Mousekingdom Blog

Tokyo DisneySea will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a new show ”Fantasmic”. This is now confirmed by the Oriental Land Co., Ltd. The new show will premiere in April 2011 to kick of the celebration of DisneySea’s anniversary, which is on September 4th.

The picture already promises that the show will be spectacular. Looking at the brooms walking up the mountain, one can already start dreaming on how Disney will make this work. Knowing Disney, I am very confident it will look amazing. The show will take place at night in Mediterranean Harbor and will feature Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The show will have scenes from Aladdin, Cinderella and Finding Nemo incorporated. A big battle between Mickey and a gigantic dragon will be the highlight of the show.

The new “Fantasmic” show will replace the BraviSEAmo show that is currently running.

The official announcement can be found here.

Picture copyrights Disney

So it seems the beans have been spilled, the cat is out of the bag, the dice has been rolled and the heads have been cut; Bob Weiss will be the Walt Disney Imagineering head for Shangai Disneyland – it was a head to head battle between him and Scott Trowbridge (the guy which gave us IOA’s Spiderman ride who had joined WDI in 2007) and Bob won.

Who is Bob Weiss?
Well he is a WDI old timer; he headed, together with the Kirk brothers (the guys who gave us the amazing “Tokyo DisneySEA” much of the initial design for the original “Disney MGM Studios Theme Park2 in 1989.

Then he had a period of “bizare luck”
The guy was first called upon to design (again together with the Kirk’s) the never built “Disney MGM Studios Europe Themepark” which would have been the original second gate for EuroDisneyland.

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2008 has not been the best year for the theme park around the world. Parks have seen their attendance and guest spending drop. The 2008 Attraction Attendance Report from TEA ERA shows a clear picture on 2008 and it’s, mainly losses of guests for some of the big names in the business.

In the 2008 top 20 of highest attendance in Theme Parks of North America you have the Magic Kingdom on top again. It closed the year with 17,063,000 visitors. They should be happy about that, even if that number is no improvement from last year, during these dark times of recession that isn’t the worst result. On the second place we find Disneyland with 14,721,000 visitors, a drop of 1% from the previous year. Epcot, just like the Magic Kingdom, also didn’t loose or gained any more visitors then the previous year, with a count of 10,935,000 visitors. Epcot got third place.

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It would be a dream of many Disney fans; Having one of the Disney parks opened just for yourself (and you family). During the 25th anniversary of Tokyo Disneyland one family was lucky enough to be picked out of 1609 families who all submitted applications to be able to visit the park privately. Not even Michael Jackson had the whole park to himself when he visited…

In 1987, when singer Michael Jackson visited the park, people were barred from entering some facilities. But the anniversary event was the first time that the entire facility at Tokyo DisneySea or Tokyo Disneyland was reserved for only one family or individual… (Yomiuri)

Most people who know me are used to my Disney rants, and those people that don’t know me get acquainted with it soon enough. Even when I go to a job interview, before the interview is over, somehow Disney “talk” is in it. One thing that comes up a lot in my Disney conversation is my love for the parks and how I want to visit all of them. Sometimes you’ll get a “really” or “sounds interesting” or even a “nice” (and my son things it would be “awesome”), but a lot of the time people look at me in disbelieve. But there are those people who not only love the idea, but have already fulfilled this dream.

Visiting every Disney theme park in the world may seem like an odd life goal for a child-free 30-something, but a wise person once said “for those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who don’t, none will do.” (The Salt Lake Tribute)

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As already mentioned on DLP.Info it’s only a rumor picked up from a CNBC article about the new Toy Story Mania ride, but Ratatouille mentioned to be the next Paris ride does sound exciting. If this will be the next Disney ride, Disney might well be back on track on bringing us exclusive rides for each Disney Park.

Lately we have seen clones pop up from rides already out there (Soarin for Walt Disney World, Buzz Lightyear made its way into Paris, Tower of Terror concurred all resorts, etc) and with (old or new) rumor suggesting even more clones (Crush’s Coaster clones for the US, more Soarin for Paris, etc), future Disney cloned rides are expected. But with Expedition Everest, Crush’s Coaster (not cloned yet), Mission Space or even whole new park concepts like Tokyo’s DisneySea, Disney proofed again and again that putting out something new and never been done before is a guarantied success. Although the clones do bring success (like the Tower does everywhere), it is nice to see that Disney still takes the road of innovative new attractions.

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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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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)

The Tokyo Disney Resort has been very successful in Japan; high attendance for the resort and Disneysea being an Imagineering success are proof of that. Oriental Land Company is the owner of the parks (paying royalties to Disney) and they are the once responsible for the success. Now they are looking into the possibility to add a third gate in Japan.

