Hi all,
This week sees some character changes over at Walt Disney World in Florida.
Previously I had reported on the rumours that the Fairies, once evicted from Pixie Hollow, would appear at Epcot for Flower and Garden Festival. This seemed to be what all the blogs were reporting, until yesterday when wdwmagic.com reported that the Fairies would make an instant transition over from Toontown when it closes on February 11th, to Epcot on February 12th to begin meeting.
This of course makes much more sense, and allows Guests to continue to meet the Fairies while their home gets demolished and rebuilt in the new Fantasyland expansion.
They are to appear near Mouse Gear in Future World.
Similarly, wdwmagic also report that when Toontown closes and Mickey and the Princesses are evicted, they will be relocated elsewhere in the Magic Kingdom. Mickey and Minnie were due to start appearing in Expo Hall on Main Street, which has been undergoing renovation for some time now. But it would appear that they are now going to start appearing in Tomorrowland instead, over by Space Mountain! Whether this will be a long term thing, or just until Expo Hall is (finally) completed, the article does not say. I guess we’ll wait and see. As for the Princesses, they will be moving to the much underused Adventureland Veranda until the new Fantasyland expansion is done.
We also hear from contacts that Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper have been meeting over by Star Tours in Hollywood Studios recently. Maybe they are trying to compete with DLP’s recent random return of Darth and Chewy over there?... For how long this will be for we are not sure. When we know more, I’ll of course post here. Speaking of Star Wars, the Disney Parks Blog literally just announced the Star Wars Weekends dates for this year. Filled with all your favourite heroes and villains from the films, Star Wars Weekends are something Jon and I are keen to return to at some point. Find out all about this year, here on the Parks Blog.
Lastly for Florida, and again at the Studios, Jim Hill Media reports that the Countdown to Fun! Parade that is a reworked version of the former Block Party Bash has not been getting very good feedback from Guests and even Tom Staggs himself is said to have been less than impressed when he went to see it recently. Apparently they are to add some more characters, such as Mr Potato Head, and when Cars 2 is released, have a Cars pre-parade.
Finally we move over to Disneyland Paris. I noticed today that this week’s park schedules no longer lists Tiana and Naveen in Town Square, nor the Cottonwood Creek Roundup Village. I’m not sure why Tiana and Naveen seem to have been removed, but the Creek could be due to a number of reasons including it being a seriously off peak week (which it is), they could be refurbishing (but it’s not listed on the refurb list), or they could have just forgot. We shall see what happens on next week’s schedule, and when Jon and I are there the week after we’ll of course be hunting all the characters, and so will be able to see then what they are doing, and why these things have changed. Maybe these things are still open and haven’t been removed, but just not listed – but I have no idea why.
Ok that’s all for now,
Dan.