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Hello everyone,
Today, 5th September, is Pluto's 85th birthday! First appearing in the Mickey Mouse short "The Chain Gang" in 1930, Pluto was first seen tracking Mickey down after he escaped from prison! Since then though, Pluto has become Mickey's faithful companion and one of his best friends.
Today is also the 88th birthday of [ Read More... ] |
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 | Happy 87th Birthday Oswald the Lucky Rabbit! | |
| DisneyDan
Friday, September 5, 2014 6:45:02 AM |
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Hello everyone,
Today, 5th September, is the 87th anniversary of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit's debut in the United States.
As we all know, sadly, Oswald was lost by Disney for many years due to an unfortunate set of circumstances. However, he was returned to the Walt Disney Company in 2006 thanks to Bob Iger, and has since found his permanent home at Tokyo DisneySea's American Waterfront. In nine days time Oswald will finally come home to the US when he makes his first ever greeting debut at Walt Disney's original Disneyland Resort, on Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure. Buena Vista Street is the perfect place for Oswald, as it is a monumental tribute to the early days of Walt Disney's career and his arrival in Hollywood.
We can't wait to meet Oswald on Buena Vista Street, but we have met him in Tokyo, and so I want to share some of our pictures from our trip there in May (below). You can check out our dedicated Oswald the Lucky page that has many more pictures, here.
Happy Birthday Oswald!
Dan.
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Hello everyone,
Sorry for the lack of news updates lately. I, as always, have been quite busy with normal life. Anyway, there are a number of things I want to talk about that have come up in the last couple of weeks.
We'll start with Tokyo Disney Resort, and work our way around the world.
From 24th June until 7th July at Tokyo Disney Resort, you can celebrate the magic of Disney Tanabata Days, also known as the Star Festival.
At Tokyo DisneySea you can meet ShellieMay and Duffy in their special Disney Tanabata Days costumes at Cape Cod's Village Greeting Place in American Waterfront. You can also see Mickey and friends in a very special show on Mediterranean Harbor, three times per day (10.45am, 1pm and 4.30pm) wearing their special Star Festival costumes.
At Tokyo Disneyland there is a special parade each day at 11.20am and 4.15pm, featuring your favourite Disney friends wearing yet more beautifully crafted costumes.
At both parks guests will be given the opportunity to make a wish on special cards, and tie them to specially dedicated "Wishing Places" in the parks.
After the Disney Tanabata Days end, summer season arrives at the resort, and so does the water! Jon and I have been to Tokyo Disney Resort in the summer before, and I must warn you - prepare to get wet!
At Tokyo DisneySea's Summer Festival, Minnie's Tropical Splash is described as being a "carnival celebrating the bountiful harvest of fruit" and where "hot Latin rhythms begin to throb as colourful fruit themed barges appear on the Harbor". The TDR website then goes on to describe the "torrent of water" that then sprays from the barges and the shore! Characters appearing in the show - and in new costumes this year too - are Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Clarice. The show will be presented three times daily and lasts about 20 minutes.
At Tokyo Disneyland's Natsu Matsuri event, "hot and lively dances" are the thing at the Castle Stage, during Garyo Gunbu. Team Miyabi Kenran starring Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Max and Pluto compete against Team Ryobu Shippu's Donald, Daisy, Chip, Dale and Clarice in a water filled dance battle! We've seen these water canons in action, and trust me when I say, if you don't want to get wet, avoid Central Plaza during your visit!
The show will be presented three times per day and lasts about 13 minutes.
The other show at Castle Stage will be Ondo-Ko-Don! which will be presented once per day, morning only, lasting 11 minutes. It will feature Mickey, Minnie, Donald and "others" in a special performance of a Japanese dance called the "ondo".
At both Tokyo DisneySea and Tokyo Disneyland there will be special merchandise, decorations and menu items to accompany these events.
Summer season at both parks runs from 8th July through 31st August inclusive.
We have a discussion topic about the summer fun, here on our forum.
A week later on the 7th September, the long running Legend of Mythica will end. If you're visiting before then, be sure to see this jaw dropping show before it goes away forever!
After the summer, we come to Halloween. At Tokyo DisneySea, the park will be filled with Disney Skeletons! In American Waterfront you can join the skeletons as well as the Disney characters in special costumes for their brand new show "New York's Halloween Follies". At Mediterranean Harbor you can join skeletons for "Welcome Skeleton Friends" in a participation show as they try to make new friends. In the Lost River Delta you can watch Chip 'n' Dale's Skeleton Fiesta, and finally "Street Party of the Skeleton" will be carried out in multiple areas of the park, where skeletons will dance and play around, interacting with guests and greeting them.
