Tuesday, February 18, 2014

If You Live in South Cal Don't Miss the Great Herb Ryman Arts Charity Gala this coming Sunday, February 23rd !

Our good friends at MiceChat are organizing a big Herb Ryman Arts Charity Gala this coming Sunday (February 23rd). Herb Ryman was a genius painter, Disney animator and WDI Imagineer - above, one of his famous inspirational artwork for Tokyo Disneyland - It's going to be a fantastic event and, on top of everything, Diane Disney Miller's daughters are flying down from San Francisco and will be there with family! I'm sure that some of you living in South Cal might be interested to attend the event which will offer a cocktail reception with delicious hors d'oeuvres and a silent auction, followed by gourmet dinner, Disney on Broadway cabaret-style production (with Michael-Leon Wooley - Louis the Alligator from Princess and the Frog), a tribute to Diane Disney Miller (in which we will award her the very first MiceChat Ryman Legend Award), and it'll finish up with an auction of some very unique items.

At the moment, they are expecting the following auction items among others:

- Mike Peraza (Art Director for Disney's The Little Mermaid) has painted a one of a kind full color pastel of Ariel (see attached).

- Bob Gurr will auction himself off for a private tour of Disneyland

- Margaret "Tinker Bell" Kerry will auction herself off to give a tour of the Walt Disney Studios

- We'll have signed attraction posters and movie posters

- We will have signed bottles of wine from Silverado Winery (Ron and Diane Disney Miller's winery)

- There will be some hand drawn sketches by artists such as Disney Legend Floyd Norman

- We have two hand signed Herb Ryman prints!

- Plus lots more

If you wish to attend the event make sure to reserve your seat as soon as possible on Mice Chat HERE

Picture: copyright Disney

Monday, February 17, 2014

Hong Kong Disneyland To Build Third and "Biggest" Hotel by 2017, 2013 Second Most Profitable Year Since HKDL Opening !

Great news to start the week as Hong Kong Disneyland announced today its second most profitable year and that the park will build its third and "biggest" hotel, to open in 2017! The new hotel positioned as "luxury hotel" will be themed around "exotic locations from around the world". It will occupy 6.4 hectares, and will offer 750 rooms with a total of 56000 square meters of floor area plus outdoor exotic adventure area to explore the theme.

It will cost HK$4.26 billion ($550 million) and you have above and below the renderings for this proposed third hotel which looks to me a bit like a mix between Animal Kingdom Lodge and Disney's Hawaii Aulani hotel. The "exotic locations from around the world" theme is also exciting - hey, may be we'll have a kind of "Adventurer's Club" hotel!

The hotel will be built on the land available between Hong Hong Disneyland Hotel and Hong Kong Disneyland Hollywood Hotel and will be the largest at HKDL Resort with 750 rooms and three restaurants as well as what looks like a great outdoor beach / pool area. You'll ask note on the map below that the hotel will be in fact located outside the park but just behind Mystic Manor, or in front of depending if you look from the hotel or from Mystic Manor. The hotel theming around "exotic locations from around the world" couldn't fit better being built so close from Adventureland and Mystic Manor.

You'll note on the map below that, once this third hotel will be built, they'll still have room available for a fourth hotel between this new hotel and the current HKDL Hotel you can see on the artwork below.

If HKDL plans to open its third and largest hotel by early 2017 it's to accommodate an influx of visitors from countries - including China and South Korea - amid intensifying competition from Ocean Park. HKDL has had to contend with government-owned Ocean Park, which drew 7.7 Million visitors in the fiscal year ended June. Ocean Park plans to add a lot of new attractions by 2017 as well as a 495-room hotel. Also, Kim Min-ho, CEO of Hong Kong Disneyland said that he expects Lantau Island hotels to have a strong demand with the opening in 2016 of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge.

Hong Kong Disneyland posted also a profit of HK$242 million, its second annual gain, in the 12 months ended September, more than double the HK$109 million a year ago. Visitors from China to Hong Kong Disneyland, part-owned by the city’s government, jumped 15 percent last year, while those from South Korea surged 27 percent, Hong Kong Disneyland Managing Director Andrew Kam told reporters today. “The hotel expansion will support increasing demand from the booming tourism industry in the region,” Kam said.

