Thursday, 17th September 2009

Bottle recycling bins – the (unwelcome) buzz

And no, not the kind of guest who writes graffiti in the Crush’s Coaster queue, stands in front of you on the parade route or climbs on the flower beds of Central Plaza.

For all the masses of people and sickly sweet foods, what’s the one thing mostly — and surprisingly — missing from Disneyland? The wasps.

Unfortunately, when you’ve got a bin with four wide open holes and a collection of sticky drinks bottles, that seems to be what you get:

Recycling bins

Recycling bins

Being “tested” across Walt Disney Studios Park since August, the new bins seemed to attract rather a lot of the unpopular insects on a warm day, far more than your average (closed) park trash can. These photos were taken in the Toon Plaza area at the back of Toon Studio within just a few minutes.

Open holes also seem to be used for the better-themed bins we provided as examples from other Disney parks around the world, but only one or two per bin. Seeing the wasps, let’s hope there’s a rethink of the design if these are to be rolled out “resort-wide” — if only for those few fleeting months of hot weather Paris enjoys each year.

The chaos caused by a single wasp in a Disney queue line cannot be overstated.

Pictures: DLRP Today.com

Wednesday, 16th September 2009

Ent programme goes topsy-turvy in latest tweak

This new design solves a few of the flaws in the old version (introduced in June 2008) and allows for the folded paper guide to be a little more “customised” to each park.

Well, look at this:

Programme

As you can guess, the Cast Members are now able to place the Disneyland Park side face-up under Main Street Station and the Walt Disney Studios Park side face-up at the entrance of Disney Studio 1. Very smart.

Unlike the old design, which wasted a lot of space on its cover and reverse, each park is given its own little “notice board” to boldly display the times of the main featured events, park opening hours and any attraction closures.

Then, when you open it up, the times for your current park are shown straight away, with the times of the other park upside down, making the divide between the two much clearer (who knows, maybe guests were looking for Minnie’s Party Train in the Studios?).

Programme

The sensible change here is that now the events being pushed are on the front cover, this clever grid can fill the whole page — and crucially, include all the events. The previous design didn’t feature the times for say Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars in the main grid if it was also in the “featured” column, making the whole idea of having this hour-by-hour grid quite pointless. Problem solved.

Also pleasing is the new typeface used throughout — rounder and more legible in small print. The only downside to the whole re-think is that the resort still provides a PDF download of the Programme as an answer to providing entertainment times on its website, rather than having a fancy calendar like Hong Kong or California.

So, anyone who doesn’t want to print and doesn’t know of the “rotate” function in Adobe Reader… will be getting a bit of a twist in their neck.

The Programme was re-introduced back in 2006. Always looking for shameless promotion, this is a good time to mention that you find various versions of this new-generation Programme — and several fascinating old programmes — on our Memorabilia pages, well worth a look.

Images © Disney.

Tuesday, 15th September 2009

All Stars Express and another 2010 preview

In truth, that’s exactly what DLRP Today suggested.

After the Disney Characters’ Express in 2007 and 2008 and Minnie’s Party Train all through the 2009 season, could this continually re-dressed old parade float really make the line-up of new additions being advertised for next year’s New Generation Festival?

And since the resort is receiving a whole new themed land with three new attractions, is there need to pad out the “nouveautés” by renaming and re-advertising the same event again?

The answer: Yes.

Here’s the brand new publicity visual released today:

Disney All Stars Express
Disney All Stars Express (2010)

As you can see, it re-uses the template of the original Disney Characters’ Express image above, but shows the train in its 2009 Minnie’s Party Train guise — recoloured slightly to appear pinker.

On board, the real-life characters are replaced by another collection of generic stock images, showing the “new generation” who’ll lead the event. Well — Stitch, Toy Story and Ratatouille. Despite the year aiming to celebrate the “Ne w Generation”, these stars are already becoming a little repetitive — and there’s no sign of the newest characters, from Bolt and UP, anywhere.

The new name? As given away in the headline, it’s: Disney All Stars Express. Which certainly allows any classic characters to keep their place come April 2010.

