News / Press Events

After Disney Characters’ Express, Minnie’s Party Train and Disney All Stars Express, this is our fourth consecutive video of the character train rounding the corner of Main Street, U.S.A. beside Town Square. A popular annual tradition, or a daily nuisance? You be the judge of that. But, as Katy Harris confirmed in the 20th Anniversary roundtable discussion, it’s incredibly popular with regular guests, who “just love” being able to meet the characters in this way, which they normally only see fleetingly passing onboard parade floats. And this year, as you can see in our video above, the rumours were true: even Mickey is willing to get mobbed on Central Plaza, all in the name of the 20th Anniversary.

• Watch a video of the train’s official premiere arrival here.

When Disneyland Park re-opened its gates at 9.40pm on 31st March, a magical glow had already fallen upon the land. Stepping into Main Street, U.S.A., the twinkling new Main Street Station greeted invited guests — as did some extra-special invitees: the giant, illuminated World of Color pre-show puppets, brought over especially for the occasion! This video takes you to “A Night in Disneyland” for the 20th Anniversary Dedication Ceremony as if you were there.

Everything is included: from walking into Town Square, to the ceremony itself with Philippe Gas, footballer Zinedine Zidane and Mickey Mouse (at 10:00), to the epic, emotional walk up Main Street, U.S.A. prior to the Disney Dreams! World Premiere (at 16:00), when Cast Members from every land and every attraction lined the street to wave and cheer guests along with cries of “Joyeux Anniversaire!” as golden confetti in the shape of the number ’20’ rained from above. Truly an exceptional and unforgettable ending and beginning to these chapters in Disneyland Paris history.

It might be one of the less-anticipated 20th Anniversary events but, with a passenger list now comprising all the “VIP” characters, Disney’s 20th Anniversary Celebration Train will no doubt be just as big a hit with guests as ever. Surprisingly, the characters on-board, who ride up to Central Plaza before stepping down to be mobbed (or in official terms, for “meet ‘n’ greets”) now even include the hallowed Mickey Mouse himself!

However, for this special “premiere” performance at 5.45pm on 31st March, the multi-coloured train didn’t stop as it rounded Central Plaza and Mickey Mouse wasn’t on-board: he was stealing the show in his new sorcerer costume atop the temporary press platform, dancing to new theme song “Do You Believe” and guiding the train around the plaza with a wave of his hands.

This has been one epic upload, but here we go: the full, unedited 48-minute presentation and panel discussion with Creative Director Kat de Blois, Show Director Katy Harris and VP Parades & Spectaculars Steve Davison himself. Seated in Plaza Gardens Restaurant at 12.30pm on Saturday, we were just inches away from the creators of the 20th Anniversary entertainments as they first explained and presented their creations before moving on to an open and informal Q&A discussion with the intimate audience of around 20 invited Disneyland Paris blog and fansite authors.

Kat de Blois began by presenting Disney Magic on Parade! in French (the only small part missing from the video), followed by Katy Harris introducing Disney’s 20th Anniversary Celebration Train in English, then Steve Davison talking about Disney Dreams! — which made up the bulk of the 40 minutes of questions which followed, revealing numerous insights into the new spectacular.

While I had the camera rolling the entire time, Kristof from Photos Magiques put a couple of questions direct to the panel. Including, at 42 minutes in, the million dollar question that is: “When did you decide to get rid of Central Plaza stage, and was it a tough decision?” The reaction, and the justification, is fascinating viewing, as is the entire presentation. We’ll revisit it more soon and go through all of the details revealed about the creation of Disney Dreams! in particular. But for now, we thank Kat, Steve and Katy for taking time out on such a busy day to meet a small number of their fans, and for allowing us to film and document the occasion so that everyone at home can be there, too.

Note: The sound quality has been improved as much as possible in editing, but due to the intimate setting it obviously won’t be perfect. Nevertheless, this is a unique all too rare chance to meet the people behind the “dreams”. And to think, as Steve reveals, it all began by spotting a Peter Pan motif in the design of Disneyland Hotel… Proving that Dreams can come from anywhere, but you never quite know where they’ll take you.

Join Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and the Disneyland Paris Ambassadors for a special one-off Park Opening Ceremony at 10am on 31st March 2012 to launch the 20th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris!

Features a live performance of the new Disney Magic on Parade! theme song “Magic Everywhere!” by Fabienne Bergmans, winner of The Voice Kids Netherlands, before actress, director and producer Salma Hayek cuts the ribbon to launch the celebration — but not before Chip and Dale arrive with the all-important scissors!

• Enjoy a complete gallery of original photos from the event at Photos Magiques!

What are you doing at 10.30pm this Saturday, 31st March? Cancel it. Instead, prepare a drink, warm some popcorn and settle down to watch the world premiere of Disney Dreams! — broadcast “live” to your computer screen on the Disneyland Paris YouTube channel.

