Editor's Note: Mission : Space at Epcot is one of Walt Disney World favorite attraction, but how is a real space mission? This fantastic video from Commander Sunita Williams filmed inside the Space Station is really fascinating! All aboard on my Innoventions Blog for a private tour of the Space Station as you will discover every inch of it - and of course watch the video full screen! It's right HERE.

Just Three More Days...

Howdy, Folks! Just to let you know that there is only four more days before the end of the Christmas special offer on the Disneyland Paris, From Sketch to Reality book with a special price of 85 euros ( $108 )  - instead of 120€ ( $155 ) and 15€ only for shipping wherever you live on the planet!

This Christmas special offer is a great one thanks to it you can save $45 on the normal price of this great book that everyone who owns it love! ( no kidding, everyone love it! )

As usual you can send your payment with Paypal at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com  and send your order at the same email address. Bank transfers are also possible.

More infos about the book, including videos showing you the whole book on the book web site HERE.

Also, for those of you who like to buy on eBay the book is available on eBay in its English edition HERE  And also on eBay in its French edition HERE. The book is sold on eBay at the same price and you can also pay with Paypal but of course if you can it's better if you order it directly to me which will avoid me to pay the eBay fees.

Finally, you can also order the English edition through Amazon.co.uk HERE. We are doing the shipping, not Amazon so it will be done with the same quality than we do with our direct orders.

One click payment available through the Paypal button below!

Choose quantity and enjoy additional discount!

One Disneyland Paris Collector Copy ( Including Shipping ) €100.00 EUR Two Disneyland Paris Collector Copies ( Including Shipping ) €185.00 EUR Three Disneyland Paris Collector Copies ( Including Shipping ) €270.00 EUR

Never seen the book before? No problem, you can discover ALL the book thanks to the video below!




Picture: copyright Disney

LIVE From Disneyland Paris : The End of the World Has Began - and it's REAL!!!

Finally, these bloody Mayas were right, folks!!! I'm right now at Disneyland Paris and the end of the world supposedly happening today according to an old Mayan calendar is happening FOR REAL!!! This may be my last post ever and it will be too the last Disney and more scoop with "exclusive" pictures of what's happening here at DLP since two hours, and let me tell you that it's hell on Earth!

It all began at 6pm tonight when the most powerful thunder storm i've ever seen hit the well named Big Thunder Mountain and the whole land. Heavy rains came with it during a few minutes and then stopped. So far it only looked like a thunder storm and DLP guests were not yet in panic mode, just trying to find a shelter until the storm ended. Some were laughing, they shouldn't have if they had knew what was going to happen next...

Thirty minutes later - i.e one hour ago - after the rain stopped on Frontierland the real thing began. I had moved to Discoveryland, and we all understood that this time the Gods were not joking! Jesus, the park is now facing the biggest magnetic storm ever and Space Mountain is hit each ten seconds by monstruous lightnings!!

Twenty minutes later began a fall of meteorites, hitting the whole structure...Space Mountain cannon is now on fire, as well as the boarding room structure which exploded five minutes ago when it was hit by a huge meteorite... Space Mountain dome has partly collapsed and what remains is covered by a sea of lava falling inside the Nautilus lagoon where the Nautilus and even the water is now on fire!! Guests are runing for their life all over the park and no one can tell what happened to those who thought that Space Mountain was a safe shelter...

I'm running now to Main Street which is also hit by meteorites... If i survive and have the last shots i'll try to post them, they may be the last one ever shot by a human being ... Goodbye my friends, if i don't survive i hope we'll meet in another life... And now, run!, run for your life! May God help us all!

HKDL Mystic Manor Part Two : The Victorian Mansion That Inspired WDI Imagineers

You've seen yesterday new pictures of HKDL Mystic Manor and its amazing architecture. But where WDI Imagineers found the inspiration for it? Well, as you know Walt Disney Imagineering offices are in Glendale and believe it or not but the building which inspired for a big part Mystic Manor design was a "Sanitarium" of early last century located... in Glendale!

I'll tell you more in a second about the Glendale Sanitarium but if you look at the Mystic Manor pictures below you'll see clearly the architectural elements that WDI Imagineers kept from the 19th century Victorian mansion. Then they added the exterior staircase, did turrets with a different style so the final building could show the personality of world adventurer and art collector Lord Mystic, the owner of the manor.

