Parks & Resort

But first, without further ado… The main event of the 20th Anniversary itself!

Watch our exclusive original video of the Disney Dreams! World Premiere right here. Filmed at 10.30pm on Saturday, 31st March in 1080/50p High Definition with 5.1 channel surround surround, this video gives you the whole experience as if you were there: standing right at the centre of Central Plaza, watching the fireworks, fountains and fire fly into the sky as projections transform Sleeping Beauty Castle like we’ve never seen before.

Find the video on YouTube here and be sure to share it with your friends — this is one spectacular event no-one should miss!

• Enjoy a complete, definitive gallery of spectacular pictures from the show at Photos Magiques!

As previously noted, we’re working to share the majority of our new videos online first, before we go back to provide more in-depth, chronological reports of all the events over the launch weekend.

What do you get if you combine film composer Joel McNeely, a 96-piece orchestra, a children’s choir, an adult choir and Irish folk singer Cara Dillon at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London? A soundtrack to Disney Dreams!, that’s what. The show’s score was recorded in January this year, with Steve Davison flying into London to oversee the project. While Steve has visited Abbey Road previously to record the music for his spectacular Tokyo DisneySea version of Fantasmic!, Joel has used the North London studio, made famous by The Beatles, to record soundtracks for several of Disney’s recent Tinker Bell movies.

For a new nighttime spectacular, based around Peter Pan losing his shadow, they couldn’t have picked a better team. Steve Davison wrote on Facebook, 13th January: “In London this week recording Dreams for DLP at Abbey Roads Studios. Today we’re in the famous Beatles Studio2 recording percussion. The score for Dreams is really amazing. Can’t wait for all of you to hear it!!!”

By 17th January his work in London had finished, with the confident conclusion that the score we’re all waiting to hear is, simply put, “beyond epic”: “We just wrapped the recording sessions for dreams. It’s an amazing score. One of the best we have done in years. It’s beyond epic!”

Wrapping up the many featured songs from Disney classics, ranging from Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame to Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, the score will of course also be heavily based around new arrangements of “The Second Star to the Right”.

Amongst numerous Disney projects, Joel McNeely also notably scored the Return to Neverland “sequel” to Peter Pan in 2002. The scale of his score for Disney Dreams! appears impressive: a 96-piece orchestra, plus both children’s and adult choirs. Confirming the project, his official website writes: “Joel has just completed the score to a new outdoor spectacular show for the 20th anniversary of Disneyland Paris. The show is entitled Disney Dreams. Joel recorded at Abbey Road in London with a 90 piece orchestra, children’s choir and adult choir.”

Cara Dillon

And there’s one more surprise: “It will also feature a song written by Joel for Cara Dillon.”

Cara Dillon may also be known to anyone familiar with the popular Tinker Bell movies. For the third film, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, she was invited by Joel to sing the opening song, titled “Summer’s Just Begun”. This led to the Irish folk singer, from Dungiven in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, to sing a second song over the credits and even read the opening narration.

Her website notes: “Cara and Sam were thrilled to have been invited to record a brand new song to form part of a new spectacular show to mark the 20th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris. They went to the legendary Abbey Road Studios back in January to record the song with a 96 piece orchestra and to listen to the rest of the music being recorded for the show. Joel McNeely, who composed the music for Tinkerbell 3, wrote the beautiful new song and conducted the orchestral sessions.”

This new song will certainly be a world away from the hyperactive “Magic Everywhere” and “Do You Believe” of the daytime events. If the beautiful projections or extraordinary fountains and fireworks don’t bring a tear to your eye, it could just be Cara’s beautiful, delicate voice that does it.

Below, watch a delightful video of Cara Dillon on stage, humbly explaining how she came to work for Disney on the Tinker Bell movie and her first experiences of Abbey Road, followed by a beautiful performance of her second Tinker Bell song, “Come Fly With Me”… Read More…

New Disney theme park book alert. From California to Florida, Paris and beyond, the alert siren rings out. That most anticipated and coveted line of souvenirs from the parks is about to have a new tome to add to its shelves. And for once, this one’s all about Disneyland Paris. Totalling 192 pages and 500 photos, “Disneyland Paris: 20 Years of Dreams” (or “20 Ans de Rêves”) has been written and produced especially for the 20th Anniversary. It will guide readers from the planning and grand opening of the resort in 1992 through 20 years of development, changes and events at the resort.

