Great behind-the-scenes stuff from Disney Parks Blog!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Signs of the Times - 40 Years of Disneyland Marquees
For more than 40 years, the large marquee outside Disneyland was often your first clue that you had arrived somewhere different — you had finally arrived at Disneyland! Here’s a look back at the Southern California icon.
Above is the original 1958 marquee as it appeared in 1976.
A new electronic marquee arrived in 1989, briefly sharing the spotlight with its predecessor during installation.
The electronic marquee greeted millions of visitors in multiple languages for nearly 10 years.
Today, whether arriving by car, hotel shuttle or by foot, the tradition of greeting our guests in style continues.
The above was taken from a post on May 21st, 2010 by George Savvas, Public Relations Director, Disneyland Resort.
These are great photos, aren't they?
Friday, May 21, 2010
Good News for Residents Near Disneyland Resort! - Summer Pass
Posted on May 21st, 2010 by Heather Hust Rivera, Manager, Print and Social Media, Disneyland Resort
The Summer Pass is good for three park visits to either Disneyland park or Disney’s California Adventure park (one park per day) within a 45-day period, for residents residing in zip codes 90000 through 93599, and 21000- 22999. For $108, or $36 per visit, guests will enjoy three fun-filled summer days and nights at the Disneyland Resort. For an additional $21, local residents can upgrade their Summer Pass to a Summer Pass Plus, a 3-day Park Hopper ticket that allows guests to visit both parks on the same day. This offer is available for use June 11 to August 29 and is blocked out from July 2 – July 4, 2010 and August 22 – August 23, 2010.
Where can you get it? The Summer Pass can be purchased at www.disneyland.com, the Disneyland Resort box office, Disney Stores, Disneyland Resort Hotels, and a variety of southern California supermarkets and retail chains, including Vons, Albertsons, Ralphs, Stater Bros., Food 4 Less, Gelson’s and Deardens. Resident ID is required.
More information about the Summer Pass, the Summer Pass Plus and Summer Nightastic! can be found at www.disneyland.com/summer.>
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Disneyland Park Balloon Magic - Fun Video!
Posted on May 17th, 2010 by Valarie Sukovaty, Disneyland Public Relations, Disney Parks Blog
Balloons have been a guest favorite since day one, literally. Disneyland has been selling balloons in the Park since 1955. So, how does that cool Mickey Mouse-shaped balloon get inside that clear balloon? It takes skill. And how do the vendors hold all those balloons without letting them go? Again, it takes skill and a special technique. Check out this video and see how they make balloon magic. By the way, if you ever pop a balloon while you are in the Park, just bring it back to the vendor and they will give you a new one!
Get free ice cream at Downtown Disney! Tuesday - May 18
This just in From the Orange County register. Somebody say "Yum"!:
May 18th, 2010, 6:00 am · posted by Sarah Tully
Visitors to Downtown Disney can get free scoops of ice cream on Tuesday (today), according to the Register’s OC Deals blog.
Haagen-Dazs stores, including the Anaheim location, are giving away free ice cream in honor of the chain’s 50th anniversary.
Guests can pick up their sweet treats between 4 to 8 p.m. Haagen-Dazs is offering Chocolate, Coffee or Vanilla scoops only.
For more details and a full list of Orange County locations, see the story in the OC Deals blog.
Photo of Downtown Disney from June is by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Another behind-the-scenes look at Disneyland's new river - Cool Map
Disneyland’s main waterway has always been called the Rivers of America, but it wasn’t clear what the name meant.
“We’ve never even named the rivers,” said Kim Irvine, art director of Walt Disney Imagineering.
For the first time, the body of water around Tom Sawyer Island will have distinct sections designed to look like four U.S. river regions: the Mississippi, the Columbia, the Potomac and the Rio Grande.
And with the rivers, visitors for the first time will see new creatures, plant life and scenes when the Rivers of America re-opens Saturday. Read details about each of the Disneyland river regions.
Crews are finishing up a four-month rehabilitation project mostly done while the Rivers of America was drained; this week, the Rivers was being re-filled.
Disney last upgraded scenes on the shoreline in 1991 when crews installed the Fantasmic! show, Irvine said. Disney showed the new features to employees and an Around.Disney.com reporter in a behind-the-scenes tour recently (We were not allowed to take photographs; look back next week when we will have them).
After the river was drained in January, Disney crews:
- Installed a new 2,500-foot track for the Mark Twain Riverboat and the Sailing Ship Columbia for the first time since the park opened in 1955.
- Built a corral for two live ponies. (It is the first time live animals are long the banks).
- Planted 4,000 new shrubs and 130 new trees that look like the river regions.
- Added 10 new figures and repainted about 16 old ones, either plants or animals.
- Posted Mike Fink’s Keel Boat in front of the cabin.
- Put in a new paddle wheel on the Mark Twain Riverboat.
- Replaced nine of the 11 docks.
The new features are visible from the riverboat, sailing ship and Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes and rafts to Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer Island. All but the riverboat are set to re-open Saturday.
See a video about the Rivers of America in the previous post.
When the riverboat comes back as early as May 21, a guide will read a new speech that will explain at the beginning of the ride that guests will explore the four rivers on the journey.
New scenes include: deers drinking from a creek, Indian braves on Tom Sawyer Island, raccoons spied by a skunk, mountain lions hiding in the grass and an osprey on top of the winch beam close to the riverboat dock. Some old animals, including a group of moose, were repositioned in new scenes.
