News Disneyland Paris Updates & Features

The trailer has now appeared on DailyMotion, likely imported from a press CD given at the event or through other means, but should certainly not be viewed as a final 15th Anniversary commercial – it is simply a preview for press and travel companies only. Whilst the beautiful greyscale shots and modern blue text sections are all brand new, the character, attraction and parade shots inbetween have all been dug out from the resort’s archives.

The video:

This trailer has been distributed to travel agents and resort parters for use in a similar way to the “Where?” trailer seen a few years ago – simply to present and give a “feel” for the products on offer. A better-flowing and longer English version has also been distributed, featuring vastly improved mixing, more greyscale shots and speech in various European languages from the people featured.

The text in the French version reads:

“You’re invited to dream… like never before”
“In 2007, get ready…”
“For the biggest celebration in our history”
“With new attractions”
“A new parade”
“Even more characters”
“All year long”
“So that the magic is more affordable than ever”
“It’s our 15th Anniversary…”

The “Groups” brochure is traditionally produced a few months before it’s “Official Holiday Guide” cousin, since the market it is created for generally needs more time to book and plan their visit. The seasonal editions are far thinner than the public brochure and don’t always give exact pricing details (these are featured in a separate supplement), but instead give information and photos to sell the resort’s general experience. With the 15th Anniversary brochure, then, can you guess what they’re trying to sell?

Front Cover / Introduction Pages

First impressions are extraordinary – a stunning, shiny “15” with all the characters bursting out of it grabs your attention immediately. It looks whimsical, fun and very special. If the public brochure uses a design like this, we can be sure they’ll be flying off travel agents’ shelves.

Opening up the brochure, and the magic continues. The nighttime castle visual has been extended across two pages, with a huge 15th Anniversary logo and lots of excitable information about the events. “It’s our biggest celebration ever!” reads the brochure, “More than ever, the Disney Characters will be waiting to greet your group. Come and laugh, sing and dance with them, in locations created especially for the festivities.” It then goes on to describe the special pricing offers during the year, as well as the introduction of Extra Magic Hours (the rather clumsy “Des Heures de Magie en Plus” in French) which will be featured throughout the year. “Your members and groups absolutely cannot miss this occasion!”

15th Anniversary double spread

The brilliant design continues to the next double spread, for the 15th Anniversary itself. They’ve separated Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios very well, giving each their own page with the biggest new feature getting a large image in the centre. It’s not too crowded, uses lots of good images and features all the events in good bullet point sections at the bottom. Some of the “nouveau” fonts are a little strange, but the excellence of the rest of the design makes up for this.

Seasons & Events and Why Book in 2007 / Back Cover

Finally, we have a Seasons & Events page and a “Why to book with Disneyland Resort Paris now” page. The Seasons & Events page is simple enough, with the usual information and even the actual dates for 2007’s seasons, which before now had not been confirmed. Halloween: 6th October to 4th November 2007, Christmas: 10th November 2007 to 6th January 2008.

The “Why book now” page, on the other hand, is a far stronger “sell” than we usually see from the resort. Obviously concerned that in 2007 they need lots of bookings “or else”, they’ve taken to bullet-pointing reasons why 2007 is the year to visit. It recaps all the 15th events, ticket offers, Extra Magic Hours, and on so on to build up a very good case for booking with the resort. It’s unlikely we’ll see something this strong in the public brochure, but for a Groups brochure is works very well, especially when surrounded by more nice characters from the official visuals.

If this is the quality of an 8-page groups brochure, imagine the quality of the final Official Holiday Guide! This really could be a year of total turnaround for the resort.

Celebration Score: 9/10

You can see the brochure in Disney’s e-brochure format here, or download it as a PDF here.

Thanks to Jakub from the Czech Republic for notifying us that a brand new version of the resort’s International web pages has just been launched!

