News / Main Street U.S.A.

If there’s one Facebook page you really need to “Like” as anticipation grows for the 20th Anniversary and Disney Dreams! (besides our own of course), then it’s the Steve Davison Fan Page. Because this isn’t just any page dedicated to the Disneyland entertainment master and producer of Disneyland Paris’ new nighttime spectacular, no. It’s Steve himself who provides the updates, which in the past have included rare glimpses into the production of World of Color as well as Tokyo DisneySea‘s stunningly re-imagined version of the classic Fantasmic!. Over recent months and weeks, Steve has begun dropping tantalising morsels of information about this, his very first original project for Disneyland Paris, culminating in an attention-grabbing status update just over a week ago which simply began “DISNEY DREAMS! DISNEY DREAMS! DISNEY DREAMS!“.

This was Steve announcing his final departure to Disneyland Paris, where he’ll presumably be based for the whole month to prepare every element of the new park finale for its grand premiere. “Here I come. Off to program the show for Paris Disneyland. All the pieces look amazing thus far! Now it’s the task of painting them all together into one beautiful, exciting and moving spectacular!”

Since arriving in Marne-la-Vallée, Steve has shared three further updates; first revealing that the Disney Dreams! fountains rose out of the moat for the very first time exactly a week ago, on February 28th: “Just saw a bunch of water rising up from out of the moat! Now that’s a good thing! Fun stuff!” And on 1st March, that the unpredictable Marne-la-Vallée fog was causing problems for the team: “It is one “foggy” programming night here is Paris. Not getting a lot done. We can’t see a thing. I feel like Santa at the end of Rodolph! Except I don’t have a reindeer with a bright red nose to cut through the fog. But the 10K searchlights come close!”

The testing and programming is taking place after park hours and running right through the night, apparently as late at 6am. Steve himself followed up his first update from Paris with the confirmation: “And yes it’s really 3:30am here!” Even a programmer of Dreams deserves a night off, though, as Steve posted Saturday: “We have a night off tonight. It’s crazy working nights.” But that doesn’t mean the team were apart for too long, as he later revealed a trip out to the nearby town of Melun, south-east of Paris: “Oh no. We’re in Melun having Fondue with Team Dreams!”

Currently hovering around 987 likes, let’s see if his new quotient of Disneyland Paris fans from DLRP Today.com can boost numbers on the Steve Davison Fan Page above 1000, shall we?

Even more Main Street, U.S.A. addresses have now been decked out in gold for the 20th Anniversary. At Cable Car Bake Shop and The Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlour (above), the regular semi-circular fans of white and golden fabric have been supplemented with a different, more extravagant style of bunting with great swathes of fabric hung around the balcony and the rooftop of the buildings respectively. Like several other “businesses” along the street, Gibson Girl spent much of 2011 under scaffolding for a complete refurbishment and recolouring of its palette; switching its green-striped window shades to red, for example. The gold additions give a dressy flourish to its spotless refreshed façade.

Meanwhile Main Street Station continues to intrigue with its dramatic 20th Anniversary repaint, which looks to “emboss” the landmark of the Disneyland Park entrance in gold for the occasion. Previous colour tests had stuck precisely to one side of a single column at the front of the railroad station, but now we have the sight of ironwork underneath the platform — including those famous “EDLRR” (Euro Disneyland Railroad) initials — being completely repainted in gold.

This seems to confirm that it won’t just be stonework, nor the front-facing façade of the station, that will see a golden overlay. The solid metallic gold effect takes away some of the intricacy of the previous two-tone colour of the arches, but does manage to catch the glow of the lights along the concourse, making those infamous outdated initials even more of a feature.

With lights (presumably new LED effects) said to play a part in the wider Main Street, U.S.A. Celebrates! overlay, this golden glow could be a preview of what’s to come.

VIA @InsideDLParis (Twitter)

From Spanish to English to French, the multilingual advertising campaign for Disneyland Paris’ 20th Anniversary expands across Europe and all leads to this: the full-length 40-second TV spot, featuring all the scenes in one commercial. Like the New Generation Festival TV spots, new character animation has been specially produced just for these adverts. Notably, as seen above, Peter Pan appearing across the tower of Big Ben in London. That particular scene is currently running as a short 10-second teaser in the UK, with the 40-second trailer only arriving nearer the launch date itself. Meanwhile France will see this full-length advert running from this Monday, 5th March — but you can watch it in HD below.

What do you think — does the ad do a good job selling the events?

Full Disneyland Paris 20th Anniversary TV spot follows… Read More…

The tents have gone from Central Plaza! Ever since a camp of five tents sprung up on the plaza at the start of February, the expected panic of those with impending visits — who just have to get that photo — has ensued. If that’s you, you’ll be glad to know this isn’t some “Lead Day” anomaly, the tents have served their purpose and been taken down. Insert brilliant current affairs reference to the end of the Occupy London camp here. Structured as one giant tent in the middle of the plaza with four smaller marquees over each of the wings, this crucial weather protection has allowed workers to continue through freezing temperatures as they relay the floor across Central Plaza.

This followed the dismantling of the former stage which dominated the area, having become unpopular with both fans and, apparently, management — especially as removing it frees up more vital viewing space for Disney Dreams!. Despite the effort gone to to protect the construction site, the results don’t appear too dramatic at all. Looking at some photos taken underneath the construction walls today, it appears the pathways have been rebuilt with the same regular pavement concrete as the rest of Main Street, U.S.A. without any major change. Railings and lampposts appear the same, if freshly repainted, though there does appear to be one missing element: the central flower bed.

Of course, removing this frees up even more space, but it does mean this is a Disneyland Park without a Partners Statue nor anything else at its heart. May we suggest a statue of Steve Davison, pointing to the skies above the castle?

