Disney News, Discussion & an Element of Fun - 2024 Edition

[wabbott]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...ger-tokyo-disney-resort-expansion-1235917079/

Bob Iger Touts “Richly Immersive Experiences,” Cuts Ribbon on $2B Tokyo Disney Resort Expansion

Spanning 1.5 million square feet, the flagship Fantasy Springs addition to the Tokyo DisneySea theme park features new areas inspired by 'Frozen,' 'Tangled' and 'Peter Pan.'

June 7, 2024 - 12:12am PDT
by Patrick Brzeski

After $2 billion spent and a lengthy construction process complicated by the pandemic, the Walt Disney Co. threw open the doors Thursday to its sprawling Fantasy Springs addition to the Tokyo Disney Resort. Spanning 1.5 million square feet and comprising new areas inspired by the Frozen, Tangled and Peter Pan franchises, the expansion is a pillar project under Disney’s 10-year, $60 billion investment plan for its global theme parks. It’s also the largest addition in Japan since the Tokyo resort opened over 40 years ago as Disney’s first major international destination.

 

[rangerxenos]

Why?
Maybe they will overhaul and expand. It was a huge letdown for us and felt like an after hours event but without the free Mickey bars. The two shows were cute but not amazing. There just wasn't enough entertainment to charge what they did, and our main reason for going wasn't to ride rides, so we were disappointed. Again, maybe they will offer more this year.

I actually ended up not going and leaving my ticket credit last December, almost everything looked underwhelming.

I hope this year goes better, I most likely won't be going in 2024 because I don't think I can swing another trip as I'm planning on mid January.

 

[scrappinginontario]

First Ship Arrives at Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point!

I will say the distance from the ship to the island was something they conveniently forgot to mention. Whoa!! That's quite the trek to the island and then back to the ship!!

 

[LKing]

First Ship Arrives at Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point!

I will say the distance from the ship to the island was something they conveniently forgot to mention. Whoa!! That's quite the trek to the island and then back to the ship!!

View attachment 866542

It looks like a road without a designated walking path. Will they be running some sort of shuttle?

 

[scrappinginontario]

It looks like a road without a designated walking path. Will they be running some sort of shuttle?

Not that I'm aware of but still to be confirmed. It was shared on IG that a guest was trying to book transportation due to walking challenges. They were able to do so but it was not a smooth process (yet) and not sure how many will be able to use this option.

Many questions still to be answered.

The good news is the island itself looks beautiful!

 

[wabbott]

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/donald-duck-walt-disney-company-90-years-celebration/

June 7, 2024

The Walt Disney Company Kicks Off Global Celebration Honoring 90 Years of Donald Duck

Today, The Walt Disney Company kicked off a special company-wide campaign celebrating 90 years of Donald Duck with an exclusive first-look on Good Morning America that showcased new Donald Duck-inspired products and a surprise party in studio for Donald.
The months-long celebration will feature feathered festivities and exciting moments from across the company, including Walt Disney Animation Studios, consumer products, Disney parks, and more. Disney will release a new brand spot on June 9 highlighting the storytelling magic behind the beloved character to commemorate the anniversary of Donald’s 1934 debut in Walt Disney’s Silly Symphony short cartoon, The Wise Little Hen.

 

[wabbott]

Some history:

https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Wise_Little_Hen

Creation of Donald Duck

Clarence Nash had been a performer in Chautauqua and vaudeville during the 1920s and later met Wilfred Jackson who wanted Nash to provide bird sounds for a cartoon. During the call, Nash performed a rendition of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as a duck, and Jackson sent the music into Walt Disney's office. Disney himself proclaimed "[t]hat's our talking duck. The short was animated by Art Babbitt, Dick Huemer, Clyde Geronimi, Louie Schmitt, and Frenchy de Tremaudan (with assistance from a group of junior animators headed by Ben Sharpsteen) and directed by Wilfred Jackson. Animation on the hen was done by Wolfgang Reitherman and supervised by Ben Sharpsteen. Art Babbitt worked on Peter Pig and Donald Duck. Ward Kimball worked as an inbetweener on this short. The song featured in the short, "Help Me Plant My Corn" was written by Leigh Harline.

 

[OKW Lover]

After $2 billion spent and a lengthy construction process complicated by the pandemic, the Walt Disney Co. threw open the doors Thursday to its sprawling Fantasy Springs addition to the Tokyo Disney Resort.

This makes it sound like it was WDC that spent the money. I thought it was the OLC that owns these parks that provided the funds.

 

[Smugpugmug]

This makes it sound like it was WDC that spent the money. I thought it was the OLC that owns these parks that provided the funds.

That is correct. WDI built the attractions but Disney didn't pay for Fantasy Springs.

 

[Duckbug.Ducktales]

This makes it sound like it was WDC that spent the money. I thought it was the OLC that owns these parks that provided the funds.

Also, I don't think the 60 billion over 10 yrs includes anything done at Tokyo

 

[wabbott]

That is correct. WDI built the attractions but Disney didn't pay for Fantasy Springs.

