After a 3 month break, our very own Chuck Canzoneri returns with a new Disneyland Park photo report:
Spring Break is over, however summer certainly isn’t here yet
Construction around the Astro Orbitor and here (the old Cosmic Waves)
Timothy is missing from Dumbo, The Flying Elephant
And someone is missing from Small World as well
This duck on the Storybook Land Canal Boats is not to scale with his surroundings
LOS ANGELES, April 23 /PRNewswire/ — The star of ABC’s popular parenting series Supernanny, Jo Frost, will meet with fans at Downtown Disney to share parenting tips on Saturday, April 25th at 12:00PM. The casting team for the show will be on hand to meet with families who would like to be on the just announced sixth season of the hit show or the new parenting show called Super-Manny. Producers from Shed Media US are hosting open casting calls on Saturday, April 25th and Sunday, April 26th from 12:00PM to 4:00PM at Downtown Disney District in front of the AMC Theatres at the Disneyland Resort.
This season producers are searching for families with unique interests, parents who have ordinary and extraordinary circumstances, teen moms, parents with mean girls or bullying boys, culturally diverse parents, and blended families where both sides are seeking help. Producers are looking for families from every type of background who are ready for the opportunity of a lifetime–a visit from America’s number one nanny, Jo Frost or the world’s first Super-Manny, Mike Ruggles!
Interested moms and dads in need of help with their out of control kids may apply from anywhere via www.supernanny.com. Parents can also call 877/NANNY TIME (1-877-626-6984) for more information.
Dewayne Bevil of the Orlando Sentinel has more details on the “Pirates League” coming to Adventureland at the Magic Kingdom this summer, including pricing, an opening date, and when you can start making reservations:
The new Pirates League will try to do for buccaneers what the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique has done for little princesses at Disney World.
The attraction, which will open at Magic Kingdom theme park June 29, will perform swashbuckling makeovers. Participants will receive pirate names before receiving a variety of accessories, including beards, eye patches, scarves, scars, earrings and gold teeth. These will be applied by a “veteran pirate” with sea-sailing tales.
After taking a sacred oath and an official portrait, guests will be part of Jack Sparrow’s gang.
There will be three pirate packages.
+ First Mate Package ($49.95): bandana, choice of facial effects, sword and sheath, pirate coin necklace, 5×7 photo and a “personalized pirate oath.”
+ Empress Package ($49.95): bandana, “shimmering” makeup, sword and sheath, pirate coin necklace, 5×7 photo and a “personalized pirate oath.”
+ Captains Package ($124.95): choice of costume, facial effects, sword and sheath, pirate coin necklace, three 5×7 photos and the personalized oath.
The League will be located in the area between the entrance to the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction and the Pirates Merchandise shop. (Disney says this is currently backstage territory.)
But hang tight, mateys: Reservations cannot be made until May 11.
While browsing the new-and-improved official Walt Disney World website, I stumbled over something interesting on an attraction information page. The page displaying information about the “Imageworks – The KODAK What If Labs” at Epcot seems to have a few errors (or are they):
ImageWorks – The Kodak “What If” Labs features a vast array of hands-on, sensory-themed activities and exhibits where you can exercise your imagination and explore your creative side in exciting exhibits that include:
Dreamfinder’s School of Drama – Become the star of your very own film using greenscreen technology
Stepping Tones – Create your own music by stepping on electronic picture panels
Figment’s Coloring Book – Using electric paintbrush guns, add a little color to Figment and Dreamfinder
Electric Philharmonic – Conduct an orchestra through the use of electronic sensors
Rainbow Corridor – Stroll through an illuminated tunnel where colored lights follow you
Vibrating Mirrors – Watch as your reflection changes right before your eyes
Kaleidoscopes – Spin eye-popping colors in intricate designs via large-size kaleidoscopes
Voice-Activated Lumia – Speak out and behold a bevy of shimmering light effects
Bubble Projectors – Blow virtual bubbles on a circular screen and create colorful colors
Figment’s Melody Maker – Help Figment play an instrument to the tune of “One Little Spark”
The exhibits marked in bold lettering all closed as part of the original Imageworks in October 1998 for the refurbishment that brought together the new/current Imageworks, Journey Into Your Imagination (still makes me cringe), and renamed the pavilion “Imagination!”. Why would a website just updated in 2009 feature information this dated? Why are the old exhibits mixed together with the current ones on this list (Mind you, Stepping Tones has existed both upstairs and downstairs)? It’s no secret that Walt Disney Imagineering is working on an update to this troubled Future World pavilion, as a matter of fact, most of the company has already been made aware that the entire “Imagination!” pavilion is going to be handed over to Imagineering before next summer. So what’s going on? Is this just a mistake, or is this a hint of things to come? We’ll just have to wait and see. Be sure to stay tuned to WDW News Today for more on this story as it develops.
After Disneynature’s Earth has finished it’s run at the El Capitan Theatre, the next movie to be featured will be Disney·Pixar’s Up. A couple of days ago I received an ad in the mail showing off what bonuses you can get if you see Up at the El Capitan (you can click both images for bigger versions):
The WDWNT Network has once again reached out to our audience and made changes and additions based on their thoughts. After collecting responses from our 2009 annual survey, we have decided to add and enhance a few features of the WDW News Today website.
