Don't miss the last english collector copies of Disneyland Paris From Sketch to Reality !

Editor's Note: I remind you that the Disneyland Paris book - in which you have the whole park in 320 pages with 750 photos including 250 WDI renderings - is still available and that unfortunately there is now less than FIFTEEN copies of the Disneyland Paris From Sketch to Reality book available in its english collector's edition - french edition is also available - so if you don't own the book yet, it's really now or never! 

And there is a special price right now with a $45 / 40€ discount on the normal price, so order your collector copy while there is still copies available as it's really the last english collector copies. You'll find below a one click Paypal button as well as a video showing the whole book. Also, you can have more infos about this gorgeous 320 pages book HERE.

Choose between french or english edition -Price include shipping

1 copy ENGLISH edition Disneyland Paris book, include shipping €100.00 EUR 1 SIGNED copy FRENCH edition Disneyland Paris book, inc shipping €115.00 EUR 1 NON SIGNED copy FRENCH edition Disneyland Paris book +shipping €90.00 EUR

Click on the image below to jump to the book presentation.

Picture: copyright Disney

Theme Tours, a Theme Park Travel Site That Worth Bookmarking !

Stefan Zwanzger - aka "The Theme Park Guy" - is the web master of the excellent Theme Park Guy website and also of the highly popular ThemeparkX Construction Board which brings you daily construction updates on all the theme parks projects around the world.

But recently Stefan launched a new web site called Theme Tours and i must say that it is not only a brilliant idea but also exactly what we were all missing! Anyone - and i mean anyone - planning to visit this year a theme park in any country should do the jump to Theme Tours instantly, and here is why.

Theme Tours is a web site which is here to help you to save money on your next theme park vacation whatever the theme park will be - Disney or not - and, boy, don't we need to save money when we go to Disney theme parks, right? So, not only Stefan who travelled all around the world share extremely useful tips that even me - who also have travelled around the world - didn't knew but the site also include great price comparison pages which will help you to find theme park tickets and hotels rooms at the best price.

Let's have a closer look to Theme Tours. When you arrive on the front page - picture on top - you can choose between different section and, for instance, if you choose the "tickets" section you arrive on a page where in less than five seconds you'll be able to see all the prices available for all the major theme parks in the world. And you might have some good surprises, just like i did when i typed "Disneyland Paris". With DLP price policy i thought that they were the less expensive, but not! There are websites which sell DLP tickets at a better price!

The Hotels price comparison page is also very well done as it will do the search on all the majors hotels sites, the ones known to have the best room prices. Except that here you do the search on all of them at the same time. And when i see the hotel prices at Disney parks the least we can say is that we really need to find hotels at decent prices. This is the page where you will save a lot of precious dollars...

AND, because more is never  too much, you'll find also on Theme Tours a special page on which Stefan gives you the secret discount codes for major travel sites which will help you to save additional 10 to 20% on the hotels price, and this in addition to the already best prices you'll have find on the price comparison page. And by the way, you can use Theme Tours even if your vacation is not in a theme park, but any other destination in the world.

There is others precious section on Theme Tours, like the Visas page which will help you to know what kind of visa you need depending to which country you're flying. And the informations are based on IATA's Timatic database which is used by nearly every airline in the world for determining passenger travel document requirements.

But i've kept the best for the end, and it's the "Tips" page. A section of the site on which Stefan gives  precious tips to save more money - like "how to always get the lowest price", "how to avoid crowds and queues", "which travel site to book at, and why", "the good, the bad and the ugly airlines",  and also where you will find for $25 the "Travel Savings Secrets Report", which include Stefan's best tips that will help you to save even more money on your next vacation.  Most of the tips were unknown to me - like the one which explain how to get a better plane ticket price on the major airlines companies, depending of the final destination you enter. Or the one telling you the trick to find easily the name of the "secret hotel" - you know these "secret hotels" that you find now on a lot of travel sites which propose you to book a room in a 4 stars hotels for just 20% of the normal price.  The hotel name is hidden and normally you discover it only after you did your booking, but Stefan learn you how to find easily the name of these "secret hotels".

