Those of you attending any of the Star Wars Weekends events at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in May or June will be happy to know that Disney will once again be releasing a collection of big figures featuring four of the fab five dressed as classic saga characters:
Mickey as Luke Skywalker with Yoda & Minnie as Princess Leia from Jabba’s Palace
Goofy as Chewbacca & Donald as Han Solo in Carbonite
Each of these is limited to 600 pieces, with 500 of each available at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and 100 of each at the Disneyland Resort. They will all retail for $195 and will be the final pieces in the long running Star Wars big figure series.
There are a ton of entertainment changes that will be taking place at the Walt Disney World theme parks this week, so I thought it would be useful to provide a list for those of you visiting in the next few days:
The “Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party” at the Magic Kingdom will debut on Friday, February 13th and will perform three times daily at 11:00 AM, 12:30 PM, & 5:15 PM
The times for Dream Along with Mickey will change on Friday to make way for the “Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party”. The new performance times will be 9:35 AM, 10:35 AM, 11:40 AM, 1:15 PM, 2:15 PM, and 4:00 PM
On Thursday February 12th, there will be an American Idol parade and press event. The motorcade featuring Ryan Seacrest and a number of former American Idol performers will take place t 4:30 PM and will be open to the public. Following that, there will be a special press event closed to the general public. (Don’t fret, WDWNT will be represented at the event)
As a result of the American Idol festivities, Block Party Bash will not be performing on Thursday, February 12th
Fantasmic! will perform 4 times this week with 7:00 and 8:15 PM shows on both Monday and Friday
The Schedules for the “Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular”, “Voyage of of the Little Mermaid”, and “High School Musical: Right Here! Right Now!” will be altered on Thursday. Consult a times guide for exact times.
Stay tuned to WDW News Today as more information on these entertainment changes become available.
I’m sure that’s a news title you never expected to read on this website, but it’s true. In this case, it’s the wand in a form that’s even uglier than the real thing was. However, it was in use for a pretty good reason :
An 80-foot-tall hot air balloon, shaped like Epcot’s Spaceship Earth icon, floated Jan. 28, 2009 above Magic Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., carrying the Birkett family, of Scottsdale, Ariz. The special flight was one of the dreams awarded as part of Disney Parks’ 2008 “Disney Dreams Giveaway.” On Sept. 17, 2008, Christian Birkett was chosen at random as the dream recipient while experiencing The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction at Disneyland Park in California. In addition to the tethered balloon flight, Birkett’s dream included a VIP vacation to Walt Disney World. The Disney Dreams Giveaway, part of Disney’s Year of a Million Dreams which officially ended Dec. 31, 2008, awarded a million-plus dreams throughout 2008 at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. After today’s balloon flight, Birkett commented, “When you’re up there, it feels like you’re on top of the world. It’s definitely a dream come true.” (David Roark, photographer)
With the launch of our new WDWNTube video site just a few days ago, we are still testing a variety of features, including the ability to embed videos from that site right here on WDW News Today. While our amazing technical department is working on that, we will direct you over to that site to watch our newest video in high quality (scratch that, we got it to work, look below). Without any further delay, here is the debut video of the “Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade” at the Magic Kingdom taken by Robert Ashburn:
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Robert Ashburn of Figment’s Media and FTN has provided us with another fantastic photo report, this time from the Magic Kingdom area with a full report on the park’s latest parade and some other smaller happenings. Let’s take a look:
We’ll start this report with photos from the debut performance of the Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade at the Magic Kingdom. Since the pre-parade vehicle is now in the actual parade, a high school band acted in it’s place
Disney was filming the first performance for some promotional footage
The parade banner leads along with what was the pre-parade Grand Marshal vehicle
Avid WDWNT Network follower Jon Pleszewski has provided us with a fantastic photo update from around the Magic Kingdom park, so let’s take a look at some news items:
The “Celebrate Today!” banner covers the famous train station plaque that the Year of a Million Dreams banner covered for many months
The castle forecourt stage has been returned to it’s usual look, slightly freshened and ready for Dream Along with Mickey
The walls are finally down around the Golden Oak Outpost in Frontierland, which is ready to open any day now
The new seating area which will shrink the designated smoking area adjacent to it
Construction of Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration continues in Tomorrowland
Is it just me, or does it look like this isn’t going to make a February opening?
We end this great report with the arrival of more “Celebrate Today!” banners outside the Magic Kingdom. A special thanks to Jon for this update!
After a few months of delayed products and an already cancelled pin collection that was available for a very short period of time back in the summer, Disney Vinylmation pieces are ready to invade the Walt Disney World Resort with a kick-off event:
Event: Vinylmation Pre-Release Party
Guest Artists: Disney Design Group Artists: Randy Noble, Dan Howard, Monty Maldovan, Dawn Ockstadt, & Rachel Sur Pre-Party Date: Friday, December 19, 2008 Pre-Party Times: 5:00PM – 7:00PM Pre-Party Location: Art of Disney, Downtown Disney® Marketplace
Vinylmation, the original vinyl collectible available exclusively at Disney Theme Parks has arrived! Be among the first to collect the newly released and highly anticipated Park 1 series that features art and designs inspired by the Disney Parks and available exclusively at select Disney Theme Park Merchandise locations. Vinymation is available in 3″ and 9″ sizes.