Hong Kong Disneyland’s sales rose 15 percent to HK$4.9 billion for the fiscal year, according to the statement. Visitors from China to the former British colony jumped 16.7 percent to 40.8 million last year and accounted for 75 percent of total visitor arrivals, according to the Hong Kong tourism Board.

As for future development for the park the picture above shows where are the lands available for future attractions. The light blue space with black stars on the center right is where Iron Man Experience will be built. And, talking about Iron Man Experience, to open in 2016, i have new details about the ride for you so don't miss too my Iron Man Experience update posted this afternoon HERE.

One more thing: the orange land on the center left available for future expansion, near Grizzly Gulch, is where HKDL Imagineers originally envisioned to build the Pirates of Caribbean land before it was cancelled, as you can see on the picture below.

See you soon for a new HKDL udpate and don't miss the iron Man Experience article HERE.

Artwork: copyright Disney - HKDL

More About Hong Kong Disneyland Iron Man Experience Ride !

New details about the awaited Iron Man Experience ride that will open at Hong Kong Disneyland Tomorrowland in 2016! Some months ago, a presentation of the ride was done at the Hong Kong legislative council - you probably remember that teh Hong Kong Government is the biggest shareholder of HKDL with 52% of the shares so this explain why each project has to be submit to the HK council - and a fan had the good idea to took some screenshots of what was shown on the TV screens.

It started by a view of the rendering that we know showing the new area...

But the next one was more interesting. As you know Iron man Experience will be a simulator ride - like Star Tours but with the latest generation of simulator - and some of you wondered how will be designed the simulator as obviously it can't have the same look than Star Tours' Starspeeder. Although it appeared a bit on the poster released at the announcement - that you can see on the top - here is a picture showing how it will look precisely with a photo of the model that was shown during the meeting.

Also shown during the legislative council session a series of storyboards renderings, some more explicit than others...

...like this one showing Iron Man flying over cars...

...or this one in which he apparently fight with the ride villains.

What we don't know yet is if this Iron Man ride will have only one movie or 2, 3, or 4 movies to be shown randomly in the simulator like in the new Star Tours. But to be sure of that, i'm afraid we'll have to wait until 2016!

Pictures: copyright Disney

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Disneyland Paris WDS Ratatouille Ride Update !

Max Fan, D&M contributor and DLPWelcome webmaster is back with the latest pictures of the WDS Ratatouille ride construction site! good news as they started to put in place on the ground the awaited "parisians" cobblestones, and works on the facades are almost finished. I'm curious to see if the cobblestones will be slippy when it will rain - they are, usually...

DLP Imagineers didn't forget to insert in the decor amazing details, like these sculpted Gruyere cheese slices near the ride entrance.

Always about the ride we learned recently that the ride music is composed by Michael Giacchino, who did the original score for the animated film.

Also, stockholders who were at the 2014 stockholders meeting last wednesday got a special gift that you can see below. I remind you that the Ratatouille ride will be titled in french "L'Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémi" and is rumoured to have soft openings in the last ten days of June and a grand opening on July 14, France national day.

See you soon for a new DLP update and if you missed the great "Making of Ratatouille ride" article you'll find it HERE!

For your info, i remind you that the great Valentine's day special offer on the Disneyland Paris book at 60€ ( + 15€ for shipping worldwide ) allows you to order the DLP book at the best price ever. It's a great offer - valid for both the ENGLISH or FRENCH editions - thanks to which you can save $50 on the normal price, and if you don't own the book yet i'm sure you don't want to miss it! Paypal and credit card payment are accepted, so make sure you don't miss it!

You can use the Paypal button below for the english edition, and for the french edition or for credit card payment please send me an email at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com

Don't know yet the Disneyland Paris book. Have a look at the video below or on the book website HERE.

Article Pictures: copyright Max Fan - DLPWelcome

News From Brad Bird's Tomorrowland

We've got some news from Brad Bird hyper mega secret film "Tomorrowland" and they're coming from the horse's mouth as it is Georges Clooney himself who answered recently to Reddit "Ask me anything" questions.

