Mousekingdom Blog

It might confuse some of the younger guests when they see Asterix and Obelix appear in a Disney park but it happened in Disneyland Paris. Two members of a group called “Mafia Du Rire (Mafia of Laughter) dressed up as the two characters and started to disturb the Once Upon A Time Parade. If people wanted to see Asterix and Obelix they would drive to Parc Asterix, about 45 minutes from Disneyland Paris. I am sure it’s not something Disney guests want to see. Especially those who only visit once and get an unintended alternate parade.

As you can imagine, this is not something I support and I was even thinking about not adding anything in the blog about it. At the end of the day, by adding it to the blog, I am making some advertisement for their hoax and might give them some extra traffic to their website, youtube video or group. Therefore I will not embed the video, but you can still see it here (if you want)

So what do you, as Disney fans, think about these actions. I just hope they got into trouble with it as security did caught them… Oh and please, no copycats! It’s not funny…

Via DLP.info Forum

Remember the Sofia Coppola movie “Lost in Translation”? The one where a beautifull Scarlet Johanson meets Bill Murray in Tokyo? Well, then you might also remember the scene in a Karaoke bar, where Japanese men are  singing Punk Jap songs jumping around while Bill Morray looks on with a face that clearly states ”what am I doing here”? Kind of the same happened to me today!

You see I am touring my Asian partners / offices and am currently in Singapore, ready to head to Hong Kong tommorrow night – guess where I am going to stay - before traveling on to Osaka (with side tour to USJ) and finally Tokyo (with 3 nights in TDR). Anyway, back to the story. My Singapore partner took me for a drink (“tea please”) after work – hic choice: a Karaoke bar … full of Asian guys singing Karaoke songs in Mali, Chinese etc. But where is the Disney connection you are now wondering? Read on after the break for that!

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Disneyland Resort Paris new Star’n'Cars will be the new parade for the Walt Disney Studios. The cars from the parade come from Disney Hollywood Studios’ Disney Star and Motor Cars parade. The new Walt Disney Studios Parade however will not last very long as the cars will return back to Walt Disney World next season. They will be used for the new morning parade in Disney’s Hollywood Studios as from next season leaving the Paris Studios without a parade again. There is no information on why this decision has been made. (More on DLP.info)

The new Celebrate! A Street Party will debut this Friday (27 March) to the general public in Disneyland. Not your regular parade but an interactive street show with 99 performers, including dancers, stilt-walkers, DJ’s and of course your beloved Disney characters.

Visit the LA Times for a preview of the street show from the last rehearsal that took place at 3am in an empty Disneyland.

Picture Copyrights Disney

A new Disneyland Resort Paris website has gone live to celebrate “Mickey’s Magical Party” that will kick of as from April 4th. On the site you’ll find your normal Disney information like the Magical Surprises kids under 12 free deals and a calendar with the newest Disney attraction presentation. Info on the new “Star ‘n’ Cars” parade, “Playhouse Disney”, “Dance Time in Discoveryland” with Stitch as the DJ, “It’s party time with Mickey and Friends”, and the “Minnie Party Train”. The party train will be another Dumbo train repaint, this time looking like Minnie.

There is also a little bit of fun on the site; a Toonificator! Upload a picture of yourself, or use your webcam, and change into a Toon. Once you have your Toon, you can save it and visit the site whenever you want to go and find your Toon.

Picture from Disney Magical Party Website; copyrights Disney.

The meeting was over and I was ready to have some fun. Together with J°o°el, I walked over to Disneyland Park to enjoy the rest of the day.

Entering the park we could already see that it wasn’t going to be to busy. We walked along MainStreet towards the attraction time board to find out Phantom Manor is closed. It has been for a while, as they are doing some work on it, but I will miss it on this trip. So no Phantom Manor, but enough other rides and attractions to enjoy. However before starting our trip around the park we went to Blue Lagoon for lunch. There was no waiting time, a table was available straight away. I love the Blue Lagoon, but this time I couldn’t enjoy it to much. The Shrimp starter was fine but the chicken Dish wasn’t really warm and the rice a little dried out. Also the cream brulee couldn’t please me. It wasn’t totally bad, but I am used to get better food from that place. After leaving the restaurant we started a walk around the park. From Adventureland to Frontierland, passing over the central hub towards Discoveryland to end in Fantasyland. Why a trip and no rides (yet?). Well, the park is more then rides and a wander around the park to enjoy the atmosphere and to see all the changes and work (a lot of work) that is being done is part of the fun.

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strange blog title hey?

Well it kind of struck me today whilst waiting for reflections of earth; WDW has changed so much since my last visit!

