Wednesday, 15th June 2011

Disney Fashion store in the Village is finally… fashionable!

Disney Fashion store

You could have been entirely forgiven for thinking, up until now, that the Disney Fashion store in Disney Village was something of an afterthought — because it was. Originally known as Team Mickey, stocking Disney-branded sports gear, it continued to amble along with that name even after the sports items had long been phased out in favour of general clothing. Eventually given a rebrand in 2007, its interior was functional and uninspiring, like a dull factory outlet shop. But now, after briefly closing for a complete restyling, the store has been transformed — it’s finally fashionable! Less factory shop more quirky boutique, products are laid out in busy themed areas filled with colourful furniture and eclectic props, with as few dull racks as possible. Yes, very trendy — or should that be “Tren-D”? It’s looking very much like the TrenD store in Orlando’s Downtown Disney, which is a nice surprise indeed.

As we’ve discussed before, the opening of the all-encompassing World of Disney next year negates the need for several of the original Disney Village stores along this side of the street, offering an opportunity for a much-needed revitalisation. The generic (and tired) Disney Store is an obvious one to be replaced with something new, whilst Disney Fashion probably seemed the safest — and this seems to confirm it. For the remaining Hollywood Pictures and World of Toys next door, it would be nice if Paris could look to other concepts from the Downtown Disney districts, such as D Street or Disney Vault 28

MORE PHOTOS Disney Gazette

Wednesday, 15th June 2011

Disneyland Paris landmarks and characters go on show at Sand Sculpture Festival

Disneyland Paris Sand Sculpture Festival 2011

Forget faith, trust and a little bit of pixie dust. It took 20,000 tons of sand, eight weeks and a team of skilled artists from around the world to move the most famous landmarks and characters of Disneyland Paris to the Belgian coast for one long summer. From Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant to The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Space Mountain, all the favourites have been recreated out of nothing more than sand and water. A world-first tie-in to promote the Magical Moments Festival, they’re now on show taking over the whole Sand Sculpture Festival in Blankenberge until 12th September.

Some of the most impressive sculptures are housed inside a giant temporary marquee, such as City Hall, Walt’s restaurant and Main Street Motors; all stunningly detailed recreations that you can walk right up to. The jail scene from Pirates of Caribbean is recreated with a wonderful likeness for the key-carrying canine — and even an early appearance from Jack Sparrow!

Disneyland Paris Sand Sculpture Festival 2011 Disneyland Paris Sand Sculpture Festival 2011

Disneyland Paris Sand Sculpture Festival 2011

Beyond the resort landmarks, there are numerous lifelike character sculptures from Snow White to Tangled and almost every film in-between, with a special section for Pixar characters. A short “making of” film on the festival’s website gives a look at the work that went into the project. Our friends at Photos Magiques donated more than 400 Disneyland Paris pictures to help the sculptors refine their works. Head over to their Facebook page to see the full gallery of the finished exhibition from Friday’s special launch event… and don’t make any sudden movements!

VIA Photos Magiques (Facebook)

Friday, 3rd June 2011

Earl of Sandwich now open at Disney Village – first impressions, facts & photos!

Earl of Sandwich Disney Village

One year of heavy construction and several years of planning later, Earl of Sandwich is now open at Disney Village! The new counter service restaurant overlooking Lake Disney officially opened on Wednesday, 1st June after a special preview event on Monday. Photos here come courtesy of Xavier Triquet (full album), while you can see even more via NewsParcs, Matthieu Bernet and Disney Gazette. Stepping inside the huge glass box building, you’re welcomed by a warm wooden floor and a thoroughly modern interior — with plenty of nods back to the 18th Century. The ground floor has an airy double-height dining area with a suspended globe and a ring of modern ball lights, leading through to the ordering and serving area underneath the first floor mezzanine.

Here, you first join the queue to order your sandwiches and hot snacks, with a novel timer handed to you to indicate when they’re ready. You’re then free to pick up any extras such as desserts or potato chips, all well-presented on the counter, before paying and enjoying your meal. At the centre of the upper floor is a unique circular bench with two semi-circular tables wrapping around it –sure to become a popular dining place, especially with that stunning view across the lake to the hotel district. The outdoor terrace is more basic, with more modern furniture and a rather industrial-looking awning canopy.

Earl of Sandwich Disney Village

Earl of Sandwich Disney Village

Official figures cite the investment by Earl of Sandwich here, for its 15th restaurant overall, at 5 million euros with 80 jobs created. They hope to serve between 2,000 and 2,500 sandwiches a day, with a threshold of around 3,000 on busy peak days. The restaurant offers a choice of no less than 16 hot sandwiches — including three new creations for Disney Village such as the delightfully named “Le Frenchy” — all priced at a flat €5.50, while special breakfast sandwiches and kids sandwiches are priced at €3.50. Intriguingly, there’s no set-price “menu” that the Disney counter service restaurants are so fond of — where you have a choice of two meal combinations giving a slight saving — with the Earl instead preferring everyone to piece together their own meal for now, which can also include hot soup, salads and wraps. With this level of choice (roughly four times as many sandwiches as Market House Deli or Blockbuster Café), great presentation and cheaper prices, we hope the Earl also handed out a few free sandwich coupons to Disney’s own restaurateurs.