Here's a 2018 article that discusses the money.

https://variety.com/2018/biz/asia/tokyo-disneysea-theme-park-upgrade-1202846079/

Jun 14, 2018 - 8:38am PDT
by Patrick Frater
Tokyo DisneySea Theme Park Set for $2.3 Billion Upgrade

Oriental Land, the listed company that operates the Japanese parks, said it plans to spend $2.3 billion (JPY250 billion) on renovations and upgrades that would allow it to earn an additional $460 million (JPY50 billion) per year. That is in addition to a $JPY100 billion renovation previously announced. In a statement, Oriental Land said that has agreed a 30-year extension to its license with Disney, taking it to 2076.

 

[Elijah Abrams]

I know the current plans for Tropical Americas at Animal Kingdom are just "Blue Sky" ideas, but the recent Instagram video by Imagineering, the leaked recent concept art, the Spring media event, and the permits feel like to me that it is no longer a "blue sky" thing, although it sounds like bad language on Disney’s part (to me).

Yes, I know that I like the idea of Tropical Americas, but it should be a fresh, new land, and not a replacement of an existing one, because the concept art has it be mostly buildings and not much jungle/rainforest.

 

[Naomeri]

I know the current plans for Tropical Americas at Animal Kingdom are just "Blue Sky" ideas, but the recent Instagram video by Imagineering, the leaked recent concept art, the Spring media event, and the permits feel like to me that it is no longer a "blue sky" thing, although it sounds like bad language on Disney’s part (to me).

Yes, I know that I like the idea of Tropical Americas, but it should be a fresh, new land, and not a replacement of an existing one, because the concept art has it be mostly buildings and not much jungle/rainforest.

They’ve moved it out of “blue sky” and into “this is coming, but we’re not giving you dates yet”

 

[Elijah Abrams]

They’ve moved it out of “blue sky” and into “this is coming, but we’re not giving you dates yet”

Yes, that’s the feeling right now, but, for once, I am hoping that the project has been greatly altered so it is a newly-built land, and not a retheme, or we would all be let down. I hope Joe Rhode is doing more than just training new Imagineers, and helping on the project, so it can live up to his (and our) potential.

 

[1lilspark]

Continued Downtime Plagues Tiana’s Bayou Adventure During Early Previews at Magic Kingdom

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure previews are off to a rocky start, with hours of downtime, ride evacuations, and premature preview cancelations as crews try to fix whatever it is that’s broken. We covered an evacuation of the ride yesterday, less than an hour after Cast Member previews for the ride began. As it turns out, the ride has faced hours and hours of downtime during early preview opportunities over multiple days.

According to Cast Members who were scheduled to attend this afternoon’s preview, previews have been paused for the rest of the day following an evacuation of the ride earlier today. Word is that previews were also canceled yesterday evening, BlogMickey.com has reached out to Disney World for more information, but Disney has not responded. We’ll be sure to update the article if we receive a statement.

From the outside looking in, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has clear early reliability issues. The ride has undergone weeks of testing, but it looks like there are either new or unfixed issues from the testing that are causing some serious ride reliability issues. We’re hopeful that Disney World is able to get the ongoing issues ironed out by the June 28th opening date (if not sooner).

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure did not receive any notable or significant ride system changes from the days of Splash Mountain, and it shows. In its waning years, Splash Mountain experienced a number of reliability issues, including no less than three separate incidents when the log ride vehicles sunk.

Thankfully, there are no reports of sinking logs for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, but ongoing reliability issues are a concern. From what we could see during construction, ride sensors were upgraded or worked on, but it’s not immediately clear if sensor issues are causing the downtime or some other issue. A number of all-new Audio-Animatronics have also been installed, perhaps complicating the show readiness and reliability of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.

What I’ve heard speculated is a lot of the issues are timing related as splash animatronics ran on a loop but the TBA ones are triggered by the logs passing

It looks like a road without a designated walking path. Will they be running some sort of shuttle?

From my understanding it’s about a half mile long pier from ship to shore (video showed golf carts on the pier) once on shore there is a slight walk to get to trams to take you around the island

 

[wabbott]

"D.I.Y. Duck"

 

[Duckbug.Ducktales]

"D.I.Y. Duck"

Mark Henn's last project. Nice that they put it on YouTube as well as Disney+.

 

[Gusey]

7 Things to Know About CommuniCore Hall and CommuniCore Plaza

 

[ThereYouSeeHer]

EPCOT's CommuniCore Plaza and Hall: All Construction Walls Down for Grand Opening

All construction walls around EPCOT's new CommuniCore Hall, CommuniCore Plaza, and Mickey & Friends are now down ahead of [today's] official opening.

 

[ThereYouSeeHer]

EPCOT Vice President Declares EPCOT Overhaul Project Complete with Opening of CommuniCore Hall

In a Disney blog post this afternoon going over previously announced details about CommuniCore Hall, EPCOT Vice President Kartika Rodriguez declared that the transformation of EPCOT is complete.

"It’s a very exciting time to be at EPCOT – after years of creative vision, innovation and dedicated work, I’m thrilled to share that the historic transformation of our park is complete."

While it is nice to see Disney complete the EPCOT transformation, you don’t have to look far to be reminded of what was cut from the final plans. Spaceship Earth was just weeks away from closing for a lengthy transformation before COVID-19 derailed those plans. In World Discovery, the PLAY! Pavilion project has been abandoned, and construction walls block off the former home of EPCOT Festivals, attractions, and experiences before that.

In World Showcase, upgrades to the China Pavilion’s Reflections of China show have been shelved, and in the United Kingdom, a Mary Poppins attraction never came to light despite getting Dick Van Dyke to announce the project.