As you might be interested to know more about this "Sanitarium", here is its story. Called the Glendale Sanitarium the building was in fact originally built to be a hotel, the "Glendale Hotel", a 75-room Victorian structure on what is now Broadway Avenue.... a hotel which finally never opened! But you can see the hotel on this rare picture below before the building was bought and transformed in a sanitarium. Have a look at the entrance located on the ground floor, in the center. As you can see it had two staircases, this will be transformed later when the hotel became the sanitarium with only one staircase and entrance.

 

More details now about its history with excerpts of a Los Angeles Times article by Sam Watters: "In 1886, early developers hired boomtown architects Samuel and Joseph C. Newsom to build the Glendale Hotel along what is now Broadway. It was in a field acquired after the California courts settled ownership of the vast San Rafael and La Cañada ranchos in favor of land-maneuvering gringos.As it turned out, the hotel never opened, a casualty of another recession. First it was a school and then an investment for Glendale city father Leslie Brand, who had bought the building by late 1904. A good Angeleno, he flipped the property a year later. The buyer was a health pioneer, the Battle Creek Sanitarium.Before our present-day insurance plans and government-backed medical programs, working-class Americans lived Catch-22 lives. When they got sick, they couldn't earn money to pay for care. Without care, they couldn't get better to return to their jobs. Workers depended on relatives, churches, charities and no-charge hospitals, which stumbled when tuberculosis, asthma and cholera afflicted industrial cities.... Into this impoverished world came the church of Seventh-day Adventists. Formally founded in 1863, the organization linked spiritual health to physical well-being. It advocated a holistic life available to people who couldn't afford to be sick..."

"In 1866, it opened the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Mich. A decade later, John Harvey Kellogg, a doctor, became its superintendent. For paying customers, he instituted a program that included rigorous exercise and mealtime walks to improve digestion, classes on food preparation and sessions with a diabolic enema machine that pumped gallons of water in minutes. Among his curious obsessions was cereal. At a time when the rich dined on eggs and meat at breakfast as their servants chowed down on gruel, Kellogg promoted cornflakes that he and his brother Will manufactured. Their Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Co. launched Kellogg's, which is still based in Battle Creek.SoCal was to healthcare what NorCal is to technology. Single-owner guest houses, tent cities and full-service hotel-sanitariums offered services at varying prices in a "sanatorium belt" that stretched from Los Angeles to San Diego. Through railroad publicity and business opportunities developed by chambers of commerce, the Southland encouraged cashing in on health. That is what Battle Creek did when it picked up the Glendale Hotel in 1905.It was no accident that the Newsom brothers' Queen Anne-style extravaganza suited Battle Creek's health-through-good living program. Hotel architecture offers a welcoming home away from home, and the Glendale Hotel was a model American mansion. It had three stories with 75 spacious rooms and a broad, shaded veranda overlooking the Verdugo Mountains.The Glendale Sanitarium prospered with California's growth after World War I. To meet demand, management added rooms and services. It offered health regimens to the sick and hotel amenities to tourists and community groups. "

A century ago, as L.A. columnist Sam Watters reminded us that Southern California was to health what Silicon Valley is to high tech today. And although the Glendale Sanitarium was not an asylum, it was both for mental and depressed patients. Some war victims went there too as well as people getting over long illness's of depression.

 

Below, a rare picture showing the Sanitarium nurses in the mansion garden.

 

So now you know, Mystic Manor building was for a big part inspired by a victorian hotel who became a hospital for depressed patients, hospital which was founded by the same man who created the Kellog's cornflakes you eat at breakfast each morning! Isn't it an amazing story? 

Pictures: copyright Disney and more, DR

HKDL Mystic Manor Update !

I've got a great Mystic Manor pictorial update for you today with these brand new pictures showing the exterior of the Manor, now totally finished as well as the buildings nearby. HKDL Imagineers are now working on the inside decors and the ride system and Mystic Manor is scheduled to open next summer 2013.

The building you'll see on the next pictures will be the one for a merchandise shop and the ride exit.

Some closer shots of architectural elements of this building.

The least we can say is that Mystic Manor - especially the main building - has a quite unique architecture. But where WDI Imagineers did take their inspiration for it, that's what i will tell you in the part two of this Mystic Manor update, tomorrow! Don't miss it!

Pictures: copyright Disney and more

 Discover the great HKDL Wallpapers HD App for iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch!
Direct iTunes link HERE!

Disneyland Big Thunder Mountain Rainbow Ridge Mining Town is Here to Stay

In his Mice Age update yesterday Andy Castro posted pictures of Disneyland Big Thunder Mountain which is now in a long refurbishment. And Andy added about Rainbow Ridge -  the little mining town that guests can see in the ride and which was part before of the now extinct Mine Train Thru nature's Wonderland: "What Disney didn’t confirm, however, are rumors that the mining town that riders pass at the end of the attraction will be mostly removed during the refurbishment... I hope the old Rainbow Ridge can be saved, but rumors continue to suggest it will become a permanent part of Yesterland when the attraction closes for refurbishment in January." 

