2013

Just can’t wait to see how one of the new scenes coming to Disney Dreams! will look? Here’s your first sneak preview, courtesy of a new teaser trailer on the official Disneyland Paris website. For a few brief seconds, visible in the screen capture above, we see the face of Simba from “The Lion King” roaring across Sleeping Beauty Castle, surrounded by colourful projections and fountains.

With Simba’s red-leafed mane, this is unmistakably the “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” segment of the new scene, scheduled to be officially added to the show from 1st April 2013. We reported last week that this new scene is said to be a medley of the songs penned by Tim Rice and Elton John for the film, also including “Circle of Life” and “Hakuna Matata”.

Along with a scene from Pixar’s “Brave”, it will apparently replace the current “Mary Poppins” and “The Jungle Book” scenes – so catch those “originals” while you can.

However, unlike that second new scene featuring Princess Merida, Simba’s guest role in the nighttime spectacular was reportedly already animated and programmed for the launch of the show last year, but held back in favour of Baloo and King Louie’s “I Wanna Be Like You”, so this footage could actually date from then. One confirmed change to the scene since its 2012 trials, though, will be the young singers of Dutch TV show “The Voice Kids” now providing vocals for its soundtrack, recorded just last month at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Watch the new 20th Anniversary – Extended! trailer here… Read More…

You’ve already upgraded from a standard lodge room to a Montana room, perhaps even a Lake View. But from April, Disney’s Sequoia Lodge begins offering an altogether more “exclusive” category of room with the launch of its own Golden Forest Club.

Modelled on the successful Castle Club of Disneyland Hotel and Empire State Club at Disney’s Hotel New York, these rooms will be located in the top floors of the main building and come complete with their own Golden Forest Club Lounge. Besides the privileged room location, benefits include breakfast with Disney characters and private reception, plus free soft drinks and afternoon snacks in the adjoining lounge, which is said to have a “beautiful tree” as its centrepiece.

Special Disney’s Fastpass tickets are also a benefit, although not as generous as the other “Clubs” which provide unlimited VIP Fastpass tickets: For Golden Forest Club, you’ll only receive one “Disney Hotel Fastpass” per person per day, which is a single-use, any-time, any-attraction ticket.

A higher tier means a higher price, and that’s especially true here. For one night including park tickets for two adults sharing a Golden Forest Club room, prices start at €634 according to Disneyland Paris’ standard pricing grids. That compares to €498 for a standard room at Sequoia Lodge and is notably more than the €596 for the same stay at the Admiral’s Floor of Disney’s Newport Bay Club, which doesn’t offer the private lounge nor any special Fastpass.

The rooms of Disney’s Sequoia Lodge were completely refurbished throughout 2011 and 2012, adding light “Bambi” touches. Current hotel refurbishment efforts now centred on the lowest tier Disney’s Hotel Santa, adding touches from Disney-Pixar’s “Cars” to the rooms. Up next for a major update is said to be Disney’s Newport Bay Club, which rumour suggests could enhance its “Admiral’s Floor” offer to become more like these Club rooms.

Meanwhile, within the next year all Disney Hotels are finally due to provide free Wi-Fi. We’ll take that over any expensive private lounge, personally…

VIA Disneyland Paris Spring-Summer 2013 Brochure

Long-standing rumours of a LEGO Store in Disney Village have been given new immediacy by the posting of a job recruitment notice for assistant managers. Posted on the Mercuri Urval website, the listing originally made explicit reference to a LEGO-branded retail store at Disneyland Paris and even went so far as to claim it will be the biggest in Europe. The page has now been amended to become more ambiguous, but still references a “flagship / concept store”.

We first reported rumours of a new LEGO Store in March 2012 when, in the lead up to the opening of World of Disney, the now rather superfluous Hollywood Pictures store was seen to be the likely location for such an outlet. That’s still the case, and some rumours suggest LEGO could open as soon as June — but so far there’s no word of an imminent closure for the movie-themed merchandise shop.

Following World of Disney opening last July, which sells the vast majority of general Disneyland Paris merchandise, the older Disney Store was reconfigured into more of a “character merchandise” location featuring franchises such as Star Wars and Cars. A “boutique” refit of Disney Fashion was also completed last year, leaving the remaining Disney Village stores to find a new raison d’être.

LEGO Stores have recently opened elsewhere in France at Lille and Paris’ SO Ouest shopping mall. Locations at the Downtown Disney districts in Florida and California, which are more of an “experience” with large custom-built Disney brick models, were originally given more prestigious “LEGO Imagination Centre” branding, but now appear to be being titled with simply the LEGO name.

Given the floorspace of Hollywood Pictures, the Disney Village location could be big, but maybe not particularly huge. Perhaps LEGO could use the World of Toys store next door too, especially since it would have its through-access cut off from the row of shops here anyway.