This isn’t just a few extra pages for guests outside of the resort’s six main countries. No, this is a brand new, full, complete website featuring everything from Disney Studio 1 to Paris sightseeing trips. This is biggest change to Disneyland Resort Paris’ online presence in over six years, and at first glance appears to tick all the boxes on most visitors’ wishlists.

The design could perhaps be cleaned up in a few areas (it’s true that some areas of the design are lacking slightly compared to its US cousins), but the content is infinately better than the website we’ve become used to. A new “choose your experience” option similar to the US websites, vastly improved practical information and pages for every single attraction across the resort, with countless photos, panoramas.. and… videos!

The website also introduces the concept of “myDisneyland” to the Paris resort, allowing you to save newsletters, ebrochures and website pages and organise itineraries with a few clicks. The booking system has not been updated for this new design, but a very slick new Hotel search system is already in place, making it easier to find a hotel to suit your dreams.

Is this the new website promised by Karl Holz earlier this year? We can’t be sure. But, whether or not this design will be transferred without change to the resort’s six main language sites, we’ve finally got the big website update we waited countless years to see…

http://international.disneylandparis.com/index.xhtml

Or, you can access the website by choosing one of the resort’s International territories from the main language select screen, such as the Czech Republic: http://www.disneylandparis.com

Feel free to leave a comment or two about any interesting details… or funny mistakes! #1: The Star Tours page uses a photo from CyberSpace Mountain, complete with over-the-shoulder restraints!

The Little Mermaid attraction would have utilised a ride system very similar to Peter Pan’s Flight, except rather than flying pirate ships, guests would have travelled in large “clamobiles”, programmed to give the sensation they were being pushed and guided by currents, rather than flight.

The most talked-about feature of the attraction, though, has always been the “dry for wet” technology featured on each clamobile to simulate the clam’s dive underwater. The attraction was to have started off on dry land, at Prince Eric’s castle, and then after a few initial scenes, as Sebastien sings the lyrics from “Under the Sea”, your vehicle would have dived downwards to a lower-level show scene. As this happened, water would have flooded between two panes of glass in your clamobile to simulate the dive. Then, just before the “Kiss the Girl” scene, your clam bobs back up to the surface and floats along, with the water draining from the glass at the same time.

And now, something many Disneyland Resort Paris fans waited countless years to see – extensive concept art from this lost attraction. For the full experience with Imagineer commentary, you should buy the DVD, but in most cases these astonishing concepts speak for themselves…

Thanks again to Kristof for these screencaps!

The first image is actually one of the most interesting, showing an exterior design that never made it past rough sketches, and appearing to resemble some kind of Dumbo-style ride. The later exterior design of Prince Eric’s castle, seen as a concept model in numerous images above, shows how perfectly this undersea attraction would have mixed with Fantasia Gelati and Pizzeria Bella Notte nearby.

Although this attraction is likely lost forever, not least because of the current slew of Nemo attractions filling the void for an “undersea” theme, we can at last – after 15 years – enjoy this full sneak peek and hope that perhaps a couple of the still yet-to-be-realised ideas seen here will be featured in some way at Crush’s Coaster in June 2007.

This is the 100th post on DLRP Today!

First, an up-close look at the new queue buildings for Cars Race Rally. Disney Central Plaza forum moderator Grandmath posted new photos today showing the current status of Toon Studio, including one shot from Art of Disney Animation towards the future Cars attraction that gives a good close-up view of progress here (photo 2).

The section of this series of buildings seen above is the circular main entrance and the long, thin, double-back section. You can see the circular centre of the entrance above, as well as the tall metal structure already in place to hold the large “Cars” logo seen on concept art. The thin rectangular building extending from this into the distance will also feature a “storefront” with Guido and Luigi, likely where the curved section of concrete can be seen extending from the building.

The thin metal supports in the foreground of the picture are for the queue section just before the boarding pens, which will be themed to Flo’s V8 Café.