If all this repetition’s getting a little dull, take a look at this final new visual:

Disney All Stars Express

Showing a plethora of characters parachuting into the park (with Sully for some reason peering up from a trapdoor instead), it’s a pleasant surprise after the earlier images. Nemo’s chances once he reaches the ground surely don’t look good, but the image overall… does.

Rather than just re-using an existing image, chopping it to pieces and hastily copying and pasting some Disney stock characters in, it appears to also have some actual design work in there, with the parachutes given proper perspective and depth as they fade away into the painterly sky.

Yet still, there’s an apathy for the park it’s meant to be selling: why else would you paste fake Mickey Mouse stickers over the beautiful windows of Sleeping Beauty Castle? Sigh…

Images © Disney.

Monday, 14th September 2009

Tennis follows F1 as French Open serves for Disney

Last year, it was the French Grand Prix. Now, another top sporting event looks to have its sights set on the beet fields of eastern Marne-la-Vallée.

The president of the French Tennis Federation (FFT) has suggested that the French Open — the Tournoi de Roland-Garros — may in fact be heading away from the capacity-starved Stade Roland-Garros to a new home, out of the city smoke… at Disneyland Paris.

Picked up in the local pages of the Le Parisien website, the story began in a French weekly titled “le 10 Sport” where the FFT president, Jean Gachassin, said he could envisage the Grand Slam tournament moving to a new location either at Sarcelles in Val d’Oise or… “Eurodisney”.

Roland-Garros coming to Disneyland Paris?
Completely unrelated, a publicity event earlier this year saw
Main Street become a full-size tennis court

Whilst Disneyland Paris had yet to respond to Le Parisien‘s request for comment, it transpires that the most likely location could in fact be at Val d’Europe, the modern town and shopping centre development led by the Euro Disney S.C.A. group next to the main resort centre.

Jean-Paul Balcou, president of the Val d’Europe SAN (syndicat d’agglomération nouvelle) public body, stated that it was simply a matter of proposals to the Euro Disney operating group, adding that the conglomeration of towns was “completely favourable” to such a move.

He confirmed that “one of the plans envisaged would see the tournament based not far from the [Val d’Europe] RER station at the heart of the town centre, between the communes of Chessy and Serris”.

Roland-Garros coming to Disneyland Paris?
Val d’Europe location relative to the parks

In 2008, fierce rumour of the Formula 1 French Grand Prix moving from Magny-Cours to a new home literally slap bang in the middle of our prized resort rang frightening true when plans were ultimately revealed.

With seemingly no regard for the theme parks, hotels — or towns — nearby, the circuit would have cut a path just metres from the windows of Disney’s Newport Bay Club and Sequoia Lodge, bringing deafening noise for some of the year and abandoned infrastructure for the rest. Ultimately, it was opposed and thrown out by local councils — the same councils appearing to support wholeheartedly this latest sporting proposal.

Despite construction of a new centre court being scheduled to begin at Stade Roland-Garros in 2010 or 2011, expansion of the sporting facilities there, in the congested 16th arrondissement of Paris, has apparently met with strong opposition from locals and commentators alike.

Should the proposed move come to fruition, and Val d’Europe take the match point from Sarcelles, it would be a huge boon for the town and for Disneyland alike; giving Val d’Europe reason above simply its shopping centre and commuter pads, and bringing a prestigious — and pleasantly hushed — annual sporting fixture within the famous Boulevard Circulaire of Disneyland Paris.

Images: Disney/Google. With thanks to Adam.

Sunday, 13th September 2009

More New Generation Festival event images

You’ve seen the logo and the main key visual, now for the events of the New Generation Festival themselves. Friday saw a whole series of initial images appear on the resort’s publicity visuals website.

Note the wording there — “initial images”. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but a couple of the images you’re about to see are surely — surely — just stand-ins for some final, polished visuals yet to come. In short, they look like the kind of hastily chopped-together visuals we might have found on internal presentations or proposals for the 2010 theme year, not true “advertising visuals” that have been released for use in brochures, in print… in public

The Princess and the Frog in Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade

Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen will only be hitting European cinema screens in January and February 2010, but come the April launch of New Generation Festival they’ll both find a new home on the ‘Dreams of Romance: Finale’ unit of Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade.

