Disneyland Paris Christmas Season Extended Update with Photos, 4K Videos !

Here we go for an extended update about Disneyland Paris Christmas season which began last week-end, with pictures and videos from Max, D&M contributor and DLP Welcome webmaster!

Before going further a few words about the Disneyland Paris book "From Sketch to Reality". As i told you the publishing company stopped its activities but i managed to save 50 copies of the english edition and i'm doing a Christmas special offer on them, just like in the good old days. The French edition is totally out of stock but if you're french, and wish to purchase the book in its english edition i will send you a PDF file of the full French text of the French edition.

You won't find a better Christmas gift than this book which will provide hours of pure reading pleasure. All details to order the book are at the end of this article.

For this Christmas season that will end on January 7, 2018, the choice of Disney was to integrate the colors of the 25th Anniversary in the decorations of Main Street USA. The latter are therefore exclusively in silver and Blue. The result is up to par, with Town Square having the old decorations of Central Plaza to dedicate Town Square to the 25th Anniversary. Main Street makes the transition between the Christmas decorations and the 25th Ann, it’s simple and well thought.















This year the « Disney’s Christmas Parade » is back with new colors more flashy on the floats and the music has been completely changed. The result is not good, especially for music, which does not recall Christmas except to place the word « Christmas » in the lyrics. No sound allowing to refer to the season without any Christmas air that we know. Visitors who do not understand English, find themselves in front of a parade with a standardized music of Disneyland Paris, sung by a man and a woman during 4 minutes. There is a real lag between the visual and audio message!




What last year was the must of the season, this year, the parade lost in ambitions and is dethroned by two new shows that alone justify the visit to Disneyland Paris, "Mickey’s Christmas Big Band" and "Goofy’s Incredible Christmas".




























«Mickey’s Christmas Big Band» is THE not-to-be-missed show of the season which is played 5 times per day. Located in the shelter of the cold in Vidéopolis at Discoveryland, it is a real masterpiece show that is offered to visitors. This quality show links both the glamour of gala receptions worthy of the evenings of December 31st but also performances making references to Broadway between tap dance, singing and live music! Mickey, Minnie and Goofy are also in the show to deliver performances, away the childish side that can be found in the « Merry Stitchmas » show at the Royal Castle Stage. This show is definitely a must-see this Christmas season.



























At Frontierland, the Fuente del Oro restaurant has been themed with new decorations on the theme of Pixar animated movie « Coco ». And, surprise, it is possible to meet a puppet of Miguel, the hero of the film.













As every Christmas season, Frozen sing-along takes place in the Chaparral Theater! That said, it is worth noting that it will be the last season for this show as the stage will be demolished and rebuilt to eliminate the pillars in the middle of sight. Demolition will happen in 2018.








At the WDS park this Christmas Disney offers to its guests a whole new night show on the Tower of Terror facade, offering an alternative or a combo at Disney Illumination in the Disneyland Park. This show proves, once again the technological skills of the Disney teams in the design (unlike the adaptation) of night-time shows.




The energy and the dynamite is found throughout « Goofy's Incredible Christmas », although there are some regrettable lengths during the moments on stage, but this is only detail. This celebration is perfect to close a visit to Disneyland Paris with Santa Claus!


















And that's it for this long DLP Christmas update! Max will be back soon with a new one, in the meantime here is all you need to know to order a copy of the "Disneyland Paris From Sketch to Reality" book and have it in time for Christmas. First, it's a 320 pages book with 750 pictures of the park including 250 WDI artworks! It's also probably the best Christmas gift you can find for a Disney Parks fan - and it is true! Read below how to place your order.

To place your order for the DLP book, please send me an email at: amplittaye@gmail.com with your shipping address. The price during the Christmas special offer is 65€ ( instead of 75€ ) and shipping worldwide is 22€ ( except Belgium and Italy for which it is 29€ ).

For French readers a PDF file of the full French text of the French edition will be sent.
Lecteurs Français: Etant donné que l'édition française est épuisée, un fichier du texte complet original en Français sera envoyé aux acheteurs Français ne comprenant pas l'anglais.

Also, each order will receive two GREAT surprise gifts!

You can pay with Paypal, credit card or bank transfer. For Paypal payments please send directly the full amount  including shipping ( 87€ worldwide, except for Belgium and Italy for which it is 104€ ) at: nme4@wanadoo.fr  If you wish to pay by credit card and bank transfer, let me know in your email and i'll tell you how to do.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Shipping usually takes around two weeks for countries outside France but can take up to 3-4 weeks sometime, so to make sure you'll get the book for Christmas please place your order as soon as possible, thanks!









If you've never seen the book before, please watch the video below showing the full 320 pages of the book!



Pictures and videos: copyright DLP Welcome, D&M

TWO New Destinations Added to Star Tours - Opening Nov 17 at DLR and WDW & Nov 22 at DLP!

We’re just a few days away from experiencing a new adventure in Star Tours – The Adventures Continue inspired by the upcoming film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and today we’ve got an exclusive first look at a Starspeeder caught in the middle of an epic battle on Crait in the updated attraction opening at Disneyland park and Disney’s Hollywood Studios on November 17 and at Disneyland Paris Discoveryland on Nov 22.