VIA Xavier Triquet / Vinylmation Disneyland Paris, Disney Gazette

Friday, 27th May 2011

Sand sculpture festival to present a replica “Disneysand” Paris on the Belgian coast

Disneyland Paris at Blankenberge sand sculpture festival

Disneyland is moving to Belgium! Well, almost. It was officially announced today that the 2011 Blankenberge International Sand Sculpture Festival will, for the very first time, feature unique recreations of Disney characters and Disneyland Paris landmarks made — you guessed it — out of sand! According to the festival’s website, visitors to the West Flanders seaside resort between 10th June and 12th September this year will get to see “a selection of well-known attractions and unforgettable moments” sculpted out of 3,000 square metres of sand. The result of many months of planning by the Benelux office of The Walt Disney Company, the Magical Moments Festival tie-in promises to be unmissable for those familiar with Disneyland Paris and great promotion for those who aren’t. Will you be able to visit Blankenberge to check out this limited-time Disneysand Paris exhibition?

VIA Blankenberge sand sculpture, Disney_ParisEN (Twitter)

Wednesday, 25th May 2011

Earl of Sandwich rushes to Disney Village opening with final touches, signage… and prices!

Earl of Sandwich

One week from now, you’ll be able to enjoy your very first Earl of Sandwich meal in Disney Village! It’s been a long wait for this new sandwich chain to open its Disneyland Paris location on the edge of Lake Disney, but now the final touches are being applied inside and out. As the photo taken on Saturday by @InsideDLParis on Twitter above shows, signage is up on both sides of the building, floating stylishly in the middle of the glazing. Pieces of the circular tower and other elements of the façade have finally begun to arrive, at last hiding the steel frames we’ve been watching for months. At the side of the building, the staircase up to the rear terrace is going in. Also of note, the relaid ground in front of the new restaurant. When this was dug up, fans wondered if it might mark the start of a new paving scheme for the Village, but no — it’s the same wavy coloured style as the rest of the street.

Earl of Sandwich

The first official photo from inside the restaurant also emerged recently (above), showing an Earl of Sandwich-branded construction helmet in front of the faux-bookcase positioned next to the mezzanine level. This shows good progress towards the final design, which we’ve not posted before, shown below. The main feature as you walk inside will be a huge historic wall map of Europe, centred on England.

Earl of Sandwich

And how much will an Original 1762 or Full Montagu cost in Paris? Apparently sandwiches will be set at a flat €5.50 each. That’s around €1.25 more than the $5.99 charged in the US (around $6.35 with tax), and a euro more (based on current rates) than what the Earl is charging in his first European restaurant. Yes, that’s right — although the Disney Village location was touted as Earl of Sandwich’s entry to the European market, it was beaten just this month by a restaurant on Ludgate Hill in the City of London, which is charging £3.95 per sandwich. That’s roughly similar to the many other sandwich and coffee chains lining the same street, which leads up to St Paul’s Cathedral. Still, even if the Disney Village outlet is the most expensive, Earl of Sandwich is still going to be beating Disney’s own counter service sandwiches (priced €6.00 and up) by a neat 50 cents — for freshly-prepared-in-front-you, hot snacks. Better watch out, Disney — the real sandwiches are coming.

VIA InsideDLParis (Twitter), Disney Gazette, Grandmath (DCP)

Wednesday, 25th May 2011

Big Thunder Mountain re-opens one week early following repaint …and that incident

Big Thunder Mountain

Hold onto your hats and glasses: Big Thunder Mountain has re-opened! Disneyland Paris made the surprise announcement on Friday via Twitter, revealing that the Frontierland roller coaster would re-open to guests just a day later, on this past Saturday, a week earlier than expected. This follows its planned three-week refurbishment and, of course, that incident back at the end of April — which saw a decorative fibreglass rock above the track fall and injure five guests.

As it happens, the closure this forced upon the ride, one week before the planned closure, seems to have brought forward the whole refurbishment and finished it a week ahead of schedule. At least you can’t criticise Disneyland Paris for wasting time, even if the circumstances were less than desirable. The refurbishment has primarily seen the whole mountain regain its full ochre lustre, which had been fading following the previous 2006 repaint (and this time they even promised to remember the Rainbow Arch) as well as restoring various small effects. On-board, a magicforum member suggests that, while you can’t see anything visibly missing in the fateful final lift tunnel, none of the faux-rocks overhead (supposed to simulate an earthquake caused by miners’ dynamite explosions) were moving.