New Generation Festival

Quite where they’ll be slotted in on this huge articulated float — which already boasts Belle, Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora — isn’t exactly answered by the visual above, which shows an assortment of Disney Princess stock images cowering behind a truly gigantic version of the Princess and the Frog couple.

For comparison, remember the artwork that greeted the parade’s launch in 2007?

It’s Party Time… with Mickey and some new Friends!

As confirmed just a month ago, the general concept of this year’s Central Plaza show will continue into 2010. Rather than the classic Mickey’s Magical Party characters of Timon, Baloo, Peter Pan, Donald Duck and co., however, it looks like we might be seeing those four satellite stages hosting Sully, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Rémy, Emile, Stitch and even Princess Tiana again…

New Generation Festival

…Which all throws up a few questions about what route the re-imagined show will take. The current format is based very much around the music, and interactivity. Whilst Tigger certainly lends himself to bouncing and Baloo to a sing-along of Jungle Book tunes, we’ve never seen that kind of event from these characters above before.

“Note” the musical notes falling from the sky on parachutes, continuing that theme. And, though you can’t see it, we can add the interesting note that this image is labelled “KEY VISUAL SHOWTIME SPECTACULAR”, which certainly hints at a name-change for the annoyingly-titled It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends come April 2010. ‘Mickey’s Showtime Spectacular’? ‘New Generation Showtime Spectacular’?

The visual above re-uses a strange image of Mickey Mouse originally created for the Mickey’s Magical Party version of the show, where the stage was viewed from above. Re-used here, the poor Mouse simply seems to have an (even more) abnormally-large head.

‘Enhanced’ Monsters, Inc. meet ‘n’ greet

Now here’s an interesting one. As listed originally, the small Monsters, Inc. “Scream Scene” location near the entrance to Toon Studio is, for some reason, being touted amongst the main New Generation Festival events…

New Generation Festival

There’s certainly nothing new in the visual here that might suggest an “enhancement”, so why is this 2006 addition suddenly becoming an event? A more regular appearance of Sully? The replacement of the Mike figure with a real-life character? Some kind of mini-show or Sword in the Stone-style scream canister event…?

Ratatouille in Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars

Wave goodbye to all hope of Florida’s old Star Wars car joining our Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars. This vehicle will be remodelled for Rémy and Emile from April 2010, adding a 12th car to the parade/show event.

New Generation Festival

Given that the Star Wars car is very different to that above, don’t take this as a real concept.

So there you go, the four main events Disneyland Paris Entertainment are cooking up for the New Generation Festival. After their five large-scale launches for 2009, it should be a breeze. There’s also the strong chance that Disney Characters’ Express / Minnie’s Party Train will be remodelled yet again into a New Generation Express, but thankfully it’s looking like such a rehash won’t be quite so widely advertised.

Three more visuals are also floating around for Toy Story Playland and two of its attractions, but we’ve a lot of catching up to do on that subject before getting to those. Stay tuned…

Your thoughts and comments are welcome!

— — —

Images © Disney.

Friday, 11th September 2009

New Generation Festival logo, key visual revealed!

Here we go, the official logo of the New Generation Festival…!

New Generation Festival

As you can see, the design takes on a modern and very “Toy Story”-inspired design, with big, ,3D yellow letters for “New”, a slimy green “Generation” and a “Festival” built out of… building blocks, just like the word “Playland” will be at the Toy Story Playland entrance.

Naturally, the logo comes in a couple of additional variations.

First, we’ve the new resort logo for 2010:

New Generation Festival

As with Mickey’s Magical Party, the name of the event is slotted in across the top. Unlike 2009’s logo, however, there’s no balloon or extra graphics on the end.

Note also that both here and above the classic ‘Disneyland Paris’ logo is back to its good old navy blue self. No shoehorned “Resort”, no having “Paris” in a separate colour, nothing. To long-time fans, it’ll feel like an old friend has returned.

