Disney News and Information — by fans, for fans

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it’s time to start thinking turkey. I know I’ve been thinking about dining out this year instead of preparing a meal at home. I’m just too tired to cook after the craziness of this year. So it’s a good thing that some of Downtown Disney’s finest restaurants are featuring scrumptious Thanksgiving menus on Thursday, November 26, 2009.

Fulton’s Crab House

Executive Chef Ron Cope has crafted a decedent Thanksgiving menu guaranteed to surpass even your wildest dreams of the perfect turkey-day feast. Guests will start their meal with either Butternut Squash soup (topped with cinnamon whipped cream) or a Baby mixed greens salad with candied pecans, roma tomato & Maple ginger vinaigrette. The Thanksgiving entrée goes classic with a Roasted Turkey Breast with sage stuffing, turkey gravy, homemade cranberry relish, whipped sweet potatoes, Yukon gold mash. As always, end on a sweet note with Homemade Pumpkin Pie! Kids also have the option to make their own sundae with vanilla ice cream, Oreo cookie crumbs, rainbow sprinkles, and chocolate sauce.

Fulton’s Crab House is located at located at 1670 Buena Vista Drive Lake in Downtown Disney. The Thanksgiving Day hours are 11:30 am- 11:00 pm. $29.95/person. Kids under 10 $12.95/person.

Portobello

This Thanksgiving at Portobello, Chef Steven Richard & Consulting Chef Tony Mantuano will serve a traditional three course dinner with a creative twist. Priced at $33.95 per person and $14.95 for children 10 and under, the first course offers options such as Caesar Salad or Sweet Potato Bisque. Enjoy an entrée of Roasted Turkey Breast with Rosemary Gravy, Pancetta and Apple Dressing, Haricot Verte, Whipped potato and cranberry relish. And of course, Thanksgiving dinner wouldn’t be complete without dessert so dig into Portobello’s delicious Pumpkin Bread Pudding.

Portobello is located at located at 1670 Buena Vista Drive Lake in Downtown Disney. The Thanksgiving Day hours are 11:30 am- 11:00 pm.

Wolfgang Puck Grand Cafe

Chef Sinclair Thorne & Consulting Chef Wolfgang Puck have created an immaculate Thanksgiving menu to be offered in their gorgeous upstairs dining room. Start with an Amuse Bouche of Duck Comfit (long island duck in puff pastry with toasted Hazelnuts and orange cranberries sorbet) before you move on to the first course with a choice of Seared Scallop (Creamy celery root puree and duo pepper puree) or Duck Napoleon Slow braised duck layered with herbed goat cheese, Crispy wontons and apple-raspberry chutney. The Second Course offers a choice of Lobster Bisque with crispy prosciutto and lime chive crème fraiche or Tomato Mozzarella Salad Butter lettuce, heirloom tomato, arugula, shaved parmesan cheese Buffalo mozzarella, balsamic reduction and basil aioli. Wolfgang Puck has created a tradition main course consisting of Oven Roasted Free Range Turkey (with mushroom duxelle, garlic mashed potato, turkey dressing baby vegetables Orange spice cranberry relish) and Braised Short Ribs (with Herb and goat cheese polenta and fall vegetables.) End on a sweet note with Pumpkin Crème Brule (Spiced pumpkin custard with caramelized sugar)

Wolfgang Puck Grand Cafe is located at located in Downtown Disney. The Thanksgiving Day hours are 11:30 am- 11:00 pm. $69.95/person. $16.95/person for children 12 and under.

Today TouringPlans.com, the fine folks behind the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, are launching a preview version of Lines, a mobile website for iPhone users that displays estimates of wait times for every attraction at Walt Disney World, in real time.

For the past 10 years they’ve been obsessively researching wait times at Walt Disney World, collecting and processing a massive amount of data along the way. Their products like Touring Plans and the Crowd Calendar help you efficiently tour the parks and avoid the crowds.

In Lines, it’s obvious they thought a lot about one’s experience while touring the parks: standing in Frontierland and want to know how long the line is at Space Mountain? Is Soarin’ really a ninety minute wait? Will there be FASTPASSes left at Toy Story Mania if we get there at noon?

Lines was built to solve these problems. There are many mobile applications doing wait times (Disney included), and accurate estimates are particularly challenging. TouringPlans has the unique dataset required to provide the most accurate estimates.

There is also a handy preview of what tomorrow will look like. I’d like to see this expanded in future editions.

To give it a test-drive, grab an iPhone our iPod Touch and navigate to http://m.touringplans.com (other mobile platforms are on the way). You’ll need a TouringPlans.com subscription (which is free) to use Lines during this preview.

Few animated characters have been as influential or as long lived as Mickey Mouse. If you’re going to be in the Bay Area on November 18, you’re encouraged to make an appointment to visit The Walt Disney Family Museum and celebrate Mickey Mouse’s birthday.

Although he had appeared in the animated short Plane Crazy six months earlier, November 18, 1928 is widely recognized as Mickey Mouse’s birthday as it was the day that Steamboat Willie—the first Mickey Mouse cartoon with synchronized sound—was released.