Over at Crush’s Coaster, the side wall of the coaster building is now totally blue, whilst the dark ride section has been given a tester strip of blue paint along its rim. Blue paint has also recently spread to Art of Disney Animation. La Rouquine on Disney Central Plaza forum reported a few days ago that the section of this large building nearest Studio Tram Tour, including the tall toilets building at the rear, has been given a new coat of paint to welcome it into the new Toon Studio. It remains to be seen where else in the existing land will be given a spot of blue paint, such as Animagique or the remaining sections of Art of Disney.

Finally, WDS Fans confirmed some interesting new details about Crush’s Coaster yesterday. It appears that although the coaster section of the ride is an “off-the-shelf” design by its manufacturer Maurer Söhne, the track has been tweaked at almost every turn by the Imagineers and designers, to make sure it perfectly fulfills the requirements of their design. Whilst most of the changes to this section won’t be noticed by guests, one major change has been confirmed. Unlike normal models of this roller coaster, which feature the “spinning unlock” section (a track section which unlocks the vehicle’s free-spinning design) after the first drop, Crush’s Coaster will feature this section before the drop, giving extra “spin time” as well as a more exciting experience as guests spin whilst swooping down the 40ft drop.

WDS Fans also confirms that the submarine spanning the length of the lift hill will indeed be present, with the Bruce animatronic measuring 4 metres from head to tail!

Photos by Grandmath, Disney Central Plaza. Other images copyright Disney and Maurer Söhne.

Reopening day itself, Saturday 14th October, was reportedly an eventful one. Scrooge at Disney Magic Interactive forum reported that just seconds after opening the whole of Frontierland was closed, before reopening a few minutes later. Big Thunder Mountain itself didn’t open until after midday, and suffered several technical problems throughout the day.

As for the refurbishment, which began on 21st August, whilst Big Thunder itself was cleaned and repainted in sections before the closure and during its early stages, impressive changes have taken place at the attraction’s loading station recently. The most noticable of these to mine train riders is the addition of new safety gates on each platform, similar to those installed in 2005 at Space Mountain: Mission 2. Unlike the gates at other attractions, though, these have been themed to fit perfectly with the attraction, with the seams of the metal bars made clearly visable to give an old-fashioned, Western style.

Outside of the station building itself, the difference between old and new is remarkable. The classic red tint on the wood has been restored to its full glory after becoming practically invisible due to years of weathering and neglect.

The ochre rockwork around the station has been cleaned just as spectacularly as the mountain itself, and the Southern sides of the queue building have had their vibrant yellow tint restored, completing the ride’s iconic Western colour scheme of brown, red, yellow and green (the wagons). Meanwhile, a new height indicator is just one of the many minor tweaks and modifications to the attraction.

The only way to truly experience the superb changes here, though, is to take a ride on “the wildest ride in the wilderness” itself. Whilst every turn presents new areas of rockwork painstakingly cleaned and repainted, one of the key scenes with a lot of new vibrancy is just after the first lift hill, where all manner of spiky cacti grow in the middle of a u-turn in the track, seen below. Finally, the moss and dirt have been removed to return the arid, desert feel to this incredible landscape.

Adjustments have, of course, been made to the more major elements of the ride, such as the roller coaster’s track (in particular the first lift hill), animatronics and special effects. Whilst some effects were reportedly not functioning this weekend, it is expected they will all return eventually.

Photos by DLRP Today, Photos Magiques, Dlrp.fr and Scrooge (Disney Magic Interactive forum).

Each week we’ll feature a different travel company brochure and compare how well they’re selling the 15th Anniversary experience. Disneyland Resort Paris’ advertising campaign for the 15th will be their biggest ever, but the brochures are where the bookings come from, and outside travel companies give the resort a huge amount of business year after year. Many people also pick up an “unofficial” brochure before then booking direct with the resort anyway, providing a nice piece of (almost) free advertising.