The third and final logo is the largest:

New Generation Festival

Here we see the first, main logo above — but with a scattering of the characters who’ll “star” in next year’s events. Lightning McQueen, Princess Tiana, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mickey Mouse, Sully, Rémy, Nemo and Stitch. The idea is to contrast between the very classic characters of the current year (Donald, Goofy, Peter Pan), making 2010 seem as fresh as possible.

Phew. Are you all New Generation-ed out? Sorry, but there’s yet more…

Finally, here’s the key visual for the New Generation Festival. As promised in the earlier reveal, balloons are out. In 2010, it’s all about — erm… parachutes!

New Generation Festival

Buzz Lightyear leads the image as Lightning McQueen, Rémy, a Toy Solider, Slinky Dog, Princess Tiana, Nemo, Sully, RC, Woody and Stitch glide towards Sleeping Beauty Castle behind.

This “key visual” is the main piece of advertising imagery we’ll be seeing throughout the entire promotion of the event. You might remember those for Mickey’s Magical Party, and this here is our brand new one. Get used to it, we’ll be seeing it a lot.

Thoughts? Opinions? Ahh, we’ll leave that to you for now!

— — —

• If you missed our original exposé on the events of the New Generation Festival, including the new Toy Story Playland and new parade characters, click here!

Images © Disney.

Friday, 11th September 2009

How much does a Disney Village Starbucks cost?

The multinational chain is already known for its high prices, so that combined with the strong Euro and prominent Disney location risked an inflated price rather too high for many regular guests — though you wouldn’t know it from the queues stretching back to the door for most of the day, particularly after park closing.

Starbucks Coffee

Still wondering? We snapped a quick photo just for you:

Starbucks Coffee
(click and zoom in to check out most of the prices)

Your Grande Latte or Cappuccino costs €3.90, whilst the simpler Americano is priced down at €2.80. Frappuccinos are up at €4.50 and above, Viennese hot chocolates priced from €3.60.

How are those prices for you? For comparison, a regular 40cl Nescafé in the parks will cost you €2.60, with a new 60cl option available for €3.00. Depending on your view of coffee, 90 cents or so might actually be a small premium to pay for a rather more “real” cup…

Pictures: DLRP Today.com

Friday, 11th September 2009

Late-night shopping – with 15% discount

For the first time in years, Disneyland Park didn’t make its Summer season a clean sweep of 11pm closures right through from July to August. For the week of 24th – 30th August 2009, guests would hear the park closing announcements at 10pm, instead.

The real turn of events were hardly dissimilar to every other week of the season, however, as anyone who has following the resort’s hugely unpopular “limited attraction hours” programme this Summer will know. Several of the smaller attractions still opened late and closed early, at the same hours. And, rather than performing at 22:25, Disney’s Fantillusion rolled out just 25 minutes earlier, bang on the advertised closing time of 10pm, with The Enchanted Fireworks following soon after at around 22:35.

Late night shopping with 15% discount

But perhaps sensing that these slightly earlier showtimes would give visitors less time to browse the park’s boutiques beforehand, a popular old trick was pulled out again — late night store openings.

As advertised at each and every entrance turnstile, and at many of the shops in question, the stores of Main Street, U.S.A. along with Constellations and Thunder Mesa Mercantile Building, near the entrances of Discoveryland and Frontierland respectively, kept their doors open until gone 11pm. Such a tactic has been used many times before, such as during busy Halloween and Christmas periods when the park’s high attendance contrasts with shorter hours.

Even better, if you’d happened to do a little shopping earlier in the evening, a brand new ploy would be handed right to you — a voucher for 15% off your next purchase totalling €30 euros or more that same night, after 9.30pm. The ticket was printed automatically along with all receipts.

Late night shopping with 15% discount

This is the very first time that Disneyland Paris have offered such merchandise discounts to the general public, coming after tests earlier this year saw the resort’s new tills (now identical at every single payment location) printing out vouchers for free hot drinks at various counter service locations.

At a time when the resort is reporting much lower guest spending, late-night shopping and a hefty 15% discount was a pleasingly pro-active way to keep the tills ringing.

Pictures: DLRP Today.com

Wednesday, 9th September 2009

New signage & more at Disney Studios Store

Front Lot is awash with beautiful red, white and purple flowers this Summer. Over there, on your left, the completely “opened up” Walt Disney Studios Store now sits proudly and prominently — no longer blocked by planters, nor hidden behind small windows.