 ...And don't think that Crait planet is the only new Star Tours destination coming to Star Tours as the Disney Parks Blog confirms that there is another one, meaning that two new films are added to Star Tours!

Picture: copyright Disney

Two Olaf's Frozen Adventure Movie Clips - "Ring In The Season and "That Time of the Year"!

Olaf's Frozen Adventure is the new Walt Disney Animation Studios 21-minute featurette that will play with Pixar Coco starting Nov 22 and for Olaf it’s the first holiday season since the gates reopened and Anna (voice of Kristen Bell) and Elsa (voice of Idina Menzel) host a celebration for all of Arendelle. When the townspeople unexpectedly leave early to enjoy their individual holiday customs, the sisters realize they have no family traditions of their own.

Disney released two clips from it, the first one is titled "That Time of the Year" and Olaf discover what Christmas traditions means!



This second clip below is titled "Ring In The Season" and the clip features a brand new song to commemorate the fictional town of Arendelle’s first Christmas celebration in years. Kristen Bell’s Anna starts off the tune by revealing that the townspeople aren’t aware there’s a big party coming. And while Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Olaf (Josh Gad) start getting dressed to look their best, Anna puts the finishing touches on the decorations. The first look ends with Arendelle’s royal sisters opening the doors to the castle and greeting the cheering crowd.

Note that the video below also include the trailer of Olaf's Frozen Adventure, right after the clip.




Picture and videos: copyright Disney

Harper Goff Lost London Boat Ride for Epcot World Showcase UK Pavilion - Plus: Tony Baxter Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday Ride, and more

I've got something great for you to start the week! Back in 1986, the great Harper Goff - designer of legendary 20000 Leagues Under the Sea Nautilus, Disneyland Jungle Cruise, and more, designed this unrealized, expansive ride recreating a boat trip through London along the Thames River for WDW Epcot World Showcase UK Pavilion.

The first artwork above shows a bird's eye view of the full ride, and below five others artworks  are showing different scenes of the ride. We can see guests inside the boats passing by different landmarks of London including Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and London Bridge. Basically, the ride most of London historical landmarks buildings would have been recreated , so a ride with a huge cost, and this might be the reason why it was never built, along with the fact that the ride concept was may be not original enough. But these artworks were never seen before, so it's cool to discover them anyway.













Harper Goff ride concept for Epcot UK pavilion was never built and so far the UK pavilion still don't have any attraction but this might change soon as a strong rumor is saying that a Mary Poppins mini land may come after the release of the Mary Poppins sequel currently in production.

According to Orlando Weekly quoting Jim Hill: "Disney is looking at the upcoming Mary Poppins Returns movie to serve as inspiration for a new mini-land. Cherry Tree Lane, the residential street used in both the original film and the 2018 sequel starring Emily Blunt, will be recreated with the same hyperreality as the London waterfront found at Universal Orlando. The street will mostly act as a glorified meet-and-greet from the Poppins characters with a small carousel, inspired by the films, located nearby. The carousel won’t be the same four-horse carousel found in the original movie. The horse that Julie Andrews rode on the carousel in the original film may be displayed in this new Mary Poppins-inspired mini-land.

This new Mary Poppins expansion looks to be rather small, according to Jim Hill, only using the undeveloped half of the expansion plot. That would allow for the World Showplace event pavilion to remain. This new area could easily be closed off and used as an outdoor area for events taking place at the events pavilion. It could also include a small gate to the World Gateway area near where the new Disney Skyliner gondola system station will be, which would eliminate the rather labor-intensive check-in process now required for events at the World Showplace.

The rumored dark ride may come on at a later date, possibly replacing the World Showplace pavilion altogether. For now, it looks like we might be getting a simple Cherry Tree Lane themed mini-land with a second larger addition possibly coming to the United Kingdom as part of the rumored 10-year-long, $2 billion redo of Epcot coming in the mid-2020s."

But, wait, didn't Tony Baxter designed a Mary Poppins ride a long time ago? Right, it was called "Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday" and Tony designed it at the very start of his career. Tony's ride was a traditional dark ride, but with guests riding upon carousel horses. No one could better introduce the ride than Tony Baxter himself so here is a video with Tony presenting "Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday", and right after the video you have screen captures of the artworks presented by Tony in the video.

The first artwork below shows the ride facade.

The next renderings shows the different scenes of the ride, including some with the penguins, the gorse race, and a Chim Chim Cherie scene.

The next rendering shows the ride interior layout...

And this last one the ride facade at night.

If a Mary Poppins ride comes soon to Epcot it will be probably very different than Tony's concept but, actually, there IS a ride currently existing which would have been perfect for the UK pavilion ...but this one is not in a Disney park but at London's Madame Tussauds wax museum. Called "Spirit of London", it's a great ride with guests sitting in an Omnimover designed like  London taxis. And the irony of it is that "Spirit of London" is greatly inspired by the concept of ...Epcot Spaceship Earth attraction, with guests travelling back in time until present day through history, here of London. All this with great scenes and Audio-Animatronics. If you've never seen it, watch the video below and next time you go to London, don't miss it. After watching it i'm sure you'll agree it would have found its place naturally in World Showcasee UK pavilion.




Pictures: copyright Disney, Harper Goff