At Tokyo Disneyland, from what I can make out from the Japanese release, the Happy Halloween Harvest parade will return with the theme of a Halloween fair.
As with every event in Japan, there will be decorations, merchandise and food involved, too! Halloween at Tokyo Disney Resort runs from 8th September until 31st October inclusive.
Don't forget that throughout the year you can enjoy the brand new nightly spectacular at Cinderella Castle, Once Upon a Time. You can read my review of it from opening week, last month, here.
Additionally, remember that Oswald the Lucky Rabbit made his Disney Parks debut just about 8 weeks ago at Tokyo DisneySea's American Waterfront! He is super cute and gives you yet another reason to visit this summer - as if you needed ay more excuses, right?! You can check out my blog post about meeting Oswald for the first time, here, and our dedicated Oswald page, here.
Finally for Tokyo, member Ryo on our forum posted that OLC have announced some new changes to Dreamlights in 2015, including the addition of Rapunzel and an update to Peter Pan's float! I can't seem to find the actual OLC release for this, as it's probably entirely in Japanese, but if I do, I'll link it here.
Ok, moving on to Walt Disney World now, and the Disney Parks Blog released a short list of some of the characters we can expect at the Unleash the Villains event on 23rd August this year. This is the only official list posted so far, but rumours have been flying around the internet of all sorts of rare appearances! None of the characters on the current list come as any great surprise, so it'll be interesting to see who else they put into the mix. We have a discussion topic about the event here on our forum, so join us in the speculation!
The new Harambe Theater District opened in Animal Kingdom just recently, and is now the new home to the Festival of the Lion King, after a short hiatus when it closed in Camp Minnie-Mickey. Not too much to report here, but people seem to like the new location and the show remains as popular as ever. I'm glad that Timon and friends have now moved back to their native Africa after spending the past ten years in an American Summer Camp!
Finally for WDW, our friends on our forum noticed that when visiting the Magic Kingdom recently, Winnie the Pooh has decided to sport a slightly different expression! Check out this discussion thread to see how he looks now when greeting at the Crystal Palace.
Jumping across the continent to Disneyland in California, and summer has kicked off with a special Frozen pre-parade at Disneyland Park. You can check out this video of it from Inside the Magic here, and discuss it here on our forum.
Also at Disneyland, Merida has now stopped meeting at her location near "it's a small world", and has been moved to inside the Royal Hall, where I guess her appearances will be more random (switching with her royal friends). In other princess news, Anna and Elsa's greeting times have apparently been extended, and they now meet until 8pm daily.
Flying across the Atlantic to Disneyland Paris, the press preview of the brand new Ratatouille attraction and restaurant happens this weekend. The restaurant is believed to be character dining (based on concept art and even one lady on the reservation line at Disneyland Paris), but is yet to actually be confirmed - we shall find out in the next day or two for sure! Rumours have been circulating for quite some time now, and have additionally strongly suggested that Linguini will appear in the new area (not inside the restaurant)! I'll let you know of any developments on those rumours as the weekend progresses. Jon and I have reservations for Chez Remy in August, and cannot wait to see the new land! You can join our discussion topic about Chez Remy (the new restaurant), here on our forum.
Staying in France, and DisneylandBerry on Twitter (who is often very reliable) has suggested that long running show Animagique will close at some point in 2015. As much as I love this show, it would be great if they put in a brand new show, since this once has been here for over 10 years now! Disneyland Paris are notoriously bad at announcing anything, so we won't know if this is actually true for quite some time yet, I would imagine. Our members are discussing this topic here on our forum.
Finally for Disneyland Paris, InsideDLParis revealed that from 5th July this year Disney's Stars 'n' Cars parade would end. The meet 'n' greets that currently take place using the same characters and cars would be extended to include more set times, and 4 of the current cars would be used to transport the characters on and off set from the greetings. InsideDLParis also revealed that the Incredibles would return to the park for the summer near the new Spider-Man location.
To our final topic today, Iron Man. Our good friend DisneyMart discovered something interesting yesterday, while randomly poking around the Disney Consumer Products website. The recent Disney Consumer Products at Licensing Expo 2014 featured Iron Man as a character, alongside Mickey Mouse, Stormtroopers and Buzz Lightyear! What's interesting is that his appearance has been kept so quiet. He did appear at D23 last year, but since then fans have discovered that the Marvel characters at the event were not wearing their official Disney outfits, meaning that Iron Man and Spider-Man were not appearing as they will at the Disney Parks. I have no idea if this is the case for this most recent appearance, and it could be why Disney have kept hush about it, not wanting people to believe they have already developed Tony Stark's new outfit for him, but instead using an older outside design of his!