The first major addition is a new calendar function powered by Google Calendar. After testing some alternative calendars over the last few weeks, we have determined this to be the calendar to meet our needs and the needs of our viewers, providing a clean, easy to read layout that will allow us to post Walt Disney World Resort and WDWNT Network events regularly. The Google Calendar also provides some useful features that the other candidates did not, such as the ability to copy events to your own Google Calendar, print an agenda of the calendar’s upcoming events, and provide weekly and monthly viewings based on preference. Our new calendar can be reached by clicking the calendar button in our navigation bar on WDW News Today.
The second major addition is that of a text-based WDW News Today Newsletter, carrying our latest Walt Disney World news headlines straight to your email box. So many of you responded that you wanted news by email, that we could not deny the request. This is only the first version of the newsletter we will be presenting, as we are already actively looking to make some enhancements to the system in the not-so-distant future. To subscribe, just simply enter your email address into the subscribe box in the left sidebar of the WDW News Today website.
The final update will certainly make our many Twitter followers happy. While most of the WDWNT Team is at the Walt Disney World Resort next week, we will be frequently updating the WDWNT Twitter with text and pictures bringing you the latest happenings from around the parks (including coverage of the 20th Anniversary events at Disney’s Hollywood Studios May 1st). If you are not following WDWNT on Twitter yet, be sure to go to twitter.com/wdwnt and start following us today!
For our Disneyland News Today audience, don’t fret, the calendar and newsletter functions will be rolling out to the DLNT website sometime in the next week.
We hope you enjoy all of these new additions to WDW News Today!
Thank you for your continued support,
Tom Corless
Owner of the WDWNT Network
My parents visited the Disneyland Resort today while I was unfortunately in school. The reason for this visit was my father’s birthday, and he of course got his Birthday Fun Card. Here’s some photos they were able to get for us:
Monorail Orange pulling into the Downtown Disney Monorail Station
Food and Wine Festival banners in Downtown Disney
A tent has been set up in the middle of Sunshine Plaza for the Festival Welcome Center
Myrna Litt spent the weekend at the Disneyland Resort and reports back to us with these photos:
Looks like new merchandise in World of Disney
Food and Wine Festival banners in Downtown Disney
Club Libby Lu is being transformed into Studio Disney 365, which is scheduled to open this summer
Since I see the Twitterverse (many people on Twitter) has picked up on it, I’ll let you what I know about thus far on ” The Pirate’s League”, coming to Adventureland:
-It will be the Bibbidi Bobbiti Boutique for boys, dressing up kids (for a hefty price) in Pirate paraphernalia and giving them Pirate lessons very similar to those given in the Jack Sparrow Pirate Tutorial. Similar to how the Boutique takes boy customers, girls will be allowed to do the same, even though it is geared towards the swashbuckling boys.
-The location will be the long sealed section of the Caribbean Plaza market at the exit of Pirates of the Caribbean, once mostly used to provide families of guests with group pictures dressed as pirates.
-“The Pirate’s League” is scheduled to begin operating early in the summer, at least opening by 4th of July weekend.
Stay tuned to WDW News Today as we get more information and an official announcement on the upcoming “Pirate’s League” in Adventureland at the Magic Kingdom.
UPDATE 10:50 PM: The DisneyShawn blog has the first piece of concept art released for “The Pirate’s League:”
Join your hosts, Tom Corless and Luke Manning, and a cast including Justin Heyman, Anthony Yacullo, Scott Smith, Kenny Siegel, Shawn Hutchinson, and Kyle Duffield for a variety show celebrating the 45th anniversary of the 1964 New York World’s Fair. This week’s show is a special episode honoring Walt Disney’s contributions to the fair, including Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, the Ford Magic Skyway, the General Electric Carousel of Progress, and “it’s a small world”.
To kick off the episode, we have Disneyland News Today’s signature segment, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” . This week, we take a look at at one of the greatest Disney attractions of all time that debuted at the World’s Fair, “it’s a small world”. Let’s see if we can get through this segment without getting the song stuck in our heads.
After that, we’ll have another edition of “What were they thinking?”, where we will try to examine why certain decisions are or were made by Disney management. This time around, we will try to figure out why a number of decisions were made regarding Disney’s involvement in the 1964 World’s Fair and the ultimate fate of the attractions created for the historic event.
To end this special episode, we’ll have the debut of our newest segment, “World’s Finest”. In this round-table discussion, we will pick our favorite Disney-made ride vehicle, characters, music and attraction from the fair.
To subscribe to the WDW News Today podcast on iTunes, go to this link. If you do not have iTunes, visit our Podcast Download Directory to download or listen to all of our shows
This episode is also available in an enhanced version. An enhanced podcast is a podcast with added features that standard podcasts don’t have. Enhanced podcasts include many features like Chapter listings, this lets you skip through chapters or see what is in store for this weeks show. Enhanced podcasts also have images to let you differ the chapters by. Enhanced podcasts have one negative feature, you can not play them on most mp3 players. The file format for this is a .m4a which can play on Apple’s iPod and Microsoft’s Zune. You will also need iTunes or Windows Media Player to be able to skip through chapters. If you need or would like the standard edition, download the normal edition listed below this file both on Itunes and in our podcast directory.