VIA Photos Magiques, sven (magicforum)Disney_ParisEN (Twitter)

Friday, 20th May 2011

Castle scaffolding comes down to reveal a Sleeping Beauty almost awoken

Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment

For all the worry over Sleeping Beauty Castle being covered by scaffolding for its complete restoration, it all seems to have been over in a moment. Visitors have watched over the past couple of weeks as first the decorative scrim was taken down then, after a short delay, all of the scaffolding covering the front of the castle came down. While the scaffolding at the back, in the Castle Courtyard, has risen to new heights, the section covering the north easterly wing of le château, on its right-hand side, is now almost all gone. So, what does all this disappearing refurbishment detritus reveal? Well, a Disney park landmark still in transition… almost returned to its full beauty.

Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment

Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment

Whilst the five new shades of pink have now become very clear, the brickwork a crisp new palette of pastels and clean ivory white, there are many remnants of the previous 1998 repaint remaining. The rooftop above the main window still has its grimy yellow gradient effect, the two golden spires have yet to return with their renewed shimmer and work continues on giving the previously blue/green turret roofs a stronger blue colour. Previously, we’d seen the rooftops painted in a solid, dark blue. This has now been softened with two additional shades on top, to give the same scattered pattern as before, although it’s still clear to see which rooftops have been given the new look against those which haven’t.

Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment

Progress has continued this week with the removal of all the scaffolding on the castle’s north easterly wing, revealing a truly gleaming façade behind. On Twitter, @InsideDLParis has been charting the work and captured the photo below which really shows what a fresh coat of paint does for details:

Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment

Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment

Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishment

Following a much-needed clean and repaint, the waterfall on the other side of the castle was also been turned back on yesterday. There’s still much to do before the restoration is finally completed this August, but this will mostly consist of smaller-scale works and final touches done using moveable cranes and lifts. Rooftops to be completed at night and paint colours to be finished up in the daytime. And then, at long last, this Sleeping Beauty won’t be dormant any longer.

VIA Photos Magiques news reportInsideDLParis (Twitter)

Monday, 16th May 2011

Oh là là! First Ratatouille ride concept art, detailed new layout plans revealed!

Ratatouille dark ride

What do you do when you’re desperately waiting for details of a greatly-anticipated dark ride that Disneyland Paris are unwilling to divulge yet? Pay a visit to the local town planning office in Chessy! That’s exactly what our friends at Disney Central Plaza forum did, returning with a fantastic reward: The very first concept art for the mythical Ratatouille dark ride of Walt Disney Studios Park. Mythical no more. And the word “art” for this concept couldn’t be more apt. It’s a real artwork — colourful, stylised, evocative and very, very classy. Perhaps the first “art” we’ve seen of this quality for Disneyland Paris in almost a decade. It depicts three main Parisian façades in slightly different styles grouped around a traditional cobblestone courtyard. A huge fountain splashes to one side, the signage of Gusteau’s restaurant is high up on the rooftops, the streetlamps glow yellow, the leaves on the trees are a beautiful autumnal ochre. After almost three years of anticipation for this attraction, here it is.

But even better, this is backed up by some cold, harsh technical drawings. Because you know that old adage — “It’ll never look as good as the concept art…” — well, this might.

Ratatouille dark ride

The first plan above shows the layout of the new attraction building, which is rather different to what we saw back in 2009 (and have been poring over ever since). Now, the new building is not joined directly onto the existing costuming building (officially known as the Imaginations building, and marked as “Batiment Imaginations” on the plan), but sited right next door with a few metres gap between the two. The new building will host the dark ride, obviously, but also a new restaurant connected to the attraction. Will the grey Imaginations building still be sitting there with only a “Studio 4” placard for theming, then? Certainly not — this corner at least will be dressed up in matching Parisian facades to create a complete courtyard around the centrepiece fountain. Real façades, too — the same quality as the buildings of Hollywood Boulevard, not flat backdrops. The existing costuming workshop here, which we used to get a view of from Studio Tram Tour, will relocate and the space will be used for the ride’s all-important shop and something even more pressing for this area of the park: toilets.

Put into three dimensions, the layout of the new building becomes even clearer.

Ratatouille dark ride

We’ll be entering the ride on the right, under the large archway of the third main façade, where a Ratatouille logo can be seen in the artwork. An extended (fully covered!) outdoor queue stretches along the side of the building before heading inside. The centre section seems to be the restaurant, with a covered terrace projecting into the courtyard, whilst the façade on the far left appears to be Gusteau’s restaurant, which may or may not be the entrance to the real restaurant located here. Because here’s one final morsel: we won’t necessarily be dining at Gusteau’s as humans!

