. Lucky enough (although my bank account might have other views on that) this time around I wasn’t disappointed!

Special 15 anniversary merchandise everywhere; and some of it was really great. Not only could I find enough to bring home, I even had to pass on some things for next time.

(more…)

With this first intro edition towards my trip report I wanted to let you all know that we have returned from our special Disneyland Resort Paris 15th Anniversary Celebration trip. I promise you some great stories (I do hope you will enjoy them) and a nice set of pictures and other information from the trip. I just needed to catch up with things on the home front, but I am sure I’ll be fully blogging again within a couple of days. (I think this was the longest period of time for me without being here on the blog)

So make sure to come back for the trip report and all the other Disney News, info and babbling from around the Disney globe. (I’ll have to catch up on a week of Disney News myself)

If you want to know more about Disneyland Resort Paris make sure to check the news pages of www.dlp.info too in the next couple of days as we brought back some resort news too…

Next: Disneyland Resort Paris 15th Anniversary Celebration trip report: Newport Bay Club

The Walt Disney Company has announced expansion plans for the Walt Disney World resort. Two new big projects will see the day of light. The first and biggest one will be the 900-acre location at the northeast border of the World, where Disney plans to convert Eagle Pines and Osprey Ridge golf courses into a luxury resort that will house the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, including a golf community.

The residents of Celebration have been informed with an official mail by Disney about these changes and the impact it would have on another project that was in development by the Celebration Company. There are plans of a new project “Island Village” that, if the mutual terms are met regarding the above project, will not see the day of light as it was intensely planned. No replacement plans for “Island Village” are on the table but the company is looking into alternatives and is inviting its key members, the home owners of Celebration, to give their input on the situation and to make sure the development of “Island Village” will be able to continue.

(more…)

That’s right! Happy New Year! Or at least if you’re at Hong Kong Disneyland you will have a happy New Year as they have started their Lunar New Year Celebration.

The Celebration starts today and will continue all the way up to 4th March. Mickey has brought some friends to celebrate with him; The Three Little Pigs! They are a key element in the celebration. But that is not all. Follow the link for more Piggy pictures and read the official Press release here on what there is to do during the festivities (including some great pictures of Disney collectables and Special foods).

For more information on the 15th Anniversary Celebration visit DLP.Info

One of my favorite places in Walt Disney World is Epcot. For some reason I always end up visiting this park the most or longest during a trip. (and yes, for those who have been reading the blog for a while, Illuminations might have to do something with it too). In October Epcot is turning 25 years young. I was looking forwards being there at the beginning of this celebration (My next trip is October 2007). I guessed with the 25th anniversary I might end up even more in the park…

But, Brad Rex, the Vice President of Epcot, told whole other stories to Deb Wills of All Ears Net;

… although 2007 marks Epcot’s 25th anniversary, there was no big celebration planned, although there would be private observances behind-the-scenes for cast members.

(more…)