Hi all,

Earlier this week the brand new Disney Cruise Line ship, the Disney Dream launched in spectacular Disney style, as I reported on earlier. Since then we have learned from the Orlando Sentinel that there is at least one new show on board title the Sail Away Party. There is also a new segment added to the Golden Mickeys show (also currently plays aboard one of the other ships) starring Rapunzel, Flynn Rider and none other than Mother Gothel! This is the first time the vain and self-obsessed step mother has appeared in character form, and we look forward to seeing her in the future! I don’t currently have any pictures of these things, but if I see any, I will be sure to post them here.

Speaking of Rapunzel, on the Hong Kong Disneyland website, they are stating that she is now making regular appearances there, although I am yet to see any pictures of this. When you go to the Events page, and click the Chinese New Year information they state that you can meet all yourfavourite pals in their Chinese New Year finest, and also meet Rapunzel. I have to say the outfits for the Fab 5 and friends look really neat, and when we eventually go to Hong Kong Disneyland I think Chinese New Year would certainly be a great time to go, with all the celebrations and cute outfits

Staying in Hong Kong, for their new celebration year for the 5th anniversary, Tinker Bell has also been making regular appearances for the first time, and can be found in Fantasyland. Tinker Bell can also be seen in their brand new parade, Flights of Fantasy, that I reported on earlier this week.

If I see any photos online of all the Hong Kong stuff, guess what? I’ll post them here!

On the Disney On Ice page on Facebook I saw that they held a special charity event, titled Princess Wishes for Sunshine Kids, in a park in New York, where children were able to skate on the rink with the characters and meet their favourite stars. Sadly as this was posted on Facebook I cannot repost pictures here, but as before, if I see any on the internet, I’ll post them here.

Moving over to California, and this weekend is the Kickin’ Country Weekend, part of the Family Fun Days that are currently happening over there. Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, Goofy, Chip and Dale have all been there in their western finest, along with two very special guests – Clara Cluck and Clarabelle Cow! This is a real treat for Disneyland visitors who frequently complain about the lack of any decent characters at the parks in California. Our good friend Loren, who you all know by now, will be there this weekend, and when he posts his pictures online, I will be sure to repost them here for you all to see.

Finally, we have been working hard to make many new changes and improvements to the site. The latest features include tagging here on the blog. You may now notice that under each blog article (on the article page, not one the blog list), there are tags. There is also a new side panel with the most popular tags on it that appears at the right hand side on any blog page. By clicking any of these tags (on the article or side panel), it will filter all the blog articles accordingly and show you the ones with that tag. Unfortunately we do not have the older blog articles tagged at present, and so it isn’t really reverse compatible right now – you can still use the search at the top of the page to find older articles. But going forward this will be a very useful feature.

There are other changes too, including the rarity scale that I mentioned in a previous article, and we have been working to ensure that all those are up to date. We have a few more features that are gradually becoming live on the site, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to explain those more fully as this blog is getting quite long now!

Later today I hope to post a special report by Loren about last weekend’s Fiesta Family Fun Day at Disneyland, so stay tuned for that one.

Ok, that’s all for now,

Dan.