Available as a single edition, the book will include both French and English texts, with forewards by Tom Staggs and Philippe Gas, and afterword by Tom Fitzgerald. Priced at €49.99, the book will be exclusively available only at the resort itself, in eight separate, as-yet unconfirmed boutiques. A first print run of 5,000 copies will go on sale in mid-late April. We’ve been informed that, although Disney are pushing hard to have it available by 12th April 2012, there could be a small delay.

The 192-page size is certainly substantial enough: the same as the wonderful Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making More Magic Real.

Though Disneyland Paris has produced numerous glossy souvenir photo books detailing current attractions, it has never published its own, complete history of the resort. Only the revered Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality, published by Nouveau Millénaire Editions, has provided a true insight into the design and creation of the original park. Considered as “the bible” for Disneyland Paris fans, it is now only available as an expensive, limited collectors’ edition.

If you already own From Sketch to Reality, this new book aims to be perfectly complementary to its contents, full of new content and in no way a reptition. Not only will it feature the full 20 years of Disneyland Paris history, including photos and concept art from Walt Disney Studios Park, but also a closer focus on the progression of the resort from opening day to today. While From Sketch tells you how the parks were designed, 20 Years of Dreams will very much be the “what happened next…”

As soon as the book hits the shelves, we’ll race you to The Storybook Store…

PHOTO Disney Magic Interactive, Disney Showcase Key

It’s no secret that the permanent Meet Mickey Mouse attraction at Fantasy Festival Stage won’t be ready for the 20th Anniversary launch this weekend. However, you needn’t be too disappointed if you miss the opening date in mid-May: Mickey’s temporary Frontierland location is looking like a pleasant attraction of its own. Rather than the 1920s picture house-style theme in Fantasyland’s British quarter, the temporary version has been based around a much more old-fashioned travelling show.

New signage, installed at the former Woody’s Roundup Village photolocation, is perfectly integrated with the Cottonwood Creek Ranch area. Below the Meet Mickey Mouse marquee, adorned with decorative lights, a banner reads: “Open house today — Your chance to meet the stars of Mickey’s famous traveling show”. Red-painted fences of the farm paddocks are dotted with posters imported from Florida, for imaginary acts such as “Dingofort the Mighty” and “Madame Minn”, which already appear in the refurbished Disney & Co boutique on Main Street.

Nearby, the old Woodcarver’s Workshop has been turned into Meet Mickey Mouse Photographic Souvenirs, an official photo sales desk. Given Mickey’s farmyard beginnings, the temporary ranch setting feels perfectly apt, before he moves into the bright lights of the theatre.

Mickey Mouse himself made his first appearance at the location today, moving from his old meet ‘n’ greet spot at the Boarding House in Town Square, which will now be the sole preserve of Duffy the Disney Bear. The temporary location here is only expected to be in use for around 6-7 weeks so, for just a month and a half of meet ‘n’ greets, this well-executed overlay is a great surprise.

PHOTOS @InsideDLParis (Twitter)

Disneyland Paris is about to launch a brand new official website. No, not a new version of the main Disneyland Paris.com, but a special new interactive platform titled Disneyland Paris Generations. Due to open in the coming days for the 20th Anniversary, it will allow fans and visitors of the resort to create their own archive of memorable moments recounting 20 years of the European Disney resort.

The idea is that anyone — guests, fans, even Cast Members — will be able to submit their own memories of Disneyland Paris, illustrated with personal photos and videos. These will be uploaded and collated by Disney, which will publish them subject to moderation. We will apparently then be able to browse these moments from history by date or via an interactive map. Though the site will be available in either English or French, the contributions themselves will not be individually translated.

The website will be operational for around a year, but its contents will be preserved beyond this date, as a — hopefully — vast online archive of memories from the resort.