Anyway, Theme Tours is definitely a site to put in your bookmarks, mainly because of its "all in one" concept which for sure will be very helpful for your next vacation. Go ahead, and do the jump right HERE.

Here is why WDI Imagineers work so hard to deliver stunning attractions

You know, i presume - or at least you imagine - the incredible amount of work that is needed from WDI Imagineers to create a Disney attraction. But why WDI Imagineers accept to go through this long and hard work? Because they love to create rides, of course, but also for another reason: to create this kind of emotion, the one you can see on the face of this little girl on this picture, shot by a LIFE Magazine photographer inside one of the subs of Disneyland Submarine Voyage, back in June 1960.

Picture: copyright LIFE

Disneyland Paris Photo Essay by Walter Elias Teddy - Part Two

Here is the second part of the Disneyland Paris photo essay by Clement - aka Walter Elias Teddy - a Disney and more faithful reader, this time with his color shots - if you've missed the first part with the ones in black and white you can read it HERE.
 

All my thanks to Clement for his great pictures!


I remind you that the Disneyland Paris book - in which you have the whole park in 320 pages with 750 photos including 250 WDI renderings - is still available and that unfortunately there is now less than FIFTEEN copies of the Disneyland Paris From Sketch to Reality book available in its english collector's edition - french edition is also available - so if you don't own the book yet, it's really now or never! 

And there is a special price right now with a $45 / 40€ discount on the normal price, so order your collector copy while there is still copies available as it's really the last english collector copies. You'll find below a one click Paypal button as well as a video showing the whole book. Also, you can have more infos about this gorgeous 320 pages book HERE.

Choose between french or english edition -Price include shipping

1 copy ENGLISH edition Disneyland Paris book, include shipping €100.00 EUR 1 SIGNED copy FRENCH edition Disneyland Paris book, inc shipping €115.00 EUR 1 NON SIGNED copy FRENCH edition Disneyland Paris book +shipping €90.00 EUR

Pictures: copyright Walter Elias Teddy

What's Happening About DLP Future ?

Editor's Note: Last Thursday the D-Log website posted an article called "Future developments at Disneyland Paris in danger". The article made the effect of a thunder clap in the DLP fans community and since then i've received dozens of messages asking me "Did you read this? Is this true?...". 

Well, yes, of course, i've read the D-Log article and because it is a quite complex case i will post on Disney and more on Monday an article to explain you what's going on and where is the truth in all this. In the meantime have a read of the D-Log article HERE

Editing: I'm sorry to say that the article about DLP future supposed to be posted tomorrow monday will be postponed sine die. That said, be prepared to be patient for DLP future attractions after Ratatouille as what is scheduled - and as it is scheduled right now - won't happen before many years.

King Kong is Back in "King Kong The Musical" in Melbourne, Australia !

King Kong is Back in "King Kong The Musical" which had its premiere last month down under in Melbourne, Australia, and it looks damn' spectacular! 

80 years after Merian C. Cooper's 1933 classic King Kong is back at the Regent Theatre, in Melbourne, Australia -- thanks to a six-meter high "puppet animatronic" - which weighs one ton - and the pioneering work of puppeteer Sonny Tilders who previously did the amazing dinosaurs of the "Walking with Dinosaurs" stage show.

From CNN.com: "When the multi-million dollar project started five years ago, Tilders originally set out to create a fully animatronic creature but ended up combining old-fashioned puppetry with modern robotics."We were considering having two versions. We were developing other technologies that we would need for animatronic limbs to move," he said.

"But to cut a long story short, we were so impressed by what the manned puppet could do that we had a change of heart and said we should do the whole show with marionette puppets. It made much more sense."

Suspended from the ceiling, Kong's limbs are manipulated on stage by 10 specially trained stage circus artists who scurry over and around the puppet, shifting his arms and legs by hand or using ropes.
Clad in black from head to toe, these shadowy figures called the "King's Men," work in tandem with three off-stage puppeteers -- the "voodoo" operators -- who control the mechanical functions inside Kong.




