Echo Lake at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is currently drained for Refurbishment, where Gertie the Dinosaur and Min & Bill’s Dockside Diner are being repainted and the landscaping elements around the area are being reimagined.
Here’s a short video looking across Echo Lake:
The work is also being done to prepare for a new Christmas Tree that will sit in the middle of the lake during the holiday season.
New at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Guests can now order customized 3-D layered Star Wars phone cases at Star Wars Launch Bay.
The cases are available at the D-Tech on Demand stations inside the store at the exit of Launch Bay.
The cases are available for a number of Apple and Android phones, they retail at $34.99 each.
They can also be customized with a name in English or in the Star Wars Aurebesh language for an additional $5.00.
For a better look at the layered element in the cases, check out our video below:
Tokyo Disneyland Park is turning 35 next year, and Disney is celebrating with the Tokyo Disney Resort 35th ‘Happiest Celebration!’, which will span from April 15, 2018 through March 25, 2019.
Disneyland Park will kick things off with the premier of “Dreaming Up!,” a brand new daytime parade that will feature floats decorated to Fantasia, Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast, Big Hero 6, and more (“Happiness is Here,” the current daytime parade, will end on April 9, 2018).
After an extensive refurbishment, “it’s a small world” will be re-opening and feature over 40 new dolls, all from classic Disney movies. Not only that, but the music will be changed up as well. In addition to the iconic song “it’s a small world” the theme will be remixed to include music to accompany the various films that the new dolls represent. New dolls include characters from Frozen, Mulan, Cinderella, Tangled, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Aladdin, and The Lion King.
Later in the summer, “Celebrate! Tokyo Disneyland” will premiere as the park’s new nighttime spectacular at Cinderella Castle. The show will utilize newer effects like fountains of water and lights filling the sky. Mickey Mouse will personally come on stage to kick the show off, casting a magic spell on Cinderella Castle to create a world of imagination.
Both Disneyland Park and Tokyo Disney Sea will offer unique decorations and activities to celebrate Easter, Halloween, and Christmas during this year-long celebration. And of course unique merchandise and food items will be sold exclusively for the anniversary. Additionally, Disney will be opening a special anniversary store in Disneyland for a limited time.
Additional events, shows, and seasonal celebrations will take place over the year for the Tokyo Disney Resort 35th ‘Happiest Celebration!’.
In addition to all of the events and offerings we told you about a few days ago, Disney is now revealing a little more about their celebration of Epcot’s 35th anniversary this Sunday.
Above, you’ll find the cover of the commemorative map being released on October 1st. A specialty Epcot 35 cupcake will be available at the following locations:
Disney will also offer a sparkling wine toast in a commemorative glass at the Food and Wine Festival Marketplaces around the park. Fountain View will also offer an Epcot 35 Starbucks mug beginning on 10/1.
Stay tuned to WDWNT.com for live coverage of Epcot’s 35th anniversary this weekend!
Sohni, a Sumatran Tiger at Disney’s Animal Kingdom recently gave birth to two cubs, and we now get to see these brother and sister cubs with their eyes open.
Both cubs have weighed in at about 12 pounds each, and have begun to start walking on their own. The cubs will have to remain backstage for a few more months, but until then, we can gawk over these adorable photos.
Sumatran tigers are extremely endangered, with fewer than 500 left in existence due to poaching, habitat loss, and illegal wildlife trade.
Disney is aiding in the conservation of endangered species, and you can help by partaking in Disney’s Connect to Protect interactive missions throughout Pandora – The World of Avatar. When guests enter Pandora, they will receive a notification on their smartphone allowing them to partake in this activity. Working with artificial intelligence scientists, guests can vote and unlock monetary contributions on behalf of Disney. $100,000 has already been donated by Disney towards helping protect elephants in Kenya, but there are also ways guests can help protect gorillas, migratory birds, butterflies and other species.
When the newborn tiger cubs are out for the public to see on Maharajah Jungle Trek we’ll be sure to share another update.
Set to open in 2019, construction continues on Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, including the massive E-Ticket extravaganza currently only known as “Battle Escape“.
Construction of this massive ride has expanded quite a bit, now very visible from the exit of Muppet-Vision 3-D, near Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano.
It remains to be seen how this will be hidden from view once the project is complete, seeing as this area will not be an entrance to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and we’re looking at the backstage part of the building from this angle.
“Battle Escape” is rumored to be a trackless attraction, featuring many audio-aniamtronics, projection effects, and more when it debuts in 2019.
Entertainment Weekly has given readers a first look at the new cast of “Avatar 2”. And what better place to introduce the future stars of the franchises then at Animal Kingdom’s Pandora – The World Of Avatar. Principal photography for “Avatar 2” began this Monday and the movie is scheduled to hit theaters on December 18, 2020.
From EW:
Of course, in the above photo, you’ll have to use your imagination a bit to picture the cast in CG character as lanky blue cat-eyed Na’vi. That is, with one exception — Javier “Spider” Socorro (played by 12-year-old Jack Champion, who’s standing on the right in a blue shirt in the above photo). Spider is a human teenager born at the Hell’s Gate military complex, a crucial location in the first film.
According to producer Jon Landau, the kids of Avatar 2 represent the biggest focus shift from the original movie. “We never had this youthful element before, and that brings a different kind of energy to the film,” he says. “They represent the future generation of Pandora and play a very significant role — not just in this movie but throughout all the movies.”
Director James Cameron has famously spent years working on the scripts for the four Avatar sequels. The first is scheduled to hit theaters on Dec. 18, 2020. That hiatus is nearly as long as the 12 years between Cameron’s Titanic and Avatar — and the filmmaker proved skeptics wrong once Avatar passed Titanic as the highest-grossing film of all time. Landau remarks that Avatar 2 will silence any doubters who dismissed the first title as a one-time 3-D sensation.
“Nobody is watching Avatar [on home video] or waiting in four-hour lines at Disney’s World of Avatar or going to the sold-out Cirque du Soleil shows because of the film’s 3-D,” he points out. “People respond because of the movie’s characters, themes, and emotions—and we have all that again. When the cast read what Jim Cameron wrote [for the sequels], it hit them with even greater resonance than the first movie.”
Source: EW
In preparation for Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, almost the entirety of the old Soundstage 4 building has been demolished.
This building was home to portions of the Backlot Tour and Backstage Pass attractions when the park opened, in later years hosting the Narnia walkthrough exhibits, as well as the infamous Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow. It will now be the entrance to Toy Story Land, opening Summer 2018.
I’m still anxious to see how they will theme this area as an entrance to the Toy Story area.
A strange tall section of the soundstage is apparently staying, for what reason, we do not know. Again, we’ll have to wait and see exactly what this will be, but it still looks like a soundstage on one side.
The Slinky Dog Dash rollercoaster lies off in the distance.
Work continues on the new Grand Avenue area at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, with reports now indicating that the Baseline Tap House will open to guests sometime before the end of the month.
While the street itself doesn’t look quite finished, Baseline Tap House looks just about ready to open.
As you can see, signage is up, but a look through the walls reveals a mostly finished product.
For a better look at the site from a few weeks ago, here is a look at Grand Avenue completely revealed thanks to Hurricane Irma:
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