It’s Friday Night. If you’re not out watching High School Football, then perhaps you’re planning your next trip to Walt Disney World. Me? I’m posting the latest Disney news and links roundup.

• Trevor Hogg is writing a three-part profile on Pixar Studios being posted by the UK film website Flickering Myth. Part Two will be posted on Nov. 11 and Part Three on Nov. 18.
• A.O. Scott of the New York Times actually gives “A Christmas Carol” a positive review. Other than a few uncanny valley problems and a weak third act, he thinks Zemeckis did justice to the subject matter. Might be a bit scary for the young ones, however.
• A giant Mickey Mouse balloon will appear in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year. This raises an interesting quandry as traditionally, the floats and balloons appear at Universal Studios Orlando after the New York event.
• If you like “V” on ABC tune in to a special ‘Social Commentary‘ this Saturday. Show experts and fans can leave their commentary as the show streams online.
• Bloomberg News reports on some of the Chinese villagers who will be relocated to make way for Shanghai Disneyland.
• It’s interesting to see how fears of contracting swine flu while on vacation at a Disney themepark are playing across the pond.
• Meanwhile, it’s not the flu, but the sick economy that is delaying the construction of Disney World’s West Gate development – Flamingo Crossing.
• Don’t forget to go register for “Townsquare” the official forums of The Disney Blog. Over 100 have already signed up.
• Finally, check out this list of the 5 coolest new theme parks. Anything you think they’re missing?

When the Walt Disney Company set out to build a theme park in Hong Kong there were a lot of questions. Would the Chinese take to the American style theme park? Would the Disney characters resonate with a population that had previously had little exposure to them? Just who was the audience for the park?

Fortune Magazine looks at some of the lessons Disney can take away from their experience in Hong Kong that might serve them well in future expansion into Asia markets.

[Disney] failed to gauge local tastes, opened with a park that was too small to meet the grandiose expectations of its clientele, made some public relations mistakes early on, and took too long to adapt to local food, culture, and tastes, according to Allan Zeman, the chairman of the rival Ocean Park theme park in Hong Kong.

“Disney, on the other hand, came in very American,” Zeman says. “Disney was a big brand, not really understanding the culture at the beginning. They had everything run out of the U.S. At the beginning there was a sense of arrogance: ‘We’re Disney, and don’t tell us how to run a theme park.’”

Hong Kong Disneyland also earned the wrath of the Hong Kong press corps by taking a long time to respond to queries with answers that had to be approved through U.S. headquarters

In hindsight it’s obvious Disney didn’t know what they were getting into when they built Hong Kong Disneyland. Let’s hope they’ve done their homework for Shanghai?

Tonight the Disney Parks blog posted the following press release:

THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY REACHES ANOTHER MAJOR MILESTONE ON SHANGHAI THEME PARK PROJECT

BURBANK, Calif. – November 3, 2009 – The Walt Disney Company today announced that the Project Application Report (PAR) for a Disney theme park in the Pudong district of Shanghai has received approval from the relevant authorities of the central government of China.

“China is one of the most dynamic, exciting and important countries in the world, and this approval marks a very significant milestone for The Walt Disney Company in mainland China,” said Robert A. Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Company.

The PAR approval will enable Disney and its Shanghai partners to move forward toward a final agreement to build and operate the park and begin preliminary development work. Upon completion of the final agreement, the project’s initial phase would include a Magic Kingdom-style theme park with characteristics tailored to the Shanghai region and other amenities consistent with Disney’s destination resorts worldwide.

That’s definitely a good sign if you think the company’s foray into the China mainland is the right direction. Also interesting to me is that this is the first time they’ve mentioned the development would include a Magic Kingdom-style theme park. I had heard this would be something completely new. I wonder if that was part of the negotiations.

It’s difficult for me to think of a theme park company that goes farther than the Walt Disney Company to accommodate guests with disabilities. That said, there is always room for improvement. Disneyland has now added ‘Audio Description’ to many of its attractions, a service Walt Disney World has been offering for a bit more than a year now.

Disneyland Resort Guests with visual disabilities can now be more fully immersed into Disney attractions and storytelling through a new Audio Description service created by Disney engineers. The service, which launched Nov. 1, is enabled through wireless technology via a handheld device available to Guests visiting the Resort.

“The Disneyland Resort welcomes millions of diverse visitors each year, and we are committed to making the Disney tradition of rich storytelling available to everyone,” said Betty Appleton, who oversees the Resort’s Guests with Disabilities program. “Audio Description supports our longstanding commitment to providing outstanding services to all Guests as it enables our visitors who are blind or have low vision to more fully enjoy our attractions.”

Audio Description provides narrated audio for Guests with visual disabilities by describing visual attraction elements such as actions, settings and scene changes. It works seamlessly with existing show audio, enhancing each attraction with rich detail and immediately involving Guests into the experience. This service is available at nearly 20 attractions at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure, including favorites such as Pirates of the Caribbean, It’s Tough to be a Bug and Haunted Mansion.

A Guest experiencing Haunted Mansion would hear the following after boarding a ride vehicle: “Our doom buggy rotates and we face backward. To our left, a knight’s armor guards an endless hallway. On our right, wilted flower arrangements surround a coffin. An eerie light escapes as bony hands push up the lid.”

CastABLE and Diversity Resource Groups

As part of the testing process, Audio Description service was evaluated by members of CastABLE, a Diversity Resource Group (DRG) composed of Resort Cast Members with disabilities.

“Experiencing the Audio Description service almost brought me to tears,” said Brenda Woodrum, a reservation sales agent at the Walt Disney Travel Company in Anaheim and CastABLE member who has been visually impaired since 1996. “For me it was an emotional experience, especially when I got onto Pirates of the Caribbean. It brought back memories of all the rich detail that I could see when I was younger. There was so much magic that I was missing, but this new technology it brings it all to you.”

