Hi all,

Today sees the official launch of the Magic Moments Festival in Disneyland Paris. Of course over the last week or so we have already seen previews and soft openings of the shows, parade and new character locations, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway. I did tell you that f I came up with a picture of the pink princess tent that has appeared in Fantasyland, I would post it. And I have! The Disney and More Blog posted an article about the press weekend, and although most of the information is not new (I have talked about all of it over the last week), if you scroll down you will see two pictures of the temporary location (just there while they complete the new location at the old Small World exit area).

I found this video online of the Green Army Men meeting Guest in Toy Story Playland. They have made their regular meet and greet debut this week for the Magical Moments Festival. This week’s programme of entertainment can be found here on the DLP website, and as you can see, it is looking really great! A massive improvement over programmes of late! We look forward to seeing all the new offerings in June.

The admin of the Magic Forum were also at the press event last weekend, and they had a slightly different experience, as they got to go to a small questions and answers session with two of the resort’s top directors. I will let you read their article for yourselves, but I will say that there is nothing too surprising or amazing there – most of it we have heard before – but I wanted to pick up on three points. The first being that the Videopolis is going to get a new show next year, finally! There are no other details at present. The second point is related to the first, and that is regarding the absence of shows at Videopolis and the Lucky Nugget. It would appear the food department has quite a heavy say in what goes on in those restaurants, and sadly it is them that seem to veto the entertainment departments wishes to return shows to those theatres! This is really sad, and quite frustrating from a fan point of view! Why they do this is not known, but we only hope that one day someone else will become in charge of that aspect and will finally say yes to the entertainment department! The third point is that apparently they are working on bringing to life a new villain for Halloween this year! There are a lot of other things in this article, but I don’t want to just repeat it all, so be sure to check it out.

Over in Florida, there have been some minor changes to the entertainment programme at Hollywood Studios. As I already posted before, McQueen was due to leave for a refurb, and Mater to stay for now, but now it turns out from mid next month their location will close for its re-theme, and Mater will “roam” the park until leaving a few weeks later for his overhaul, too. McQueen leaves this Friday, the 8th, Mater is in the location until the 17th, and roaming from then until the 30th. Both will return with new bodywork and a Cars 2 themed background in June.

When McQueen returns for meets in June, he will also begin making appearances in the Motors Action Stunt Show, in a similar scene to that which was added this week in Disneyland Paris’s version.

The Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun parade’s route has been reversed. The parade now starts by Star Tours and ends at the front of the park.

Lotso will be leaving the Animation Building on 30th April, and Winnie the Pooh will start greeting his fans there from 16th May. This is actually an annoying change, as the Pooh characters are already very prominent in the parks. Pooh can already be met regularly in all four WDW theme parks, and so adding him to the Animation Building really does nothing at all. In the Studios he currently meets around the Big Hat, and who will replace him has not been announced, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on it being anyone exciting – if anyone at all!

Finally for the Studios, Phineas and Ferb are finally going to make their much anticipated debut near Mama Melrose’s starting 16th May. We have not heard anything about Agent P (Perry) yet. Hopefully he will be greeting Guests too!

Jumping across to the Magic Kingdom and it has been announced by the Disney Parks Blog that a brand new character from the new Pirates of the Caribbean 4 movie will start making appearances in the park! Angelica will be meeting Guests in Adventureland from 15th April in the spot where Pirate Goofy currently meets. Pirate Goofy will be leaving, and Goofy will return to Frontierland as he was before. We will actually be there for Angelica's first day, and so look out for live updates on our Facebook page (and hopefully here on the Blog) to see the first pictures of this brand new character!

Finally, I just want to say that I’m sorry for not posting the Character of the Week this week yet, I will endeavour to get it up tomorrow! With so much news out there this week it has been difficult to fit it in.

Ok, that’s all for now,

Dan.