Parisian Dream...

It's hard to believe it's been two decades since Euro Disneyland opened...

Disneyland Paris, which is what the park became is celebrating it's Twentieth year celebration throughout the year and has many things planned, but one of the most surprising is the water show that takes place in front of Le Chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant at night time.

It's called Disney Dreams and it's very much like if you were to see an elaborate World of Color show on the castle.  It's a lovely show, combined with those interactive mouse ears it makes for a magical display.  If you'd like to learn more about it check out this NewsParcs article on the creation of the show.  It's filled with a lot of information about the preparation and detail that go into the development of a show like this.  This is part of the Mouse's celebrating it's growing presence in Europe.  Don't worry, they'll be some more special magic over the next few years.

There are a lot of interesting things happening in the Parisian parks over the next decade...

Road To Paris...

A better park...




Wee, wee...
While I've always thought that Disneyland Paris is the most beautiful Magic Kingdom style park, its younger sister is the black lamb of Disney Parks...

Over at the Disney and More Blog, which you should check out quite often if don't btw, Alain has another post in his Toy Story Playland series. There are tons of great pics and videos to give you a sense as to what this new land looks and feels like at Walt Disney Studios Paris. If you've ever been to DCA, the new land in France is kind of like what A Bug's Land is here. It is nicely themed, but is lacking in terms of feeling "Disney." That should change with the addition of Midway Mania in the distant future. The time line for that attraction addition is ever changing and will depend on attendance at the park before it gets the green light.

That said, Alain's newest post gives you a sneak peak at something Disney hasn't announced yet: The Ratatouille attraction. Oh, it's not built yet, but the path leading from the Toy Story Playland goes directly toward where it will be in a couple years. Go over and take a look at some of the photos and dream of Remy.

Now, if only Iger would approve a makeover of the front entrance of this park like the one California Adventure is getting. The entrance to a Disney theme park should be a beautiful doorway, not an ugly cave.

Which is what the front of Walt Disney Studios is...

Euro Disney Princess Turns Seventeen...

Seventeen years ago today Euro Disneyland opened up just outside Paris...

The park was simply beautiful. It is still to this day the most gorgeous "Magic Kingdom" style park(the original is still my favorite though).

Like my post about Tokyo DisneySEA, "Born Full Grown," the park was built up from the beginning and had a lavish amount of attractions so it should have been a success, right? Well, truthfully it was, but the resort was not. Eisner let them create a grand park, an immaculate resort, but he misstepped in putting in more hotels than were necessary. Instead of just two or three, there were six hotels and far too many rooms. Despite the resort getting great numbers of people attending the park, the hotels suffered and pulled the project deep into the red. Michael Eisner learned from his mistake to not build more hotels than were needed. Sadly, he also learned to build mini-parks and we would never again under his regime see another Disney park like Euro Disney. Instead of cutting back on the accommodations till demand meets up with the need, he focused on smaller projects waiting for a demand and slower build up. To swing from one extreme to the others was just as wrong as his initial blunder. Her ugly sister, Walt Disney Studios is looking prettier and prettier each day and isn't it nice to know that she's going in for more plastic surgery to have those three new attractions added?

But that's all in the past. Today, we celebrate Disneyland Paris on her seventeenth birthday!

If you'd like some stunningly beautiful pictures of Disneyland Paris' celebration then go over to Disney and More and check out Alain's post. And wish that lovely park a special birthday as she blows out those candles...

Ground "Breaking"...

On this date twenty years ago, the groundbreaking for Euro Disneyland begins...

Thus is laid the seeds of the McPark. If only Eisner had planned less hotel rooms the financial fiasco that resulted wouldn't have happened and plans would have moved forward for much grander projects in America. Maybe even Euro Disneyland's Second Gate "Disney-MGM Studios Europe" would have been built instead of the only park Disney has built that was truly NOT a Disney park(yes, even more so than DCA).

Then again, looking on the positive side...