Although Georges Clooney declined to reveal anything about Tomorrowland plot - supposed to be "a sci-fi mystery about two teens who set off to uncover a place in time and space that they both have memories of" - he said that he's pretty much always strapped into a harness: "I'm on set and literally have a harness on right now. I was late, because right before I was hanging from about 30 feet over four different blue screens. So as we’re talking now there are all these wires and contraptions hanging off of me. It’s really, really, really good and Brad Bird is a wonderful director, and a wonderful guy with a wild imagination. And if I don’t screw it up it’ll be a terrific film. Everybody’s really good in it. Anyway, you always have to be careful what you say about these films so I don’t want to sort of ruin it by telling you that everyone dies in the end. Oops, I've said too much."

I don't think that Clooney really meant that everybody will really die at the end of Tomorrowland and it was probably a joke but here is a bit more, also interesting, about the plot - but not from Clooney this time. The official synopsis is, as we know: "Bound by a shared destiny, former boy-genius Frank — jaded by disillusionment — and Casey, a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity, embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space known only as Tomorrowland. What they must do there changes the world — and them — forever."

BUT HitFix has an exclusive scoop in the form of a very brief synopsis sent out to help assemble a cast: "A teenage girl, a genius middle-aged man (who was kicked out of Tomorrowland) and a pre-pubescent girl robot attempt to get to and unravel what happened to Tomorrowland, which exists in an alternative dimension, in order to save Earth."

AND HitFix also added: The "Tomorrowland" that they keep referring to in this break-down appears to be a place where science has blown past the world we live in, and when Frank Walker was a young man, he first encountered the promise of Tomorrowland at the 1964 World's Fair. David Nix was there, showing off his own work, and he told Walker to come back when he was older and his inventions actually worked. A girl named Athena saw great promise in 11-year-old Frank, though, and she snuck him into Tomorrowland. Eventually, Frank was discovered by Nix and thrown out, but not before learning that the girl he loved, Athena, was actually a robot.

"By the time we meet Frank in the film, he's much older, and George Clooney is set to play the part. Nix is the role that actor Hugh Laurie is signed for, and by the point the main story of the film kicks in, Nix has been the mayor of Tomorrowland for many years, and he's become rotten, corrupt. Athena, unchanged since Frank was a young man, plays a key role in the film, and the hero is a girl named Casey who has a quick scientific mind that becomes important as the story unfolds. Nix is a guy who values technical accomplishment over creative thinking, and when he throws Frank out of Tomorrowland, he's not alone. Every creative thinker is banished, allowing Nix to focus purely on aesthetics and technical advancement for its own sake.

There's interdimensional travel, human-looking robots, and a quest for revenge on the part of Frank. He is a bitter adult, and the film is not just about Casey's adventure, but also about Frank rediscovering the kid he used to be. It sounds like young Frank actually plays a decent-sized role in the film, so we may see both timelines play out to some extent."

Well, if Hit Fix is right it sounds that Tomorrowland will have a great story, which i'm sure it will have anyway as the movie is in good hands - Brad Bird hands.

Picture: copyright Disney

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Disney Cocktails Recipes for Tonight Full Moon Party !

It's a full moon day, today, so you might be in the mood for a full moon party, right? And what could be better than to serve "Disney cocktails"? So, i've posted on the D&M Facebook page all what you need to know depending of your favorite character with 15 different cocktails recipes, as well as the daily additional theme park news, and more! Jump HERE where you can check all this even if you don't have a Facebook account!

Friday, February 14, 2014

Disneyland Paris Book Valentine's Day Special Offer Ends This Sunday !

I remind you that the Disneyland Paris book Valentine's Day special offer at 60€ only ( + 15€ shipping worldwide ) whether you want the english or french edition will end this sunday Feb 16!

To order your own copy of this fantastic 320 pages book which include 750 pictures of the park and 250 WDI renderings, send me an email at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com

Paypal payment of the 75€ can be send at the same email address or by using the Paypal button below. No Paypal account and wish to pay with credit card? It's possible, just send me an email!

To learn more about the book jump here: http://neverlandeditions.blogspot.com/

Don't miss this great special offer at the book best price ever!