Planning permission for the above plans was granted by Chessy town hall on 20th April, although the project still crucially requires the agreement of lending banks to finance construction. In their financial position, Disneyland Paris require these “cash injections” for all major expansion projects, such as the €240 million investment programme from 2005 to 2008 (for Buzz, Crush, Cars, Tower). The cost of this single dark ride, with all its flashy technology? Somewhere around a cool €150 million. If the lenders agree that this would significantly improve the offering of Walt Disney Studios Park, pulling in more guests and money (it would), then we could still be looking at an opening sometime in 2013.

New to this project? Read back all our past news stories about this dark ride which — according to rumour — promises to mix the “trackless” technology of Tokyo Disneyland’s Pooh’s Hunny Hunt with the 3D projections of Universal’s The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man!

VIA Disney Central Plaza

Tuesday, 10th May 2011

Net loss drops, attendance rises in first half 2011 as Euro Disney SCA slowly clears debt

When you’ve got around €2 billion in debt weighing you down, paying off €45.4 million might seem a drop in the ocean. But for Euro Disney SCA, the operating group behind Disneyland Paris, it’s another slow but sure step to financial stability. The company published its First Half 2011 results this morning, for the six months up to 31st March 2011 and had generally good news to report. Total revenues increased 8% compared to the period last year, maintaining the 8% rise of the First Quarter, to €559 million. A net loss of €99 million is a €15 million drop from last year, although the company points out that these results may be below what could be expected due to different Easter holiday dates this year. In attendance numbers, the resort has almost recovered the terrible drops of last year’s first half with theme park attendance up 5% to 6.9 million. In 2010, this figure fell 8% to 6.5 million, from a high of 7.1 million in 2009 (coming off the back of the extended 15th Anniversary). More good news for the Disney Hotels, too, as room occupancy rose back up a modest 3.8 percentage points to 83.4%. In 2010, it dropped a huge 6.2 percentage points to 79.6%, so the resort still has some way to climb to the 85.8% of first half 2009 but isn’t doing badly at all.

The debt repayment of €45.4 million in the first half, which was consistent with repayments during the same period last year, will be followed by €77.5 million of repayments in the next six months. The company is also negotiating its investment budgets for the next two financial years, something that we may be able to directly see in the parks. After deferring a €45.2 million payment to The Walt Disney Company for royalties and management fees in 2010, its investment budget for 2011 was set at just 3% of “the prior fiscal year’s adjusted consolidated revenues”. Thankfully, the company obtained lenders’ agreement on 31st March to increase the recurring annual investment budget from €37 million to €81 million for fiscal year 2011, and up to 5% of the prior fiscal year’s adjusted consolidated revenues for fiscal year 2012. That sounds like good news, but it still comes on the condition that the company meet its financial performance requirements for this year, or else a call to The Walt Disney Company and further delays for new attractions might be all that we see.

VIA Euro Disney SCA (PDF)

Tuesday, 10th May 2011

Tinker Bell presents the Disneyland Paris 20th Anniversary logos, with lashings of pixie dust

Disneyland Paris 20th Anniversary logo

A 20/20/20 vision: The official logos for the 20th Anniversary are here! Who cares there’s eleven months still to wait and that so far we only know one addition. Tinker Bell couldn’t wait any longer to prove that, when she’s not churning out direct-to-home video movies, there’s nothing she likes better than to jazz up a few anniversary logos with some pixie dust sparkle. This trio of three differently-formatted logos are the first pieces of the resort’s promotional materials for the big events of 2012 to be released, revealing a shiny, pretty, colourful logo that looks, well, exactly as you’d expect. Glossy lettering? Check! Pink castle? Check! Tinker Bell? Check! It looks a definite step up from the 15th Anniversary logo, however, with a much bolder and more modern design style that includes a nice multi-coloured pixie dust trail from Tink (reminiscent of Tokyo’s 25th designs)and giant sans-serif numbers. Even the Castle looks perfectly pretty, with no humiliating Mickey Mouse symbols plastered over its windows, something that had become worryingly trendy over recent years.

Disneyland Paris 20th Anniversary logo Disneyland Paris 20th Anniversary logo

One of the secondary logos simply features the Disneyland Paris logo with “20” to one side, similar to the classy alternative 15th Anniversary logo which became increasingly popular through that event. The semi-circular design of the main logo, meanwhile, looks like practically every Disneyland Paris logo of the late ’90s. It’s hard to know whether the recurring themes of the castle, Tinker Bell, fireworks, pixie dust and circular shapes show a lack of a imagination or a fun nod to the past. At least this time, the Peter Pan reference might tie into an actual anniversary event.

Past Disneyland Paris logos

What do you think? Let’s have scores out of 20!

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