At the same time, Disneyland Paris is working hard to update its official Facebook Page with the new, very well-timed “Timeline” format, adding dates in the resort’s history such as this look back at the 5th Anniversary (Facebook login required), illustrated with a rarely-seen photo. The entire page should switch to the Timeline format in a couple of days.

• Don’t forget, we have our own Disneyland Paris history website at Euro Souvenirland, packed with photos, dates and memorabilia. Meanwhile, you can share your favourite memories and birthday greetings on our new 20th Anniversary Wishes Wall.

Have your sunglasses at the ready, folks! No, not for the glorious weather we’re enjoying in this corner of Europe, but for the first “soft opening” arrivals of Disney’s 20th Anniversary Celebration Train, which began at 11.30am today and continue all week. And there it is — in all its day-glo splendour. If you can believe it, it’s even brighter than the publicity image. The whole train has been resprayed from pistons to chimney in a complete rainbow of colours. This was not a moment of artistic restraint.

On-board, the characters wear their new 20th Anniversary costumes, inspired by Mickey’s classic Sorcerer’s Apprentice guise but coloured with more wild, day-glo shades. Chip, Dale and their female friend Clarice led the first wagon, followed by Minnie, Donald and Daisy in the middle, then Goofy and Pluto bringing up the rear. New additions to the design of the train include a ’20” on each wagon and Tinker Bell atop the chimney, guiding the train.

The train was quickly described as “garish” on forums, and that could be perfectly accurate. But you know what — and perhaps not setting the bar high here — it might actually be the best revision of this event to date, since the original Disney Characters’ Express. While that started out with a fairly classy blue, white and gold train, it was modified here and there in subsequent years to become a real mish-mash of a design with little artistic direction nor anything that really tied it together.

At least this year the train has been stripped back and completely resprayed, giving a uniform look to the whole event. This is helped by restricting the invite list to only the “VIP” characters, wearing new costumes which actually match the colours of the train, rather than their clashing everyday gear. And, rather than continuing to remix “Tous en Train” to infinity, we’ve got a whole new song in “Do You Believe” (which you can listen to here). The whole vision is such a spectacularly jarring contrast with the quaint cobblestones of Main Street, U.S.A. that maybe it just works.

PHOTOS @InsideDLParis (Twitter)

A brand new page has been added to our 20th Anniversary guides: 20 Must-Sees. This special page counts down twenty of our favourite things to see and do at Disneyland Paris, covering the most unmissable attractions, restaurants, shows and even hotels. Read More…

Drilling for rats? The Ratatouille Kitchen Calamity construction site has seen a new arrival with the start of pile driving for the attraction’s foundations. After clearing and levelling the area, then laying and compacting loose stone, work has now moved to drive in deep foundations for the future showbuilding using a pile driver: the tall, drill-like piece of machinery seen above. This moves around the site, planting supports in the ground at intervals to provide a solid base for the new building.

Also visible on the construction site, seen in these photos by the ParisCastMember blog, are several large steel “screws”, a shipping container and large pieces of wire frame. Not quite the usual recipe for a ratatouille, then. Costuming workshop Cast Members in the “Imaginations” building to the right now have an unimpeded view over the large construction site for the dark ride, thanks to the removal of the adjoining wall and awning which used to be part of Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic.

But the views are easy to obtain for guests and fans, too: as well as aerial sightings from Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop, a temporary gate, lower than the hoardings, has been installed in the blue construction walls here (below the camera), next to Toy Story Playland. Though intended to provide a temporary evacuation route, it would be more than welcome if this stayed in place throughout the construction, to allow visitors to easily catch a glimpse of the future — and a reason to return.

As a reminder: the €150m ride is due to open sometime in 2014, rumoured to use a trackless ride system with 3D projection effects, with an adjoining restaurant that will possibly be integrated into the attraction queue. Fastpass is expected to be in place from day one, while a boutique might follow later. Read back our previous updates here, which included a look at the first concept art.

PHOTOS ParisCastMember blog, @ParisCastMember (Twitter)