Finally, although it was a couple of weeks ago now, why not check out my previous news post to read about the Frozen Disney On Ice show and Hong Kong Disneyland's new nighttime parade!
Ok, that is everything for today! Have a great weekend everyone,
Dan.
To read my May 2014 review of Tokyo Disneyland's Crystal Palace Character Dining, click here.
To read my May 2014 review of Tokyo Disneyland's Mickey and Company Dinner Show, click here.
To read my May 2014 review of Tokyo Disneyland's Mickey and Minnie's Polynesian Paradise Dinner Show, click here.
To read my May 2014 review of Tokyo Disney Resort's Chef Mickey Character Dining, click here.
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Hello everyone,
As many of you are aware, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit made his grand debut at Tokyo DisneySea last month - the first time he has ever greeted fans at a Disney park.
We were there this past week and managed to meet him three times! His greeting area is behind the Cape Cod Cook-Off restaurant in American Waterfront, and has a nice little set up with the idea being that he's on a farm selling eggs.
Oswald looks absolutely amazing, and is a real pleasure to see and meet. He has some really funny movements and gestures that hark back to the early days of hand drawn animation which really gives him a distinctive personality and appeal.
Oswald does sign autographs, in case you were wondering.
It should be noted that Tokyo Disney Resort strictly enforce a "one photo per family" rule for all set greeting locations. This means that you will only be able to get one photo of Oswald with your own camera, whether that be you taking a photo of them, or you being in the photo.
However, there is a slight quirk to this rule. If you purchase their PhotoPass photo then you can take your own photo (still only one), and they will take your photo, which then you can purchase later.
So, if you want a picture of Oswald and with him too, then take your own and ask to be in theirs. Their PhotoPass pictures are actually very good. They aren't as expensive as you'd imagine, and come in excellent commemorative folders complete with stickers.
While we were there the wait time for Oswald was very short. Early morning it was always less than twenty minutes, and later in the day I never saw the line surpass seventy minutes, with sixty being the most often time.
Oswald is cute, fun and an honour to finally meet, having waited for so long for him to be brought into the magical worlds of the Disney parks.
I'll leave you with a few more photos of our greetings with Oswald.
Dan. |
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Hello everyone,
Today we finally have official confirmation from Tokyo Disney Resort that Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who had been rumoured to start appearing for some time, will appear from the 2nd April at Tokyo DisneySea's Cape Cod area! This will be the first time ever that Walt Disney's original cartoon star will appear at a Disney Park, and hopefully paves the way for him to make future appearances around the world!
It is not known if he will remain after their spring festivities end, as at the moment he is only listed under the spring pages of the Japanese language website. We can only hope he will remain!
Other offerings this spring at Tokyo Disney Resort include a brand new Easter parade at Tokyo Disneyland, Mickey and Duffy's Spring Voyage at DisneySea which features three separate shows around the park's ports, and greetings with Duffy who will be wearing a special outfit.
Over in WDW, the Disney Parks Blog today announced that Anna and Elsa would be leaving Norway at EPCOT and moving to the Princess Fairytale Hall at the Magic Kingdom from 20th April. FastPass+ is expected to be available. Cinderella and Rapunzel should still be available in one room, but Anna and Elsa will be replacing Aurora and Snow White in the other. The Parks Blog have said that Anna and Elsa would only be greeting during the day, and in the evening other princesses shall visit, meaning that hopefully Snow White and Aurora will still be greeting at some point during any given day.
Finally, Disneyland Paris last week celebrated their annual Welsh St. David's Day festival, and this coming Monday (17th) will be celebrating the Irish St. Patrick's Day. The schedule of events will include character greetings with Mickey and Minnie in special Irish costumes, lucky (and rather mischievous!) Leprechauns roaming around Frontierland, a small dance show featuring Chip 'n' Dale in their Irish finest, and a pre-parade featuring the Disney characters in their special Irish clothes. The day will be topped off with special St. Patrick's Day fireworks over Disneyland Park.
Have a great weekend everyone,
Dan. |
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Hi all,
Today has seen more character news emerge, in what has been quite an eventful week so far!
The ever reliable drew81 on the wdwmagic forum posted saying that when SpectroMagic returns to the Magic Kingdom (still no idea as to when though), new characters will be added including possibly Oswald the Lucky Rabbit! Apparently the float will change colours from black to white, although how successful this will be for a night parade (black?) is yet to be seen! All the same, Oswald will be a fantastic addition, and one which the character fan community will welcome with open arms, I am sure! There is no other mention of the other new characters yet. [ Read More... ] |
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