Although one might expect a third gate to open near the existing resort rumors indicate it might be located somewhere else. The Oriental Land Company is looking at one possible area in Southern Honshu. There is no indication how far away from the main park the new gate would be located. One thing is for sure; with the amazing DisneySea the imagineers have a very high standard to go for, this promising a superb looking third gate for the future. But remember, this is a first rumor and nothing is for sure as long as Disney and the Oriental Land Company don’t give out an official announcement.

source; Screamscape. Copyrights Picture; Map-of-Japan.org

It will be no surprise to anybody that the Disney parks are doing very well and are well present in the top 25 Theme Park Attendance Report. The list is from all parks in the world.

1 Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World – 16,640,000 – up 3.0%
2 Disneyland – 14,730,000 – up 1.2%
3 Tokyo Disneyland – 12,900,000
4 Tokyo DisneySea – 12,100,000
5 Disneyland Paris – 10,600,000
6 Epcot – 10,460,000 – up 5.5%
7 Disney-MGM Studios – 9,100,000 – up 5.0%
8 Disney’s Animal Kingdom – 8,910,000 up 8.6%
13 Disney’s California Adventure – 5,950,000 – up 2.1%
18 Hong Kong Disneyland – 5,200,000

The Walt Disney Studios in Paris didn’t make it on the list with 2,200,000 visitors. I wonder if this will change once the Toon Studios and Tower of Terror will open.

The Disney Water Parks are doing well too. Typhoon Lagoon is on the first place (yeah) with 2,050,000 visitors, up 6.6% and Blizzard beach comes in second with 1,880,000 visitors, up 5.4%

For the full report see the Theme Park Attendance Report (big pdf file)

The Tokyo Disney Resort has lost some of its sponsors…

Just recently, the resort lost a daisy chain of lucrative contracts with Nissan Motor Co., Takara-Tomy, Morinaga, Nihon Suisan, Nihon Hills and Colgate when agreements it had with these top firms all reached their end at the same time.

But the Oriental Land Co., operator of the Tokyo Disney Resort, isn’t too worried about it, even with a potential loss of 2 billion yen in revenue a year if no new sponsor contracts would be signed for two of the bigger attractions; Splash Mountain and the Western River Railroad…

“We see the current situation as nothing more than a coincidence that all the contracts ended at around the same time, Visitor numbers for the first half of this year were 3.3 percent up on the same period for the previous year, so we think things are now moving in the right direction.” (Source: Mainichi-msn.co.jp)

(Picture from Chris’s Tokyo Disney Resort Fan Site)

If you would like to see some of the Happiest Celebration on Earth prizes and what they are word head over to the Orlando Sentinal blog Dream Giveaways entry to see a value list.

Membership in the Disney Vacation Club (time-share condominium lease) – $83,701
Grand Marshal World Tour: 15-day tour of Disney’s 11 theme parks from Hong Kong to Paris – $45,370
Adventure By Disney: Viva Italia vacation with 9 days in Disney-affiliated resorts in Italy – $25,600
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The combined value of all the prices is worth $17.4 million. Here you can see the previous blog entry with the full list (without Value) off all the prizes.

There is a list on Mousesavers.com of all the prizes that are part of the “Happiest Celebration on Earth” event and even as we already knew some of them (like the world trip) the list is very impressive.

3 Grand Marshal World Tours (15-day/14-night trip for 4 people, visiting Disneyland® Park, Disney’s California Adventure® Park, Magic Kingdom® Park, Epcot®, Disney-MGM Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom® Theme Park, Disneyland® Resort Paris, Walt Disney Studios® Paris, Tokyo Disneyland® Resort, Tokyo Disney Sea® Park, and Hong Kong Disneyland® Resort).

The idea of winning the prize to visit all parks in a world trip sound totally awesome to me. I have been dreaming of doing this myself, but now Disney is making sure 3 parties of 4 people will have the honors of experience this amazing dream prize.

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If you want to have a look at the Tower Of Terror that will open at DisneySea on the 4th September check out this awesome on-ride preview video from Joe’s Tokyo Disney Resort Photo Site. While the fairly big file is loading you can check the big collection of pictures already gathered and shared on the site. From Concept art to a collection of close ups from around the ride.

Once the 16+ minutes movie start you will get to see a lot of Cast Members in and around the attraction, a fun Pre-Show where the window changes and tells part of the story, an awesome looking queue area, an elevator (really?), ghosts and freefalls with a lot of screams. After the ride you’re invited into the shop before exiting the beautiful building. It is well worth seeing this video if you’re a Tower of Terror fan, and if you’re not a fan… it is still worth seeing it. Enjoy

Tokyo DisneySea is celebrating its 5th anniversary this year, so fans can expect a lot of events and goodies, afterall the resort even celebrated the prior birthdays with small scale events and special limited merchandise (and I am NOT talking about pins here). While the official anniversary isn’t till September 7, celebrations are to commence already on July 7 in time for the summer season. The blog already featured posts about some of the offerings for the celebrations as two name only three: the new day time extravaganza “The Legend of Mythica” replacing the “Porto Paradiso Water Carnival”, the new show “Over the Waves” at the Dockside Stage and certainly their Tower of Terror opening this fall.

But now there is something new – and it is available online: the official THEME SONG for the 5th anniversary and the according video!! (more…)