Walt Disney Studios Store

There’s not even a hint of meddling with the red canopy (like its Princesses retheme last year), nor a single cheap clothes rail lingering outside the store. This may well be the only shop in the resort not to have exploded out into the street.

Let’s step back and take it all in. To jog your memory, here’s how it looked before.

Walt Disney Studios Store

An improvement? Certainly. Though the visible wooden panels hiding the back of the pay desks by two of the new windows seems a little messy, the new store now positively beckons you toward it.

Walt Disney Studios Store

Getting closer — well, will you look at that! New signage!

Walt Disney Studios Store Walt Disney Studios Store

These two ornate metal pieces have just been added to each side of the main entrance, finally plussing an exterior which has so long been a sea of yellow with just the occasional “Walt Disney Studios Store” — a far cry from the signage-encrusted shops over on Main Street, for example. Now, guests can tell from afar that it sells souvenirs, toys, gifts and fashion.

The text is actually a little reminiscent of the signs over on the Franklin Department Store façade on Hollywood Boulevard, and note how the curve at the top nicely wraps around the existing lights. Excellent work!

Into that door we go… and, oh…

Walt Disney Studios Store

Is this what you expect at the Walt Disney Studios, a park full of action adventures and very un-royal Toons? Apparently so. In fact, since we last balked at the covering-up of the large Walt Disney centrepiece at the back there, it’s been elaborated on quite a bit more.

The new background and its surrounding shelves have been draped with royal red curtains and filled with even more Disney Princess merchandise.

Walt Disney Studios Store

Compared to the blandness across the rest of the store, it actually looks rather appealing when you’re there. Unless there’s some huge unknown market for Princess merchandise at the Studios we’ve missed though, it is strange positioning. Displays dedicated to say, the Disney Villains, could be more appropriate.

Stepping to the right, into the section of the store nearest Disney Studio 1, things suddenly get a whole let better. There are some brand new display units here, and a lot of quality merchandise.

Walt Disney Studios Store

Tasteful homewares, with lots of space to move between the shelves, and over behind the shot below, a great display of retro Minnie Mouse-themed polka dot accessories. It’s a great improvement on what the space was like before.

Walt Disney Studios Store

It also gives the feeling that a retro, Mickey and co, 1930s, Disney shorts theme would have been better for the store. Rooms themed to Walt Disney’s earliest creations (Bambi for the baby accessories, for example), rather than sparingly decorated with pictures of the man himself.

Walt Disney Studios Store

Talking of pictures — the second photo desk, over on the other side of the store, was open for use for the first time, perhaps… ever. Visitors now have a little less of a queue to pick up their souvenir photos from Toon Studio characters and so on.

Princesses aside, it’s looking ok, right? Wrong. Head into the final, separate room, nearest the park exit gates, to be met with…

Walt Disney Studios Store

Briefly dedicated nicely to plush toys, this room has become — no, not a poor version of your local charity shop — but a place for baby accessories, and all that stuff which doesn’t really interest a Disney fan. Good job too — with those bare white walls and the cheap display units, Oxfam suddenly looks like Selfridges

A project with yet still more to come, or the final reel?

Pictures: DLRP Today.com

Tuesday, 8th September 2009

Park boutiques given extra G-Force

Yes, ever keen to extend their worthy history of Armageddon, Gone in Sixty Seconds and, err, Kangaroo Jack, Jerry Bruckheimer Films have turned to those most daring of squeaky animals — guinea pigs! — for a new action/adventure family film released earlier this Summer.

And here’s the obligatory news story about the new movie merchandise in the parks: A full display at the entrance of Legends of Hollywood inside Disney Studio 1 has been given over to the Digital 3-D rodents of G-Force, complete with spy glasses, action figures and of course, plush toys.

G-Force Merchandise G-Force Merchandise

The same collection can also be found at Sir Mickey’s Boutique in Fantasyland and at Disney Store and Hollywood Pictures in Disney Village.

Pictures: DLRP Today.com

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