Hello everyone!

May I take this opportunity to formally wish everyone a Happy New Year. We were in Disneyland Paris (I mean, where else WOULD we be?!), and so we could only Tweet and Facebook our New Year's greeting to everyone, so this is the first chance I have had on the Blog.

We had an amazing time as always in DLP, and those of you who follow our Facebook page may have seen our various updates about all the cool things they were doing for New Year.

Our pictures will be coming in due course; in fact later tonight I might just upload a select few to begin with and make an additional blog post here so that you can all see a selection of some of the neat things we did this trip.

We are now back of course though, and counting down, as always, to our next crazy adventure, which will be to WDW and our first Disney Cruise next month! Following the WDW trip we are also seeing the Phineas and Ferb Disney Live show. February will be quite the amazing month!

Following a pretty quiet December, there are a few small bits of news for this new year, so let's take a quick look.

In WDW, we have heard whispers that Princess Merida and Sophia the First will make appearances once the new Disney/PIXAR film 'Brave' has been released.

To make way for the removal of the gargantuan Central Plaza Stage at Disneyland Paris, the final performance of this years main Hub show, Mickey's Magical Celebration, will be on January 9th.

Also ending earlier than the official Magical Moments end date, are the Green Army Men Meet 'n' Play and the Disney Dance Express. Both of these will also end on January 9th.

Also ending early, but not until March 4th will be the parade's show stops, the Following the Leader with Peter Pan show and Rapunzel's meet 'n' greet location in Fantasyland. It is expected that Rapunzel will simply move into the new Princess Pavilion on a rotational basis, just like the rest of the princesses.

Character locations that will be staying that were added in 2011 will be the Alice and Mad Hatter area in Fantasyland, the Jungle Rhythms gazebo in Adventureland, and Aladdin's Magic Lamp (also in Adventureland). As far as we know the characters will still appear at these locations.

Now as for the parade itself, the Dreams of Imagination float (Mickey and Friends) will be removed for it's magical transformation also on January 9th, while the Dreams of Romance 2 float will be taken out for it's refurb from January 16th. Both will return in their new forms in time for the 20th Anniversary launch, on 1st April 2012. As we already know from a while back, Mickey and Friends will be put on the finale float and fairies and Merlin will now appear at the beginning. The princes and princesses displaced by Mickey and Friends taking over their float will either move to the Dreams of Romance 1 or be in new horse drawn carriages. We have a thread going on our Forum here, and if you scroll down, user Dragy recently posted a piece of artwork showing the new changes.

Over in California, Loren tells us that this weekend Disneyland will be celebrating Three Kings Day by featuring some cool characters in the park! Check out his Forum post about it here.

Loren also tells me that Disneyland continued it's tradition this year of having a mass ensemble of characters appear at park closing at Main Street Station on Christmas Eve. Ones that he tells me appeared include Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Max, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Chip n' Dale in their pyjamas and then there was Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, Eeyore, Mulan, Mushu, Pocahontas, Meeko, Cinderella, Prince Charming, Suzy, Perla, Fairy Godmother, Rapunzel, Flynn Rider, Belle, Beast, Snow White, Dopey, Woody, Jessie, Buzz Lightyear, Jane, Terk, Lilo and Stitch (in a Santa costume!), Alice, the Tweedles and the Queen of Hearts.

Finally, Character Central celebrated it's second birthday on January 1st, but of course we were away in DLP, so we missed being able to make a post about it. We just want to thank every single one of the 120,769 unique people that visited last year on at least 222,000 occasions! We really appreciate all your support and feedback. In the next few months up until April we are going to be working to make some awesome new additions and changes to the site. So stay tuned for those!

So, Happy New Year everyone, and Happy 2nd Birthday Character Central!

Dan.

Today, Monday 5th December 2011, would have been Walt Disney's 110th birthday. Not a completely impossible feat by today's standards (I know a lady who is 102).


 
But sadly Uncle Walt didn't stay with us that long, and left his legacy to his millions of fans world over to continue to enjoy "as long as there is imagination left in the world".



People often say things like "I wonder if Walt would have liked this?" or similar such statements. Fans often criticise the current state of the company, and some of the things that have been done in recent history. But we have to remember that ultimately Walt wanted one thing - for people to enjoy themselves.



Walt Disney was not a young man when he built Disneyland, in fact he was starting out in his theme park adventure when most people are considering retiring. Walt was young at heart, and just wanted to share his enthusiasm for all things magical with family, friends and fans across the world.



So when people say "would Walt have approved?", I think he probably would have. The five Resorts, Cruise Line, Stores and countless other offerings all aim to do one thing - to help make the magic real for people across the world.

And I think that is the best birthday gift of all for Walt. The knowledge that his legacy is felt across the globe, and not that one park might be better than another.



Happy Birthday Walt, here's to many more years of making dreams come true across the world.



From your biggest fans, Dan and Jon.