We’ve already seen promotions for a live streaming event in collaboration with French broadcaster TF1, but now Disneyland Paris are apparently opening this up to the world via their official YouTube channel. Those eager to see the grand premiere of the new nighttime spectacular, created by Steve Davison, will be able to log onto the channel this Saturday evening where a special, re-themed page will guide you to the live stream. There, you’ll see the whole event unfold in realtime, joining the invited press in the park to be the very first members of the public to see the show.

Don’t forget, though — that’s 10.30pm Central European Summer Time. In the UK (BST), you’ll need to be online for 9.30pm, whereas Disney fans over in Steve Davison’s home state of California, for example, will see Disney Dreams! as a matinée performance at 1.30pm. And as with all Disneyland events, it may be sensible to arrive a little earlier…

This is a daring proposition by Disneyland Paris: having spent millions (at a guess) on a huge new nighttime show, they’re now going to allow people to watch the whole thing, online without even leaving their homes. The audience may only be made up of more committed, regular visitors, but it must show some confidence in the show itself — not just that it’s a worthy spectacular, but that viewers will be so taken by it they’ll still consider it worthwhile to book a trip and see it for themselves.

Final programming of the show was completed just last night, ahead of the private Cast Member premiere tomorrow. Posting on his Facebook fan page, Steve Davison wrote:

“Tonight we completed the final programming of DISNEY DREAMS! It was a lot of work and I can never thank the production team enough for all their efforts. This was a very diffucult show to create/produce, but everyone stuck with it and gave it their all! Thanks Team Dreams! Whew! We’re all very exicted to premeire the show.

“There’s lots of activity in the park tonight as they prepare for the 20th! For me, I think I’m going to call it an early night.”

On Saturday, the world awaits. Then, Disney Dreams! officially opens for all park guests with two performances at 9.30pm and 10.30pm on Sunday 1st April.

Shhh… Whisper it, but the 1st April 2012 showing of new nighttime spectacular Disney Dreams! won’t actually be its first performance. The odd Sunday launch date might have given it away, or the fact that Disneyland Paris has a history of premiering its new events exclusively for the press a day beforehand, but now it’s confirmed: the so-called world premiere of Disney Dreams! will take place Saturday, 31st March 2012. This will be part of a wider, private 20th Anniversary press event to take place over the 31st March/1st April weekend. But even the press won’t be the absolute first to see the completed show; no, that honour naturally goes to the resort’s thousands of Cast Members, who will get their very own private performance on 29th March.

But here’s an interesting development: thanks to a tie-up with French television network TF1, the 31st March premiere performance will also be broadcast live online, via their MyTF1.fr website. The website is currently running a contest for four French viewers to win passes to the press event and assist in the broadcast, which will be hosted by station personality Sandrine Quétier. On the night of 31st March, the main TF1 channel will broadcast three special promotional spots with Sandrine to introduce the winners of the contest and count down to the premiere of Disney Dreams!, which will apparently then be broadcast live online at the MyTF1 website from 10.30pm.

It has been pointed out that this broadcast, although certainly a giant spoiler for the show, may well be edited or missing segments due to rights issues. It’s also not known whether this particular live stream would be available to view outside of France. Toy Story Playland had a similar live online broadcast on its opening day, hosted on the official Disneyland Paris website, featuring a tour of the attractions and interviews with Imagineers and guests.

And if you can’t make it to any of these premieres? You’re invited to join us for our full HD video of the show, to premiere just a few days later on DLRP Magic! Video, our YouTube channel and of course embedded right here on DLRP Today!

Press release (in French) follows… Read More…

First sand, now ice: The weather in north west Europe might still be unseasonally mild outside, at least compared to this time last year when we were being hit by heavy snow, but that hasn’t hampered the efforts of the “Ice Wonderland” Snow and Ice Sculpture Festival in Bruges, Belgium one bit. For the first time, Disneyland Paris has lent itself as the theme of the event, with the artists creating giant sculptures of its landmarks and characters. In a controlled environment of -6 °C, ice sculptors were allowed to work only limited hours due to the cold — but look at the results!

Following this Summer’s popular Sand Sculpture Festival on the coast at Blankenberge, the focus here is more on Disney characters than the parks’ lands and attractions. There’s the famous Partners Statue created entirely out of ice and a whole parade of stars from WALL-E to Toy Story, The Jungle Book to Beauty and the Beast and beyond. The event is being held in the Stationsplein at Bruges (Brugge) until 15th January 2012. You can find out more at ijssculptuur.be and, for a whole photo tour of the sculptures, be sure to check out Brakesection.be’s report from the event!

VIA Brakesection.be