Just think of all the construction workers who'll be employed over the next decade fixing Eisner's mistakes? They'd be out of a job right now, thus contributing to the downturn in the economy.

Blue Sky Alert-Europe (Paris): Sleeping Beauty Awakens...

Bonjour.

Lots of exciting things are happening to Europe's Disneyland...

The fifteenth anniversary of the Resort is going great for Disney and its millions of visitors. In fact, the Disneyland Paris Resort finally seems to be moving out of the shadow of financial troubles... Even in bad times the Resort has always been European's favorite vacation destination and the numbers have always showed it. Despite Michael Eisner's desire to build more hotels than he can fill the resort has always had great turnout for the parks... but most would usually go home at the end of the day since DLP was so close to Paris or other(read: cheaper) hotels. While Disneyland in Anaheim seems to have the highest occupancy rates, the hotels in France are starting to fill enough beds to make the accountants a little less worried. Possibly happy, even.

Before we begin, remember that we're in the early stages of these proposals and what is being proposed will not nesarrily be what the resort winds up with. All these plans have to be assembled into cohesive packages that will get presented to Iger and the Board either late this year or sometime in the first half of 2008. With that out of the way...

The blue sky plans that WDI is putting together involve proposals for several additional venues to the Disney Village near the end of the decade. Walt Disney Creative Entertainment is hard at work on numerous proposals involving the resort and parks that should be ready for Iger to mull over early next year. There seems to be an emphasis on making the Disney Village and the surrounding area as much of an entertainment magnet at the actual parks themselves.

While no new hotels are planned there are several proposals, all in early stages of course, for Disneyland Paris to get its own DVC units. There are even proposals planned for DVC units in other parts of Europe, but that's a different story for another day(stay tuned for posts on that!). Don't expect to see any of these until the end of this decade at the earliest... although one Bothan expects the openings to correspond to the 20th anniversary if plans go well and the European economy doesn't tank.

With things looking brighter for EuroDisney, the company that runs the resort, you would think plans would go forward concerning a third gate, right? Wrong. There have been various proposals that the Mouse has entertained putting in it's parks, but Paris isn't one of them. This doesn't mean that DLPR will never get a third gate... it just means that the Resort will have to mature over the next decade before we can expect any proposals to make it from the Glendale Kingdom to a presentation room for Iger to see. Should the Resort keep growing and the dept be paid down you can expect blue sky plans to heat up in the early part of the next decade. So realistically you can expect any new gate to not show up any earlier than DLPR's 25th. More realistically it would be between that and the 30th.

Now, about those parks...




First, as always... let me state my bias. I love the look of Disneyland Paris. Disneyland Paris is lovely... truly lovely. The detail is incredible and all the little extras that the Imagineers are a wonderful find for any Disney Geek that knows where to find them. It also is home to my favorite Disney castle. Now that we have that statement out of the way... All the "plussed" areas have really helped put the shine back on areas like Main Street that were starting to look a little worn. As we said before, the proposals for DLP are not as grand as the ones Uncle John, Iger and the others have planned for DCA, but truthfully they're not really needed as much. The theming of DLP is light years ahead of DCA. The plans for the Park are to add layers and elaborate on what is already there. The problem with DCA has always been the opposite.

There is a proposal for an "E" Ticket that involves a classic Disney character that could make it into the Park by the end of the decade. Adventureland and Tomorrowland's proposals will involve major attractions that will likely turn into a "D" Ticket. The plans right now involve several characters from Pixar's stable. This ride is still in the early stages and is not ready for presentation so the plans will not likely start to gel until next year sometime.

There are plans for adding "C" Tickets sprinkled throughout the area. By this time next year these will have narrowed to a possible two "C" Tickets from the lists so far. At least one will make to the final stages by the end of the decade, possibly both if the guest keep passing through the turnstiles. Any plans wouldn't be announced until after the 15th anniversary is over. So we can look forward to an construction of these projects to happen sometime in late 2008/early 2009.

