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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Fans of the horror film genre know that the soundtrack is often the key component of the tension required to really put the scare on. It works the same at Disney’s parks, only it’s not tension that’s building, but atmosphere. It takes a lot of talent to compose for either genre, but John Beal has composed for both.

Beal was one of the orchestral conductors during the Walt Disney World Grand Opening in 1971, and he also supplied music for America Sings and the Carousel of Progress.

Mark Morton has an interview with Beal that is admittedly heavier on the horror, but there are a few juicy Disney tidbits.

I must say that working with the folks at Imagineering was a dream – a collaborative creative experience such as I’ve not found anywhere else. To work with completely open minds that encourage all ideas and build on each others’ suggestions was a real treat.

More here.

Let’s get a good start on another week and go Around The Hub for the latest Disney News and Information.

• Latino Review has an interview with the directors of The Princess and the Frog. It’s fairly extensive ranging from uses of technology in animation through to what it’s like at Walt Disney Animation Studios since the Pixar acquisition.
• Blue Sky Disney works up an idea of what happens next year when California Adventure becomes ‘Wall-land’ with construction everywhere and a popular night show, World of Color, drawing in overflow crowds.
• Speaking of which, water, recycled water from Orange County, has been flowing back into the lagoon at DCA. Real testing on World of Color should start soon.
• The official Pixar website has added some stuff about Toy Story 3. It’s hidden behind all that design for ‘UP’ which continues to do very well in the box office around the world having just passed $500 million in worldwide box office.
• The NY Times reports on Disney’s attempts to generate interest in the Motion Capture version of “A Christmas Carol” featuring Jim Carrey. Do your holiday plans involve taking in this ‘gem’.
• It’s not the Love Canal, but if you live near Disney’s Burbank Studios, it’s serious pollution. A judge has allowed a lawsuit to go forward against the studio for contributing Chromium 6 to the ground water system. The studio claims there is no merit to the suit.