Just please, do something about that orange shopfront…

• See the current store: Photos Magiques recently added a new Hollywood Pictures photo gallery

VIA Mercuri Urval, J. Thaddeus Toad, jul (Disney Central Plaza)

Your 2013/2014 holiday to Disneyland Paris might now feel a lot more like a 21st Century experience. Lagging behind for years in internet access offering, Disneyland Paris has made a surprise sudden move towards offering more widespread — and crucially, free — Wi-Fi access across the resort.

Announced late on Monday was that the prestigious Disneyland Hotel now offers free Wi-Fi access. Then, on Tuesday, the official Twitter feed of the resort followed that up by confirming free Wi-Fi would be rolled out gradually within the next year to all other Disney Hotels, along with convention centres, Golf Disneyland and even Disney Village.

Free Wi-Fi is now arguably considered as important as other hotel room fixtures such as a television. From previously offering only patchy and expensive Wi-Fi access in only the four higher tier Disney Hotels, this move will add some much-needed additional value back to those — many say — overpriced “on property” room nights. Guests have in the past been faced with the frankly absurd situation that, for example, the ultra-basic €52 per night Ibis Budget over at Val d’Europe offered free Wi-Fi, but the €459 minimum Disneyland Hotel did not.

The inclusion of Disney Village in these plans is interesting. Could that be a commercial decision, to make the entertainment district more inviting for visitors to “dwell” longer, or could it even be an easier test bed for eventually covering the whole of the resort — and both parks — by free Wi-Fi? Last year, Walt Disney World began offering free Wi-Fi to visitors within its Magic Kingdom park, with plans to roll it out to all four parks and Downtown Disney over there too.

Besides giving guests what they now see as an almost essential home comfort, providing free Wi-Fi will also exponentially increase the number of status updates, photos and videos posted to social media websites during guests’ stays, especially at Disneyland Paris where many guests have had to avoid “roaming” charges for foreign networks, giving the Disney Parks perhaps their most powerful ever marketing tool: us.

VIA @Disney_ParisEN (Twitter)

There will be more than just two new scenes to light up Disney Dreams! on its first anniversary this year: you too can “glow with the show” as the illuminated Mickey Mouse ears first introduced for World of Color at Disney California Adventure will come to Disneyland Paris, the resort has confirmed.

Named “Glow with the Show Ears” in California, they’ll be known instead by a new name in Europe: Disney Light’Ears. Once activated and placed on your head (or anywhere!) within the spectacle’s viewing area, they light up and change colour in sync with the show itself.

This is an optional, paid add-on, of course — in California the ears were priced at $25 for launch and, though no price has been publicly announced, reports from research questionnaires carried out in Paris suggest they could be looking at a €25 price point to own a pair over here. For added value, California later activated the ears for use during Fantasmic! at its own Disneyland Park, as well as controlling them to light up in certain areas such as inside the new Cars Land.

Battery powered, the hats are controlled by infra red signals from emitters placed around the audience area. For World of Color, this comprises around 40 “zones” which can each be sent a different command to illuminate and change the colour of the ears.

Unlike in Disney’s home state, Mickey ear hats have never particularly taken off at Disneyland Paris — you’re more likely to see a sorcerer’s apprentice, a Goofy or at most a Minnie Mouse bow. Could Disney Light’Ears be the spark to finally bring popularity to this classic park merchandise item in Paris? Would you pay to own a pair yourself, and do you think they’ll really add to the experience of Disney Dreams! or just be a distraction from the show itself?

It’s fair to say at least that, for such a high-rating signature attraction, Disney Dreams! needs more supporting merchandise, so this can only be a positive step in that direction. The ears were also only debuted in California last August, so the stated “Summer 2013” makes for an unusually speedy rollout to Paris — now only the second Disney resort in the world to have them.

Now watch “Glow with the Show” in action at Disneyland Resort, California… Read More…

Hurry, you’ve not got long left to see Disney Dreams! — the original show that is. Disneyland Paris has now confirmed that the show will be updated for its first anniversary with two brand new scenes based on the Pixar film “Brave” and classic Disney animation “The Lion King”. The new segments are believed to be replacing the original “Mary Poppins” and “The Jungle Book” numbers respectively, so you’ve only until around the end of March to sing along with “Step In Time” and “I Wan’na Be Like You” in person as fountains and projections fill the air. However the rest of the scenes — certainly the Peter Pan-themed “bookends” which tie together the various segments — are expected to remain the same.

Further information came to light today when it was revealed that the song featured from The Lion King will be “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King”, certainly an ideal choice to replace the similar earlier Jungle Book hit. Six young finalists from the Dutch TV talent show The Voice Kids were given the chance to record it exclusively for the show at Abbey Road Studios in London (pictured below), where this time last year the entire Disney Dreams! soundtrack was recorded by Joel McNeely.