The Pirate craze could still make the final cut as there are plans to propose a Pirate theming to be extended through Adventureland if the plans for a fourth Pirate film come to fruition. That film would not likely happen before 2010 or more likely 2011(there comes that year again).



Should the spike in attendance continue, we can look forward to a wonderful period of growth in the Gallic Kingdom of Disney. These plans would wind down after several projects were done sometime around 2012-13... ironically, just in time for it's 20th anniversary. Coincidence? One never knows... but if we don't have some form of depression happen in Western Europe the planned phases that could happen over the next five years could make DLP even lovelier.

Now, speaking of lovely... let's talk about the Park that's not.





Now, speaking of lovely... let's talk about the Park that's not.

The park has seen a sizable increase in attendance for the 15th and this is a very, very good thing. Let's just say the Suits are happy and the Imagineers are eager to show what they can do to make this quarter-day park, a full day park. They're not in the approval phase yet, but several blue sky projects are underway. Come 2012/13 the front of the resort will not be as bland as what we see now... a "Plussed", more period styling could be overlaid to the existing entrance giving it a borrowed sense of the Hollywood that never was. The expansion of the Park will also give the area a center that it definitely doesn't have right now.

A version of the Great Movie Ride could be playing in the new expansion area by then, but it's not certain if the iconic front entrance will look like Grumman's Chinese Theater or another stylized form of Tinsel Town magic. There are plans for at least two new "E" Tickets to be put in WDSP by the tenth anniversary if all goes well... you can bet that one of the proposals for an "E" Ticket ride involves a certain Parisian Rat as well. He's a big hit in the Gallic nation right now and the Mouse is keen on exploiting the Rat. The other attraction has not been decided on but the ride will definitely be a Disney property as opposed to another of the Lamp's creations. Expect the rides to be lavished in much more layered theming than the attractions that premiered when the Park opened. Sprinkled around these areas would be a collection of "C" and "D" Tickets... at least one "D" and likely two "C" tickets could make the cut. There is plent of room for expansion at WDSP and not all of it will be done by 2012/13, but by then guests will be walking through the gates of a park they should have gotten a decade earlier.



Also, WDCE is working on two shows that will most likely show up by the end of the decade, giving the Studio a great deal of live entertainment for guest to enjoy. Giving guest a reason to stay in the Park and spend more of those hard earned Euros is a top goal of Iger and his European team. They realize that WDSP, like HKDL was built way too small and hope to not make the same mistakes of the last regime. Another example of the refreshing difference a couple years and a new management team can make when examining the Mouse.

That's it for this update. Stay tuned for future Blue Sky Alerts later in the month. The Bothans are excited about what is happening but nervous because of the NDA's everyone is forced to sign. Imagineers are in a very upbeat mood right now... and they want Disney Geeks to know about it. They just don't want to get fired in the process... stay patient, calm and expect better... not the worst, my friends. This is a new era we're in.

Till next time...

A "Solsbury Hill" Moment...

This is a reflective post. You see, a couple days ago was the anniversary of Michael Eisner being voted in as Chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company. I deliberately chose not to report it. I've had a great deal of post that reflected negatively on him and the Suits he brought with him so I felt like it would have been piling on unnecessarily if I had mentioned it.

Now as much as I criticize Mr. Eisner, I have mentioned the good he has done, but probably it bares repeating so that people don't get the idea that I'm trying to bash him for the sake of it. I want to get across the fact that I believe the success that the Mouse has had over the past two decades wouldn't be possible without Michael Eisner and Frank Wells...

My gripe has always been that Eisner overstayed his welcome and basically lost his balance in 1994 when Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash. During his first decade, I feel he got eighty to ninety percent of what needed to be done right. The problem was he spent the next decade doing the exact opposite and doing eighty to ninety percent wrong. If he would have retired by, oh say... 2000 he would have gone down in history with a much kinder record. I believe he'll still be remembered rather well... just not as high on the ladder as he could have been.