Packaged in blind packs, the 3″ Park 1 vinyls will feature designs such as Disney Design Group’s Monty Maldovan’s take on Kermit or Walt Disney Imagineer Kyle Price’s original Yeti design.
Also, check out the Limited Release 9″ Park Series 1 vinyls like the Safari Mickey created by Randy Noble of Disney Design Group.
Each Vinylmation tray contains 24 packages randomly assorted with two complete sets of the Park Series One Collection, plus two mystery “chasers” per tray. Each package contains 1 of 12 different vinyl designs from one of our unique themed collections.
A few interesting developments from the last few days to note in this mixed-bag report:
-Matt Paul is reporting that the Mickey Mouse float in the Disney Dreams Come True Parade at the Magic Kingdom has been removed from the parade to be converted to the opening float for the latest version of the parade that will debut around January. The rumored name of the new parade will be the Celebrate Disney Dreams Come True Parade and it will most likely welcome in a slightly altered soundtrack for the parade using the “Celebrate You” theme song of the “What Will You Celebrate?” campaign. In the meantime, Mickey is appearing in a familiar spot on the castle finale float, where he once stood in his sorcerer’s apprentice costume during the Remember the Magic Parade. Matt will provide us with some pictures of this change once he returns home. Stay tuned for more information on this change as it becomes available.
-Disney has put up a number of new YouTube videos for the holiday season that you can view below:
-WDWNT Podcast Episode 72 is now available for download. Here’s a short synopsis:
Join me, Tom Corless, and a cast including Jason Diffendal, Justin Heyman, Matt Paul , Jose Castillo, Adam Roth, and Luke Manning for a show that Bridges the Gaps Between You and the Walt Disney World Resort. I hope you enjoy all of the Walt Disney World information and fun we have to offer on this “missing mountain” edition of the WDW News Today Podcast.
To kick off episode 72, we have all the recent happenings from the last week to discuss in our Walt Disney World Resort News and Rumor Report. This time around, we’ll be talking about some early changes to the “What Will You Celebrate?” entertainment line-up for 2009, a major Magic Kingdom E-Ticket attraction that may go missing next year, and just what attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios may not be operating next time you visit the park.
Following that, we’ll have the third edition of “What were they thinking?”, where we will try to examine why certain decisions are made by Walt Disney World management. This time around, we’ll be discussing the presence of famous celebrities in Disney attractions and if it is a good or bad thing for the parks.
Finally, Town Square Talk is back this week, highlighting the hottest topics around our WDWNT Network of websites. First up, Matt Paul is here to highlight some new Disney Park videos you can download from the WDWNTube (wdwntube.com). I’m also making some Town Square Talk this week, with news on some upcoming segments for the podcast that you can vote for as part of WDWNT Interactive. Jason Diffendal also drops in and informs us about the next WDWCelebrations event coming up in May 2009 that has a lot to do with the segment that follows this one.
Finally, to end this weeks program, we kick start our countdown of the 20 Biggest Moments in Disney’s Hollywood Studios History as voted by you with a look at what took the #20 spot. We’ll also be examining just how important this moment is in the 20 year history of the park. We hope to see this segment improve as it continues with a larger group of participants, we were a little short on staff this week because the holidays are quickly approaching.
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.
Since there doesn’t seem to be any news to report, I’d figured we take a moment to mark the historical importance of today. On November 18, 1928, Mickey Mouse made his grand debut in the now classic cartoon short “Steamboat Willie” at the premiere in New York City. Without this cartoon and the creation of Mickey Mouse, it is doubtful that the Walt Disney Company would be here today, and especially the Disney theme parks we all enjoy so much. As Walt Disney himself said, “It all started with a mouse”.
It just so happens that it all started with a mouse named Mickey 80 years ago today. Happy 80th Birthday Mickey!
I usually try to keep my personal feelings off this site as much as possible, but I thought this was a good day to bend the rules a little bit. Truth be told, I’m an avid follower of the PGA Tour and make a point to watch every tournament on television, especially the majors and one smaller event that takes place annually at the place this site is all about, Walt Disney World. Well, when my favorite golfer won a tournament at the Vacation Kingdom yesterday, I knew I had to share my joy with all of you (even though I understand many of you will be far less excited than I with the following news):
Davis Love III poses with Mickey Mouse and the champion’s trophy Nov. 9, 2008 at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., following his PGA TOUR victory in the Children’s Miracle Network Classic presented by Wal-Mart. Love shot a final round 8-under on Disney’s Magnolia Course, and finished the tournament with a 25-under 263. (Matt Stroshane, photographer)
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