Meanwhile the Brave segment will be the first for a single film that isn’t a musical. A short Ratatouille scene was included in the original show, but is really little more than a transition.

Steve Davison, who masterminded the show, was at Disneyland Paris along with Chuck Davis, Senior Technical Director, during the heavy snowfall last month, making it a strong possibility they were working on the new scenes.

Premiering on 31st March 2012 to worldwide acclaim, Disney Dreams! has scored an impressive 93% guest satisfaction rating and is now confirmed to be continuing daily at Disneyland Park until at least the end of September 2013, when the extended 20th Anniversary celebrations close.

Update: InsideDLParis reports The Lion King scene will come first in the show and be made up of three songs — “Circle of Life”, “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” and “Hakuna Matata” — while the Brave scene will utilise two parts of the film’s score by Patrick Doyle — “Remember to Smile” and “Fate and Destiny” — along with “Touch the Sky”, the original song by Julie Fowlis. It’s likely the scenes will officially premiere on 1st April 2013 but may be introduced shortly before then as a “soft opening.”

• Watch our 4 different complete videos of the original Disney Dreams! here

• Watch the scenes rumoured to be replaced: “Mary Poppins” and “I Wanna Be Like You”

VIA Disneyland Paris Press, @HyperionPilot, @DisneylandNL, @Jorienvh_

Congratulations — if you’re reading this, you’re likely one of the 85% of Disneyland Paris fans who visit fansites at least once a week. Let’s hope you’re not also one of the unfortunate 8% of fans who have never actually visited the resort. There, just two of the many intriguing statistics recently dug out in a huge “infographic” of 7,760 responses to the official Disneyland Paris Fan Survey we were asked to help promote last year.

The full infographic is included below. Revealing that fans who responded visit Disneyland Paris on average 10 times a year, 71% are between 18 and 34 years old and 59% (versus 41%) are male, the results of the online survey also reveal what fans themselves want from Disneyland Paris and its communication with us. The official Facebook, YouTube and Twitter streams are given a perhaps surprisingly resounding thumbs up — 87% satisfied with the official Facebook page, 83% with Twitter — while a slightly lower 79% are satisfied with merchandise opportunities.

Though the simpler tickbox answers have generated some nice stats for this infographic, the more interesting text-based answers are what we hope the resort listens and learns from. Most fans, as well as desiring special treatment from the resort, also want to see it succeed and improve in itself. After all, the more successful Disneyland Paris is, and the more people who understand the “magic” of the place, the more confident we’ll feel in our own position as fans.

The suggestion of an official blog for news and backstage insights is still a great one, and probably brought up as much from our desire to read it as our belief that — like the excellent US Disney Parks Blog — it would help in the resort’s promotion and communication with the wider public.

Likewise merchandise, which it’s noted fans want to see more “geared to the resort experience” (ie. based around lands and attractions, rather than generic characters) — we want better merchandise so we can more happily part with our cash and support something dear to our hearts. Rather than improving for us, fans mostly want Disneyland Paris to improve for itself first.

Full infographic attached below… Read More…

Farewell, Rémy and Emile! Only a year ago it was a cleared parcel of earth at the back of Walt Disney Studios Park, today it’s an enormous shell of a showbuilding to envy the “it’s a small worlds” of the Disney Park world. Work on the Ratatouille dark ride celebrated another milestone last week as the two towering cranes we nicknamed Rémy and Emile were gradually taken apart and removed from the site and construction entered a new phase.

New photos were shared by @InsideDLParis over the weekend and our friends at Photos Magiques earlier posted a nice high-resolution zoomable image from their January trip.

However, as we return from an all-too-long hiatus, let’s first jump back to share some photos from our trip in December 2012. Keen-eyed Rémy fans will be able to spot many further changes in the past eight weeks, but for those who haven’t been watching and for the sake of history it seems a shame not to pin these onto the construction timeline before moving onto current developments, so here we go…

Rumoured to have the working title Ratatouille Kitchen Calamity, this major new “dark ride” is due to open in 2014 at the back of Toon Studio in Walt Disney Studios Park, next to Toy Story Playland and the backstage ‘Imaginations’ Cast Member building. Construction has required felling a large number of trees and moving the resort’s costuming workshop.

Also including a new restaurant integrated into the attraction, toilets and a Fastpass system, the development is costing up to €150 million. The ride itself has been rumoured to utilise everything from “trackless” ride vehicles to giant 3D projection screens in order to simulate a chase through the kitchens of a Parisian restaurant.

The exterior will be themed to a real Parisian square, complete with fountain.

Follow @DLRPToday on Twitter or ‘Like’ our Facebook Page to follow developments through 2013!