You see in june a dear old friend (the above mentioned Colin) came back to visit DLRP after working for 12 months at the rose & crown in Epcot.
He said “its amazing how little this park has changed in 18 months”!
What?
Paris got toon studios, the tower, the character express, candelabration and an incredible new parade!

Well today in WDW i was thinking that since my last visit in september 2006 WDW got so much new stuff, the nemo ride (big improvement), the musical (tip my hat), the new haunted mansion (amazing), refurbed spaceship earth (good but the ending all in screen is terrible), the dream castle show and a certain midway mania!

Ehm

Ok Colin … You win!

Mickey’s Waterworks is the new parade for Hong Kong Disneyland. As it might be a little far to go too and visit the park for the moment (at least for me it is) I’ll try to catch some of the magic on the web.

On YouTube 2 videos have appeared from the new parade; looks like fun… and a little wet too.

You can find the videos here; (Version 1 and Version 2) (via Screamscape)

Did you notice that I didn’t talk about any rides so far on this trip report? I said it before and I’ll say it again; it is not all about rides, a Disney park is so much more. Sure we did rides! It is always fun to do Big Thunder Mountain a couple of times, Phantom Manor is a must do (being my favorite ride experience) and getting 739000 points on Buzz did add to the fun. But there is so much more. Even my 7 year old son doesn’t mind exploring the other things Disney has to offer besides rides. I think this was a trip where he did less rides then he ever did in any previous visit, still never was he bored once!

With the celebration being the main interest of this trip we got our attention to the Parade, and made sure that we visited each and every shop to see all the new 15th anniversary stuff. Also some good dinner arrangements and visiting some shows (like the Lion King and another visit to see the awesome stunt show) took over most of the time we spend in Disneyland Resort Paris this time around.

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The new “Once Upon a Dream Parade” was very high on my list on things to see on this trip. It was new, especially created for the 15th anniversary of Disneyland Resort Paris. With the artwork already showing how nice it was going to be I had high hopes…

We took a good space at the hub with a view towards the castle about 1 hour before the parade would pass by. Once I saw Mickey and Minnie appearing I was very excited. The music blasted out the speakers, the floats where getting closer and I was thrilled with the thought I would get to witness the new parade.

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While posting on the blog I already mentioned in the past that the Cast Members are the hart of the Disney Parks. The same for the Disneyland Resort Paris Cast Members can be said. I have some great memories of all my visits and many of those could only have been created with the help of the Cast Members.

Celebrating 15 years of the park cannot be done without celebrating those Cast Members that have dedicated 15 years of their life to Disneyland. Before the public was invited to see the new “Once Upon a Dream Parade” Cast Members who worked for the mouse for 15+ years paraded down the parade route.

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Well, I didn’t really finish my last trip report (I promised some final thoughts) but I’ll make it up with some babbling about the Shareholders meeting at Disneyland Resort Paris that I attended on the 21st of February. For obvious reasons most shareholders are there to see how the company is doing, for me it is yet another reason to go to a Disney theme Park (in this case Disneyland Resort Paris). It’s not that I am not interested in the financial park, I am interested in it. I want to know and I want the park to make a profit so we get more magic in the future. While still not making profit (yet) the road is being set into the good direction. The management team is giving a %110 in turning this company around into a profitable one. While they did come up with some good numbers (revenue up, hotel occupancy up, 500.000 more visitors this year and a first quarter showing a %6 growth already) the question remains when they will be able to do so… (and at what cost)

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In a survey done by Careerbuilder.com 57% of the people said “it would be fun to work in Walt Disney World”. To give these people a chance they added a little “Disney Dream Job” contest.

If you would like to have a dream job as “Disney Pirate, Princess-in-Waiting, Jungle Cruise Skipper, Haunted Mansion Butler or Maid, or a Parade Performer” then you should visit the Careerbuilder website and send in your application.

Good luck, future Cast Members!

This will be the first entry of our (My 7 year old son Jarod, my Wife Gilly and myself) New Years Trip Report to Disneyland Resort Paris. Just like my previous (and hopefully many future) reports I will keep them short and fun. Highlights of what happened, what we’ve done and what we’ve experienced on this trip. So, let’s get on with it!

It was 1 day before New Years Eve and we entered the park very, very early, somewhere around 08:15 when we entered with our Dream passes, a good 45 minutes before regular opening time. Straight to Fantasyland where we had to wait a little while before we could ride Dumbo and Peter Pan without any queue lines. I can’t say it enough; Staying 3 days or longer, then the annual Dream pass is a must have.

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