The T-Rex Restaurant at Downtown Disney is opening Summer 2008, according to the construction walls surrounding the site. Even if the restaurant opens by the end of the summer, that only gives them 10 months to complete the new restaurant. This would probably make the people involved in the construction of the new Yak and Yeti restaurant at Animal Kingdom look bad, as they are once again struggling to meet their second opening date.
The Main Street Cinema on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom is now closed for the removal of Virtual Magic Kingdom Central. In it’s place will be anb Art of Disney store, similar to those that can be found in the other three theme parks and Downtown Disney. The Marquee on the building says “Coming Soon”, but no official opening date has been set yet for the store. Expect it to open in early December.
The new Jedi Training Academy show has debuted on a new Star Wars inspired stage next to the Star Tours attraction at the Disney MGM Studios. According to sources, the show is performed seven times a day.
Last night, the new Teppan Edo restaurant in Japan at Epcot opened to the general public. You can see pictures of the new restaurant over at our friends from Mousesteps.com.
I am now hearing from a few reliable sources on some huge rumors. There have been rumblings this week that Disney will be holding a huge press conference at the Walt Disney World Resort in the first week of January 2008. As far as the purpose of the event, it is mostly to get people excited about the newly re-christened Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This press event will be used for Disney to promote the High Shool Musical 2: School’s Out show, the new show coming to the ABC Theater, the Block Party Bash Parade, Toy Story Mania, the extended Year of a Million Dreams, and the new Siemen’s Spaceship Earth. But the biggest part of this conference will probably be the announcement of three new attractions. It is expected that at this time, Disney will announce a new Star Tours attraction, another Pixar themed E-ticket attraction, and a new attraction for Epcot’s Imagination Pavillion. While this is still all rumored, I did pick this up from multiple sources over the last two weeks. We will continue to provide you with any developements on this as they become available.
Block Party Bash closes at Disney’s California Adventure park on January 5th, 2007. The parade will then be sent to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where it will begin running in March 2008.
– It seems most of the poeple talking about Epcot merchandise for today were wrong as usual. One limited edition shirt, a Figment bean bag plush, and the wide assortment of pins were all that was released today. The line for the pins was at least 2 hours long, and even those who arrived from 9:30am on were finding this amount of time to wait. Expect all the pins to sell out, as well as the Figment plush. The special shirts have already sold out in most sizes, but will most likely be gone by the end of the day as well.
– The rededication ceremony went off nicely as the park played classic/retro music. Nothing spectactular to announce, but a nice ceremony all around.
In response to the large amount of news that will be flowing into the site today, we will run headlines with the time they are posted.
– Epcot celebrates it’s 25th Anniversary today. Happy Birthday Epcot!!!
– The Fountainview Ice Cream location at Epcot is being painted blue as all of Future World central prepares to gain a new, more colorful look.
– The planned events for Epcot today include a re-dedication ceremony at 10:01 am and a special finale to Illuminations: Reflections of Earth. Beyond that, expect a few big surprises!!!
For the last time ever, the Wonders of Life pavillion at Epcot is open for the Food And Wine Festival. The pavillion has been gutted and rethemed in some areas for the event.
The Magic Kingdom may be recieving Disneyland’s Parade of Dreams by 2009. This would be the second parade taken from Disneyland, along with the Block Party Bash that debuts at WDW this coming spring.