Around 300 meters of electrical wiring are crammed inside the puppet's steel and aluminum shell powering 16 microprocessors and 15 servo motors which move Kong's eyes, eyebrows and eyelids, nose, lips, jaw, neck and shoulders. He also makes sounds -- a vital part of making his movements appear realistic, says Tilders.

Marrying the mechanical functions of interior with the organic-looking Lycra and latex exterior is one of the big challenges of animatronics, Tilders says. "We wanted to create a puppet that was really dynamic on stage. One of the ways to solve that and not kill anyone or destroy the puppet or the stage itself was to make his extremities -- his arms and fists -- in a way that has as little steel as possible."

From the elbow down, Kong's arms are filled with air, allowing him to furiously pound the floor without causing a minor earthquake. Overlaying the air bags are a series of sculptured muscle bags made from a stretchy nylon material that expands and contracts to mimic the sinewy movements of the real thing.

"Often (big puppets) are quite simple and slow, but what we've developed is a hybrid technology enabling us to do some powerful and specific moves."




The Creature Technology Company's ambitions were aided by UK-based stage automation experts Stage Technologies who provided the four-ton track-and-trolley system suspended above the stage.
"It's a machine that allows Kong to both move around the stage and be raised up and down but also take different positions," said Stage Technologies' Group CEO Mark Ager.

"We move his torso with eight winches and that allows us to change the aspect of it. So, for instance, when he walks, his shoulders can roll from side to side. It's basically a big boys version of a wooden cross you see on smaller puppets."

The complexity of Kong surpassed anything they have previously built, leading to a few nerves as opening night approached. "Given (Kong) is the main actor it was quite a concern, but it is incredible," he said.

"There's an awful lot of engineering that goes into something that looks so effortless. He feels real. I think you have to see inferior robotic incarnations to see quite how clever (Kong) is."
Overall, it's been an extraordinary collaboration of engineering and software expertise with sculptors, artists, musicians and actors creating a unique spectacle.




The critics like it too. Many have warmed to the show itself since it opened in June and almost all have heaped lavish praise on Kong himself. It's only a matter of time before audiences worldwide get their chance to feel the towering stage presence of Kong, said Tilders."

And the good news is that the show will then go on tour around the world! : "It's definitely going overseas," he said. "The financial model can't rely on 20 million people in Australia. Obviously, we would love to go to Broadway because that's the natural home for the story."

And at the end of the show, when actors and technicians come to salute the audience, Kong comes back on stage to roar one last time!




Here is the official trailer of king Kong, the Musical!




Pictures: copyright King Kong The Musical

Part of Text: copyright CNN.com

Soarin' over the world to have multiple films like Star Tours ?

Lance from Screamscape has a very interesting rumor today as he heard " that the new Soarin' version ( aka: Soarin' over the world ) coming in 2016 may borrow a little technology from the Star Tours 2 project. This would be more than the switch over from Imax film to Digital (each has it’s own merit), but a switch to digital would also allow for the possibility of using a randomizer to include different possible ride scenes to be shown during each visit... 

Now while I can’ verify that this will happen, the simple fact that there are really far too many incredible places in the world worth Soarin’ over, more than would easily fit into a quick 5-6 minute ride film, this would be a great way to add them all into the mix of possible locations. In fact… they could even incorporate some of the great scenes from Soarin’ over California into the mix, ensuring that some of the existing ride lives on into the next generation." 

Not only this would be a great idea but it will also makes perfectly sense. In fact, when i've read Lance post i thought: " how didn't i think about this before?!? " It would be absurd to "soar" above the whole world in 5 or 6 minutes, so this is really what must be done, and i hope it will happen for real!

Now, if you want to have an idea how great Soarin' over the world sequences might be, here is something that is as close as possible to how it should look. Discovery Channel released recently a series of beautiful short documentaries called "The World from above". Each episode has a different destination and the one i embedded here will take you for a HD flight above Italy and especially Venise the gorgeous city of Doges. As i wouldn't be surprised that Venise will be one of Soarin' over the world destinations this kind of "preview" should interest you. 
Very important: choose to watch it in the highest definition - 1080p - and definitely in full screen mode!

More on Screamscape HERE , and also more about Soarin' Over the World different countries / destinations in my latest update HERE.