Disney attraction creators, called Imagineers, consulted original sketches from Walt Disney collaborators Marc Davis and Sam McKim for the river to come up with new ideas. Some scenes, including the raccoons, were from those old plans.
The previously burning cabin got a new theme: Mike Fink, Davy Crockett’s rival and later friend, is the new resident. His keel boat, the Gullywhumper from the previous Disneyland ride, was placed in front of the cabin. Visitors will hear Crockett and Fink arguing from the boats.
“We had the Gullywhumper available, and we had the story,” Irvine said. “We kind of like to go back to our history.”
Along the 25,000 square feet of river’s edge, crews added new trees and rockwork to define the regions. In the Columbia area, for example, horticulturists planted evergreens and ferns to make the region appear similar to tree scenes in “Twilight,” Irvine said. Along the Rio Grande, red rocks on the shoreline blend in with the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad nearby.
The old version of Rivers of America was “just sort of a mish-mash,” said Karen Hedges, Disneyland Resort’s horticulture director.
The empty river gave horticulturists a rare opportunity to do landscaping along the river from the ground floor and during the day time, said Nicole Hill, a Disneyland Resort horticulture manager. Usually, gardeners must trim trees and spruce up the shoreline from river rafts, taking everything in and out from the boats overnight.
“I think everybody will notice the difference,” said David Berrio, a Disneyland Resort horticulture manager.
The cool article above is courtesy of ocresort.freedomblogging.com.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
50 Days of Free Song Downloads From Walt Disney Records
Passing this on from milehighonthecheap.comWhen you wish upon a star, dreams do come true…especially if you are wishing for FREE downloads of 50 Disney tunes over 50 days. Walt Disney Records is offering the deal to those who follow Disney on Facebook or Twitter. The promo started Monday and continues for 50 days. Tunes come from Disney Channel original flicks like “Camp Rock” and “High School Musical,” Disney Channel TV hits including “Hannah Montana” and “Wizards of Waverly Place” and favorite Disney films such as “Beauty and the Beast,” “Toy Story” and “Bambi.” Thanks to our sister site Houston on the Cheap for the head’s up.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Disney turns on the hose and refills Rivers of America - Video
As posted by Mark Eades, Orange Count Register:
With the help of what looks like a fire company’s hose, Disney began re-filling the Rivers of America on Monday.
“Look, they’re refilling it,” said one mother to her daughter as they peeked through the temporary fence Disneyland set up in front of New Orleans Square around the famous waterway surrounding Tom Sawyer Island.
The hose, set on the dock of the Mark Twain Riverboat, had by the afternoon raised the water level to near the top of the paddlewheeler’s guide rail at the river’s bottom.
While some Disneyland guests peeked through the cracks of the fence, others caught a view of the slow-moving process from atop the bridge near the entrance to the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.
“The ducks are already swimming in it,” said a daughter to her father from the bridge.
Rivers of America had been empty for four months so that workers could make improvements, including the replacement of the entire track that guides the Mark Twain Riverboat and the Sailing Ship Columbia on their trips around the river. Read more about the Disneyland river refilling in a previous story.
Crews turned on the water shortly after 9 a.m., said Betsy Sanchez, a Disneyland Resort spokeswoman. The river is scheduled to re-open for visitors on Saturday.
When emptied over seven days, the Rivers of America’s 6 million gallons of water went to a recycling facility instead of being dumped into the ocean, as Disney used to do. The last draining of the rivers was in 2003. This time, most of the water was sent to holding ponds, where it seeped into the groundwater for future use.
“They are theoretically getting some of this water back,” said Mike Markus, general manager of the Orange County Water District. “There’s a certain cycle to it. They drained it, we treated it, it became part of (the) groundwater basin, and they are extracting it.”
(Disney first used the recycling process when it emptied Paradise Bay in Disney’s California Adventure for the installation of the upcoming World of Color show.)
While the riverbed was dry, crews replaced the boat tracks, rehabilitated attractions and added a few features to the shoreline. Blue construction walls obstructed most of the view for visitors.
One of the new features is a keel boat near the settler’s cabin on Tom Sawyer’s Island. The keel boat will belong to Mike Fink, a character from Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett television series. Fink is supposed to take up residence in the cabin that used to be known as the Burning Settler’s Cabin.
“It’s good that he purchased that old burned-out property and fixed it up,” said Werner Weiss of Yesterland.com, a website devoted to past Disneyland attractions, playing along with the tale.
The river will also get some new deer and Indian figures, as well as new landscaping depicting areas of four American waterways: the Mississippi, Columbia, Rio Grande and Potomac.
The following attractions have been closed since January: Mark Twain Riverboat, Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer’s Island, Sailing Ship Columbia and Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes. All attractions, except for the riverboat, are scheduled to resume Saturday. Visitors are expected to go back on the riverboat May 21. Sarah Tully helped report and write this story.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Stage Set For World Of Color! - Behind the scenes video
Here's a video that takes us inside the control booth as Walt Disney Imagineers work overnight testing lights, fire and nearly 1,200 fountains for the new nighttime spectacular “World of Color.” You’ll also see some exclusive footage from their time lapse camera and more glimpses of the show. “World of Color” is set to debut on June 11. Enjoy, courtesy of Disney Parks Blog.
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