Sometimes people have to know their limitations. Sometimes people have to know when it's time to leave the party. Sometimes it's necessary to call the game and head home. That takes humility and perspective... these are two things missing from Eisner once Frank Wells exits the stage in this play.

Now, what does this have to do with the title of this post? Solsbury Hill? Well, it refers to a song. My favorite song by my favorite solo artist. Peter Gabriel.

The song has a very colorful and interesting history. You see, he wrote it after going insane... alright, that's the politically incorrect way of saying it. The PC term would be that he had a mental breakdown. He lost his wife because of an affair he had with someone... presumably, Kate Bush. He realized that he'd made a mistake and the world around him was crumbling because of his own mistakes, his own stupidity and his mind just snapped. He was put in an insane asylum... oops, sorry. A mental institution, I mean. And he spent some time reconstructing his mind, going over the details of his life and trying to piece it back together until one day it was over. Someone famous came to take him home. Now the song was written about his experience being there... supposedly, he used to look out the window and see Solsbury Hill and it became a symbol for him. It became his freedom. Not so much from the place he was at physically, but where he was emotionally. For when he could finally get out and go to it... well that meant that everything was back to normal. Everything was fine.

Now, I'm sure you're saying... "nice story, but again, how does this have anything to do with Disney? Well, as I said at the beginning of this post... this is a reflective post. I'm just in that sort of mood so bare with me a bit.

See, I tend to use a lot of analogies(and if you don't know that you've not been reading the blog very long)... what this has to do with the Mouse is in how it mirrors the time of Eisner's reign. See Eisner was riding high at the company, its stock was high and the success was making him feel like he could do no wrong. Like he could do what he wanted and nothing bad would come of it. Like Peter Gabriel when he cheated... he wasn't thinking clearly. Anyway, the disaster for Gabriel was the infidelity and destruction of his marriage. The disaster for Disney and Eisner was EuroDisney.

Eisner's first mistake was in locating the park in Paris instead of where it should have gone, which was Barcelona. This was the location that the park was originally going to go. The area was good and the weather was much closer to the American parks so that the company wouldn't have had to deal with the harsh winters that made them design certain things for the Paris theme park. Well, France dangled all these goodies... all these financial incentives in front of Disney and Eisner gave into temptation and took it. Just like Gabriel... he then started building far more hotels than the resort could fill effectively. Eisner indulged in his excesses the way Gabriel continued his affair not thinking of the repercussions and not believing he would get caught.

When it all started coming together... when the park was a hit, but the hotels weren't being fill, the realization of overspending took place. And everything... EVERYTHING Eisner had planned to come after it would suffer from the bitter sting of EuroDisney. Port Disney with it's DisneySea park... gone. WestCOT with it's immersive worlds... canceled. The "Disney Decade" that Eisner announce earlier... dramatically cutback. Several other projects fell by the wayside. Everything afterwards was overly cautious... dealing from the sting of his excesses... Eisner now did the exact opposite and the results of that fruit are DCA, WDSP and HKDL...

This was Eisner's mental breakdown. And the company's as well... and of course I'm being metaphoric in using these things. You see, for Disney and it's fans... well, to see the return to glory we've been wanting? That would be us looking out on Solsbury Hill, wanting to be free again. The symbolic nature of the Mouse being alright again comes with Eisner realizing it was time to go and moving on. Essentially the process of knowing what has to be done. The rebuilding that has to happen so that we can go back to a better time when everything was well. That's where we were last year and today. We're in a state where we know what is right, we know what went wrong and as Iger himself has said about knowing what went wrong so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. Now some of you will take this analogy as a stretch... that's understandable. But I like it... it's good for me and that's all that really counts right now. I hope you got an understanding of what I was trying to convey though...

It's good to finally have the Mouse be in a position where it knows what was done right, what was done wrong and what needs to be done over the next decade or so to bring about some form of sanity. For the Mouse, the Shareholders and the Fans.

Now does that sound crazy?