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… Read More »Disneyland Adds Audio Description Service
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:
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… Read More »New Merchandise Location at Magic Kingdom, too much?
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… Read More »Travel Safety Issues 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
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… Read More »John Beal, composed early Disney World tunes, interviewed
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… Read More »Around The Hub – Monday Kickoff
Blooloop continues its series of movers and shakers at Walt Disney World, both past and present. This week, we meet Brad Rex who was Vice President of EPCOT from 2001-2007. Brad dishes a little inside ball on two major events of his reign, 9/11 and… Read More »Interview with former EPCOT VP Brad Rex