Blue Sky Buzz (Tokyo): The Sun Also Rises In The East...

Let me tell you a story...

A Toy Story.

Yes, the rumors you've all heard are true. At least somewhat true. Let me unpack that for you...

The Oriental Land Company has decided that the next attraction that Tokyo DisneySEA will be getting is going to be a variation of DCA's Toy Story Midway Mania. Boy was that a mouthful! And yes, it will be going into the American Waterfront port of the park, but it appears to not be going where some people have thought. Most thought that it would be wedged somewhere in the Victorian themed New York area of this section, when it will most likely be placed in the nostalgic and decidedly more rural Cape Cod section. Again, this is still in the early stages, so things could change. For those of you that have seen the area, the American Waterfront section was really without any attraction(read: ride) until the expansion that brought the Tower of Terror to the park. That still left the Cape Cod area a beautiful, but attractionless area of the park. No more. Or at least soon it will be no more. Planning is underway to have this be the next ride that is announced. WDI is/has been designing the area in which this attraction will go and should everything go according to plan, you should expect an announcement about it later this year.

I know many of you are fretting over the loss of the "Soarin' Over the Med" type of attraction that was being planned for the Mediterranean Harbor section. Unfortunately the cost of that attraction as well as a couple other factors killed that idea for the time being. Like many other projects though, it's not as if it will never happen. There is a place planned and carved out for it in that section and nothing is going in there as of now, the Imagineers still plan on installing this project in the park once OLC Suits give them the go ahead sometime in the near future. From what I hear, and it's not written in stone, but I'd say a good time line would be around the 30th anniversary of the Resort. But in the meantime there's plenty to keep them busy.

Sadly, the UEC that was supposed to be built in another part of country didn't meet the OLC's feasibility reports and with the slowdown in the economy it practically killed WDI's attempt at using Japan as a launching pad for an entirely new experimentation in themed parks. It wasn't on the grand scale that you would have expected from something like Tokyo DisneySEA, but it was on that level as far as quality goes. It appears Jay Rasulo and his colleagues at TeamDisney Burbank will have to look elsewhere for this new endeavor. And it won't be in Shanghai because that will be a Disney Park, Old School. Well, with a dash of really cool tech, but that'll be announced soon enough. Maybe Singapore then? We'll see...

There are some plans that the Resort is working on for the Tenth Anniversary of the park, but those are still very fluid. The final working model for the celebration should be done by summer and we should have some surprising announcements by fall. Hopefully the economy doesn't throw any monkey wrenches into the situation. I'll have more to follow on the upcoming events at Disney's only franchised parks in a few weeks, give or take a few weeks...

TTFN.