PHOTO @cgonier VIA @InsideDLParis

April is a busy month for Disneyland Paris, but it’s also outside of the main summer high season. For years that has meant, no matter how busy the parks, you’d see no fireworks and certainly stay no later than 10pm — 8 or 9pm on weekdays. The Extended Hours announced for the 20th Anniversary — primarily to make sure Disney Dreams! can be performed under darkness — promised to change that and revolutionise the annual calendar of the resort. Well, here we go.

Park opening hours for the first half of April 2012 have now been published (check them here), giving us our first look at exactly what “Extended Hours” mean. The first two weekends of April now see Disneyland Park open until 10.30pm, giving up to an hour and a half more time than the same period last year (check our archived hours here). On the weekend of the 14th and 15th, that extends further to the magical 11pm; the first 11pm closing time in April for almost two decades. Meanwhile weekdays see a solid 9.30pm closing time, again an increase of up to an hour and a half on last year.

It’s important to note that these Extended Hours are really just regular park opening hours… extended. Merely a way to promote the longer hours required to see darkness fall over Sleeping Beauty Castle — and all those Disney Dreams! effects come to life. The unconnected Extra Magic Hours, which are available in the morning, continue for Disney Hotel guests and Annual Passport Dream holders.

These new hours not only add a great deal more value to park tickets (and particularly resort hotel stays), they herald the moment where Disneyland Paris is ready to grow up, to start acting like a real Disney park. Previously weighted far too heavily towards the two summer months of July and August, the resort’s old calendar saw pretty much the entire rest of the year besides Christmas relegated to “off season”. If you wanted the “full Disney experience” of later hours, darkness falling over Main Street and nighttime entertainment, you had to wait until summer — and stump up the prices to match. Now, that full Disney experience will be available every day and every night of the year.

• Flashback: See the very first Euro Disneyland opening times from 1992 here!

The buzz for Disney Dreams! has finally hit the Disneyland Paris press website, with both a complete press release for the new nighttime show and several publicity photos from recent after-hours tests. Showing simply a multi-coloured test projection on Sleeping Beauty Castle and a burst of pyrotechnics radiating outwards from behind the château, they’re hardly the most revealing sneak peeks, but at least confirm the surprisingly important presence of fireworks in the show. Disneyland Paris has long had problems with the noise and cost of fireworks, limiting them to just two summer months and special events. Since we all really thought the fountains, projections and other effects would be there to make up for a move away from pyrotechnics, avoiding those perceived problems, it’s exciting to see that they will truly be an important element of the new, nightly and year-round spectacular.

A third image was also released alongside these two, and has been published elsewhere online. However, a quick look at the flowery projections on the castle — and more tellingly the photo’s EXIF data — reveals it was taken at 23:05 on 13th July 2011, in other words during The Enchanted Fireworks, so probably doesn’t offer a glimpse at Disney Dreams! at all.

What does come packed with information about this 20th Anniversary spectacular, though, is a new press release dedicated to the show. Detailing the music, the story and all the “elements” it’s a revealing read — but only in French. Lucky then we’ve translated it all into English!

Complete translated press release follows… Read More…

“Story is king” goes the mantra. And so, satisfied that the new control booth for Disney Dreams! fits stunningly well within its Central Plaza parkland environment in this update from last week, our next thought turned to how, story-wise, its prominent position within the gardens could be explained away. “With its wooden trellis arch and location right in the middle of Main Street’s Central Plaza park, perhaps we could imagine it’s the gardener’s lodge — rather than a high-tech show control booth soon to be sending fountains, fireworks and lasers soaring,” we mused. Well — let us imagine no longer, that’s exactly what the Imagineers had in mind!

This week, new props have suddenly arrived all around the building: a wooden wheelbarrow out the front, a watering can under the porch, tools and shovels hung up at the side. Several wooden planting boxes and barrels now also sit beside the booth, ready to be filled with flowers or shrubs. Just to fully confirm the backstory, a plaque next to the entrance reads plainly “Parks Landscaping Department”. Given the amount of work needed to be done around the plaza to prepare for the 20th Anniversary spectacular, the “landscaping” part, at least, isn’t far wrong.

As @CreativeAlan suggests, tweeting a reply to these photos by @InsideDLParis, perhaps a name such as “Flower Street Gardeners” would have been more imaginative and less obvious in terms of story than the slightly overstated “Parks Landscaping Department”. But the fact that there’s a story at all, for a simple show control building, can only be congratulated.

VIA @InsideDLParis (Twitter)

“Will the person who lost a roll of 20 dollar bills in a green rubber band please come to the ticket office. Good news: we found your green rubber band,” goes the announcement. And now we know, after 20 years, what the porters at Main Street Station have been saving all those dollar bills for. For the 20th Anniversary, the entire front façade of the station, the beautiful stone edifice which greets every guest as they first step inside Disneyland Park, will turn… gold!

Matching well the fresh gold bunting going up elsewhere, the first tests for this bold makeover, captured by @InsideDLParis, are already underway. One pillar on the far right of the station was first painted in an alarming shade of yellow undercoat before revealing, just 24 hours later, its stately golden finish.

After numerous season and festival overlays, some more successful than others (most not very successful at all), you might think you’d seen it all on Main Street Station. But this would be by far the most dramatic overlay so far: completely changing the colour of the station for at least a whole year.

Surprisingly, it could also be one of the most appealing to date. Given its lavish architecture, “embossing” just this front-facing wall of the station in gold feels like a suitably extravagant way for it to celebrate. Where so many makeovers past have sought to cover up the station’s stunning ironwork, windows and organ, a gold shimmer could bring out its details like never before.

But what do you think — a bold feat of flamboyance, or a gold leaf too far?

VIA @InsideDLParis (Twitter)