Explore the galleries and discover the Earliest Known Drawings of Mickey Mouse and so much more, including vintage Mickey merchandise, the creation of Mickey’s friends, an interactive station that demonstrates how sound is synchronized to animation, and a special section dedicated to the Mickey Mouse Club. Come celebrate and learn about the birth, history and life of the leader of the club that’s made for you and me: M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

The Museum is open from 10AM to 6PM, Wednesday through Monday. For more information, visit www.waltdisney.org or call 415-345-6800.

The week is over. Time to circle the wagons and clear a few open tabs.

First, I was very happy to hear the Oh Amanda, who writes our LOST coverage here at The Disney Blog, has made it onto the Disney Mom’s panel. She totally deserves it. I know she’ll be great at answering everyone’s questions.

Disneyland Paris saw increased visits, but still lost money last year. Not a good sign for a company that is still carrying a lot of debt. Hopefully the improving economy will improve their fortunes and prevent the need for serious cutbacks in service and development.

Let’s get ready to rumble. The Winnie the Pooh lawsuit is back on! This is basically a continuation of the last lawsuit. The judge reject the Slesinger heirs the rights to the Pooh characters, but said they were due royalties. This lawsuit is about setting the royalty rate. This is never going to end, is it.

Artist Cardow has an interesting political cartoon related to the makeover Disney is supposedly giving Mickey Mouse.

With 20 animated films eligible for the Oscars this year Pixar’s UP will face some stiff competition from four other films this year.

If you didn’t hear, The Walt Disney Company made a little more money last 4th quarter that they did the year previously.

Lastly, I was at the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday night and rode the TTA through the upgraded Space Mountain. They were doing testing. Cars were running and the interior effects were on. Definitely a new sound for the cars, but no soundtrack I could hear. However, the new interior lighting effects were amazing. Much more realistic than the old version. Btw, I hear soft openings are possible beginning even today.

Here’s the latest time lapse video from Disney Parks highlighting the changes the Magic Kingdom undergoes when shifting from Halloween to Christmas decor.

Chad Emerson of Blooloop.com has a short interview with EPCOT Vice President Dan Cockerell. I’ve met Dan on a couple of occasions and can tell you his heart is definitely in the right place. He comes with a lot of front line experience as well as operations experience.

When asked about his leadership style he said:

Albert Einstein said, “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.” I really believe that. People don’t care what you say, they care what you do. Since our Cast is what makes our guest experience unique and they deliver the magic, I spend most of my time finding ways to support them in their roles and making sure they can be as successful as possible.

More at Blooloop.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger has just fulfilled the wishes of many a Disney theme park fan by moving Disney Worldwide Parks and Resorts Chair Jay Rasulo out of his position. He will be changing places with Disney CFO Tom Staggs effective in the new year.

Many a finger has been pointed in Rasulo’s direction when it comes to fans unhappiness with the theme park divisions direction. (Of course, some of those same fans are not so quick to give accolades when things go right.) He was often accused of not being interested in the parks to the point of avoiding any travel to them. The focus on DVC over regular resorts, the disasterous run (DCA, Paris Studios, Hong Kong Disneyland) of small theme parks with little themeing over immersive parks favored by the fans, and the general decline of the dining experience at the parks have all be laid at the feet of Rasulo’s policies. I’m not sure how fair any of that is.

As for Staggs, to be honest, I don’t know much about his views on Disney’s theme parks division. But I’ve found his handling of the corporate financial conferences to be masterful. To me this move is roughly the equivalent of Eisner putting Wells in charge of the theme parks, a move which I’m sure would have pleased many fans. So there is hope here.

Quotes from Bob Iger and Tom Staggs at the Orlando Sentinel.

Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger takes the 1980s idea of synergy that was perfected by the early Eisner and Wells administration to the next level with his concept of the Franchise.

I’m not talking Kevin Garnett for you NBA fans. Nor is it like Subway where where you sell the concept to others to develop for you. It’s more about finding a tent pole that’s tall enough and strong enough you can hang a tent big enough to cover nearly every aspect of your company (I don’t think I’ve seen any Princess Tiana tie-ins for ESPN… yet) and increase their sales as well.

Based on what I’m seeing in terms of merchandise and in park tie-ins, I think Iger has identified The Princess and The Frog as the next franchise for Disney. A story in the Orlando Sentinel, (full disclosure, I was interviewed for the piece), discusses how much Disney is counting on the frog princess to make it a few bucks

Mitchelson, the Deutsche Bank analyst, said the ancillary potential of The Princess and the Frog is so large that the best measure of its success won’t be box office results — it will be consumer-product sales.

“To the extent that The Princess and the Frog is only considered modestly successful from a film point of view, that doesn’t  mean it won’t be quite successful from the perspective of broadening the princess franchise,” he said.

A good point. It’s been 12 years since the last Princess was introduced, and that’s only if you include Mulan among the princesses. I personally classify her as a hero, along with Pocahontas.

Disney’s most recent franchise consumer products producer was ‘Cars’. While not a critical box office hit, Cars made somewhere north of $4 billion in merchandise sales for the mouse house. I don’t think we’ll see quite that much with Princess Tiana merchandise alone, but when you add in increased sales of other princess merchandise, you might get close.

As evidence, at the Magic Kingdom last night I again saw little girls already wearing the Princess Tiana dress even before the movie has been released. Princesses of all colors too as is befitting a movie that really is an American story.