Well, Andy, i have a news that should make you happy as well as all Disneyland fans as, yes, the Rainbow Ridge buildings will be removed...but it's to rebuild them and then DL Imagineers will put them back in place, and it seems they will rebuild them fully new. Back in 1978 when WDI Imagineers moved them from their old location in Nature's Wonderland they had to partially rebuild the ones they wanted to save and the ones in worst condition went away. Sitting in the dirt since then they probably got some wood rot by now. Maybe now they will put Concrete foundations down for them, or we can only hope. 

Back in 1978 the Rainbow Ridge buildings never had props or interiors as guests did not get that close to them in Nature's Wonderland. So for DL BTM Imagineers installed props, curtains, wallpaper and lighting inside and outside of them, as well as some audio effects from "X" Atencio and the WED Gang.  For instance, in the Saloon you can hear Imagineers "X" Atencio and Scott Hennesy and other WED Imagineers singing along in Rainbow Ridge. By the way, talking about Big Thunder did you knew that the BTM Trains were first designed in 1969 by Imagineer George McGinnis for Marc Davis for his planned train ride and were later adapted to Big Thunder for Tony Baxter BTM concept. 

You can see more pictures of DL BTM Rainbow Ridge in Andy's article on Mice Chat HERE.

Pictures: copyright Andy Castro - Mice Chat

A Great Idea for a Christmas Gift !

These limited edition prints from the great Tom Scherman paintings area great idea for a Christmas gift! Tom Scherman as you probably know was the world wide specialist of the Nautilus, and it's thanks to him that we have at DLP the great Nautilus walk-through attraction. But Tom was also a fantastic painter and illustrator and did beautiful paintings. Rowland Scherman, brother of Tom, and director of the Tom Scherman estate is selling beautiful limited editions prints and they would make gorgeous Christmas gifts! Each of them is a limited edition of 150 with a paper size approximately of 13"x19" and an image size of approximately 14" length.
As i've said all the artworks below are limited editions, printed on heavy, high quality "art paper". Each of them has a reference number and title.

If you wish to place an order, please send a email to: lawrence55@wanadoo.fr and tell us precisely which artwork, which quantity and the country where the artwork will be sent. We will send you a Paypal invoice, including shipping price, so you will be able to proceed to the Paypal payment. If you don't have a Paypal account, let us know in your email.


TOM SCHERMAN PAINTINGS: Color prints on Art Paper


Reference NO 1: Nautilus 1: Limited edition of 150. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 14" length. Price: $100 + shipping





Reference NO 2: Nautilus Underwater: Limited edition of 150. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 14" length. Price: $100 + shipping






Reference NO 3: Nautilus on Vulcania Island: Limited edition of 150. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 14" length. Price: $100 + shipping






Reference NO 4: Nautilus on the rocks: Limited edition of 150. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 14" length. Price: $100 + shipping






Reference NO 5: Nautilus TWO: Limited edition of 150. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 14" length. Price: $100 + shipping





VULCANIA ISLAND ARTWORK: B&W prints on Art Paper



Reference NO 6: Vulcania overview. Limited edition of 150. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 16" length. Price: $75 + shipping






Reference NO 7: Nautilus in Lagoon. Limited edition of 150. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 16" length. Price: $75 + shipping






Reference NO 8: Captain Nemo's Machines. Limited edition of 100. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 16" length. Price: $75 + shipping






Reference NO 9: Journey to the Center of the Earth. Limited edition of 100. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 16" length. Price: $75 + shipping






Reference NO 10: Journey to the Center of the Earth TWO. Limited edition of 100. Paper size: 13"x19" Image size: Approximately 16" length. Price: $75 + shipping





All artwork: copyright Tom Scherman Estate. No unauthorized reproduction allowed.

Walt Disney Studios Ratatouille Ride Update

Hello Everyone. As promised i'm back today from my break and i have great updates for you this week. Today thanks to Max, from Dlrp Welcome and Disney and more contributor, we'll begin by the latest pictures of the works on the awaited Ratatouille dark ride scheduled to open early 2014 at DLP Walt Disney Studios.

As you will see on the pictures below almost all of the walls are now in place on the show building. It'll take probably one more month before they begin the theming of the Parisian facades!

Pictures: copyright Max Fan - Dlrp Welcome