Since I’ve only got access to UK brochures, if you’re reading this on the continent and have spotted the 15th Anniversary in your local brochures, send them in! The 15th will hopefully be a Europe-wide event, so it’d be good to get a bigger picture on how they’re doing. You can send images direct to today@dlrpmagic.com, and I’ll be sure to credit you if they’re featured.

This week, its Thomson, one of many companies owned by TUI AG of Germany, and their October 2006 to November 2007 brochure.

Front Cover & Contents

It was only recently that Disneyland Resort Paris began to allow outside travel companies to use the Fab 5 (except Mickey) in their brochures and advertisements – previously they were stuck with generic children, Princesses and “lesser” Disney characters, with key visuals for parades and shows altered to replace Mickey with, say, Chip and Dale. Now, though, the rules appear to have been relaxed and Thomson are wasting no time in using the classic characters to market their products. The Donald Duck key visual we presented on Thursday is used to create a beautiful, very striking cover that is totally different to Thomson’s other more restrained covers. They’ve kept the cover free of anything other than their logo and the brochure dates, so all emphasis is on Donald, the castle and the large “15”. Great stuff.

The contents page is nice and simple again, and features the 15th Anniversary key visual with a small piece of text about the events – even though this is the first brochure we’ve seen, you’ll notice throughout that the anniversary is mentioned absolutely everywhere. It’s a bigger marketing push, perhaps, than even the opening of Walt Disney Studios.

15th Anniversary & Tailor Made Dreams

The most important page for this – the 15th Anniversary double spread. It’s got all the visuals and the creative texts and generally does the job well. It puts emphasis on the great “Kids Under 7 Go Free” offer (available throughout next year) and even mentions Extra Magic Hours. It could have been designed better though, since the Once Upon a Dream Parade and Cars Race Rally images are on the opposite pages to their descriptions and the wavy edging of the images removes some of their professional style.

The Tailor Made Dreams page uses a nice image of Mickey and Minnie, but the lengthy text isn’t very inviting – a quick summary at the top of what this programme is all about would have been better. The logo for Tailor Made Dreams is featured again on each hotel page, though, which is a nice touch.

Park Introductions

Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade is featured again on the Shows & Events page, but its on the Park Introduction pages that Thomson score points, since both pages feature a summary of the 15th Anniversary events on offer at each park. Unfortunately, they do have small mistake on the Walt Disney Studios page – Crush’s Roller Coaster? Not good.

So, as our first brochure, it doesn’t do too badly at marketing the 15th. Even if the page design is a bit clumsy and the information not very readable, the nice front cover should draw people in to this one and make sure they know what’s going on in Paris. Hopefully, the constant presence of the anniversary throughout the entire brochure will be be a trend through all the brochures. The year to live your dream is the year Disneyland Resort Paris really need to see some positive financial results, and Thomson have kicked off their anniversary advertising well enough.

Celebration Score: 7/10

If you’re in the UK, you can order the Thomson brochure here.

Starting at Toon Studio, after a modest start with the paint tests one week ago, the painters have truly splashed out. Since the photos below were taken, one entire wall of the massive showbuilding has been given its first coat of vibrant blue paint, which does indeed appear to be almost the same shade as the iconic Sorcerer’s Hat and definitely a deeper and more intense colour than that seen on the original concept model.

The curved edging around the building’s Studio 5 placard has also been given a spot of paint, the pale yellow colour obviously chosen to contrast less with the deep blue soon to appear below and blend nicely with the very vibrant yellow on the placard itself. The Disney-style number 5 itself has even been included, gaining a sky blue colour. It is still unknown whether Studio 3, Animagique, will follow Studio 5 and replace its current placard with a Walt Disney Script version.

A ray of sunshine from high above The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror gives us a good glipse through the netting on its towering scaffolding rigs. What was previously a bare concrete shell has been quietly gaining more and more detail.

Indented edging around the top of the building supplies the essentials for its terracotta tiled Pueblo Deco style, whilst right-angled blocks either side of the windows already give a discomforting, foreboding, Hollywood edge to the design.

All photos by Joel, more available here.