As part of its ongoing commitment to fostering an inclusive work environment, the Disneyland Resort supports six DRGs, which have combined memberships of approximately 1,500 Cast Members. The DRGs exist to make Cast feel welcomed, appreciated and valued while providing enrichment, awareness and education. DRGs also serve as thought partners, providing valuable feedback and insight to business leaders on products and services currently in development.

Services For Guests with Hearing Disabilities

Audio Description joins two existing services available on Disney’s Handheld Device, a palm-sized wireless device originally developed in 2002 by Disney engineers. In addition to Audio Description, the device offers services to Guests with hearing disabilities, including Assistive Listening, which was added in August and provides amplified audio at several attractions, and Handheld Captioning, which displays text in specific attractions and areas.

Disney’s Handheld Device is available at no cost for daily Guest use by visiting Guest Relations at Disneyland or Disney’s California Adventure on a first-come, first-served basis. A fully refundable deposit is required.

Available Attractions

The following attractions offer Audio Description: Enchanted Tiki Room, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, ‘it’s a small world’, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Peter Pan’s Flight, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, Snow White’s Scary Adventures, Storybook Land Canal Boats, Disneyland Railroad, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience”, It’s Tough to be a Bug!, Turtle Talk with Crush, Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! and Muppet*Vision 3D.

Sure, the Food & Wine festival isn’t even over yet, but with winter setting in around the country you may want to dream a little about spring on those cold nights. This year spring starts the earliest ever at EPCOT with a March 3rd launch of the The 17th annual Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival.

The event will continue for 75 days through May 16, 2010, and bring bold strokes of seasonal color and brand-new topiary whimsy. Donald Duck and his topiary pals will set up camp in full floral color to celebrate the Great Outdoors at the Epcot front entrance. The elaborate topiary with a North American theme, live waterfall and pond features Goofy in a fly-fishing misadventure, Daisy Duck roasting marshmallows over a campfire and Pluto in his “pup tent.” It will be a a must-stop photo op for guests as soon as they pass through the park turnstiles.

“The advantage of starting earlier is that we’ll be able to feature more brilliant color than ever, with richly hued petunias, violas, snapdragons and other hardy flowers,” says festival horticulture manager Eric Darden. “By starting earlier and going through mid-May, it allows more guests than ever to experience the festival and to plan ahead for their spring and summer gardening.”

Follow below the jump to find out what will be new this year as well as other highlights:

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Disney has recently converted one of its merchandise carts into a much more permanent location on one end of Main Street USA at the Magic Kingdom. Is this an example of Disney doing something right and ditching the tacky temporary cart or have they gone too far in the pursuit of sucking that last penny from your wallet?

Hats, mouseears, autograph books, suntan oil, and cameras. The sort of things that is a quick pick up at the end of Main Street before you make your way into the heart of the park. However, all this stuff is available in the Emporium at the start of Main Street at in stores in each land. Is this location really necessary?

As you can see above this merchandise location looms large at the end of Main Street. Which is my biggest problem with the location. I think it’s too tall and interferes with the view of the castle. It’s the first thing I saw when I passed the end of main street.

What do you think? Have they gone too far?

This week yet another sexual assault incident at a Water Park, this time Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon, was covered by the local press. It may seem like there have been dozens of reports this year, but it’s really just a handful. That’s not to downplay the severity of any incident, but it shouldn’t be taken as a trend.

As it turns out, where you really have to be careful is crossing the roads. The Orlando-Kissimmee has been rated the worst for pedestrian safety. An average of 2.8 annual pedestrian deaths per 100,000 was cited. With 48 million tourists visiting the area each year, the numbers really start to add up.

At one time Las Vegas was known for its terrible pedestrian safety record. Particularly in the popular area of Las Vegas Blvd, aka The Strip. Then the region got serious about the safety of its customers, aka revenue stream. It made streets more pedestrian friendly and where traffic was very heavy, built pedestrian overpasses to totally remove people from the streets. It’s been a very successful strategy.

Maybe it’s time to look at this same solution here in Orlando.

Princess Tiana appears in a horse drawn carriage fit for an American Princess.

Yesterday marked the official opening of a 15 week run for Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. As I posted earlier, the show envelopes guests into being part of the show, a great experience for the guests involved, but how would it play for the rest of the park attendees? Turns out, pretty amazing.

For the special ceremony New Orleans dancers led Princess Tiana to the castle.

The Princess and The Frog is an American story at its root and it features the first African American Princess. The park is really excited about promoting the first new princess in 12 years, so they rolled out some big guns for the press event. One of those was Bruce Smith, the lead animator on Dr. Facilier, the main villain of the movie.

Characters representing current inhabitants of the Magic Kingdom welcome Princess Tiana to the fold.

There was also a wonderful display of merchandise that Disney spent the last two years creating. Some of it, like the theme park exclusive Princess Tiana dress, has been for sale in the park for two weeks and is already flying off the shelves.

A royal proclamation is read.

But the focus of the day was the introduction of Princess Tiana to the park and the official debut of Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee. TSJ has three distinct parts, and while it’s possible to catch all three, if you can only pick one, make sure to choose the middle part performed on the Liberty Belle when it stops in front of Splash Mountain.

The regular show will take place three times daily on the Liberty Belle with a procession leading to and from the boat before and after each performance.

The show is currently only scheduled to run through January 3rd, 2010 as a tie-in to the movie’s launch on December 11th. It’s my hope they extend this show at least through the summer. The show was already drawing huge crowds without the benefit of the movie even being in theaters, I imagine it will continue to grow once it’s seen by the public.

Lots more photos below the jump, so come on down

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