News / Shows

Remember the “Festival of Flowers” (Festival des Fleurs) of 1997 and 1998? Park icons covered in colourful spring flowers, topiaries of Disney characters all around, beautiful displays decorating the flower beds? It was a beautiful way to see in season of “printemps”.

Well, those will remain memories… but it’s this classic event that has apparently served as inspiration for a new season rumoured to begin at Disneyland Paris this April: the Spring Festival, or “Swing Into Spring” if you want the latest reported title.

Disneyland Paris in its usual self-aggrandising style has announced nothing, but information and speculation has been trickling out for almost two months now from various sources.

The speculated season looks set to revolve around a central street event, which will reuse three of the cars from Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars. The Monsters Inc and Snow White vehicles were removed from the Walt Disney Studios Park parade on Wednesday, 19th February, and are expected to be redecorated for the new cavalcade “happening”.

Joining them for the Disneyland Park event will be the Mary Poppins car, apparently leaving the Studios without a parade for the duration of the season — characters will simply perform a meet ‘n’ greet in the second park, instead. Update: @InsideDLParis informs that despite missing these three cars, Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars is planned to continue as a parade during the season.

Other rumours suggest the long-running Casey Jr train (Disney Characters Express, Minnie’s Party Train, Disney All Stars Express, Disney Dance Express, Disney’s 20th Anniversary Celebration Train) returning in some form with a similar colourful, floral, spring overlay.

Only the Disneyland Paris Casting website has confirmed plans for special spring events, with a casting notice (below) advertising for an impressive 102 dancers. Even taking into account days off, reducing the numbers in each actual performance, that’s a healthy figure.

Meanwhile, the fresh festival could also introduce some new floral decorations and street animations or meet ‘n’ greet opportunities. Concept art suggesting these was leaked by a blogger in early January and swiftly removed at the request of Disneyland Paris, stating the internal documents were not meant for public release.

More recently, a Mary Poppins “Jolly Holiday” theme has been mooted, which would be a good choice given the film’s fiftieth anniversary and renewed popularity thanks to Saving Mr Banks. This could be confirmed by the appearance of chalk paintings being tested on the pavement outside City Hall on Wednesday, photographed by @DisneylandPfans.

Created by an artist using just chalk, water and masking tape, it’s not known how these colourful paintings, like those mastered by Bert in the 1964 film, could be put to use as part of a season (or avoid the footsteps of idle visitors).

Dates: the “Spring Festival” is rumoured to run from 5th April to 22nd June, possibly with a “soft opening” day on 4th April, nicely filling the void in the resort’s calendar left by the “summer” opening of Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy. Again, no part of this speculated festival has been officially announced or confirmed by Disneyland Paris.

Gradually turning “Spring” into its own annual season makes perfect sense, and though this year looks like being more a trial of the concept (hence the lack of a big announcement too far in advance?), with continued investment it could conceivably become a third pillar season as important as Halloween and Christmas, driving repeat visitors without the need for those increasingly desperate, largely irrelevant year-long “festivals”.

Bonus: “Festival of Flowers” 1997 programme Read More…

Right about now, over 1700 invited guests will be wrapped up warm on Central Plaza eagerly awaiting the premiere of ‘Disney Dreams of Christmas!‘ (Disney Dreams! fête Noël in French), the brand new seasonal edition of Disneyland Paris’ award-winning, world renowned nighttime spectacular. If, however, you’re sadly not one of them — you can still experience the entire show right now form the comfort of your home with the first complete video of the show to hit YouTube.

Featuring segments based on Disney’s upcoming Frozen, along with moments of Toy Story, Bambi, 101 Dalmations and even classic Mickey Mouse shorts, the show utilises most of the technology from the original Disney Dreams! along with some new tricks, such as colour-changing lights in the trees of Central Plaza and garlands of Main Street. California has also developed a full seasonal version of its own World of Color show in tandem with this project, titled World of Color: Winter Dreams.

It performs exclusively from now, with its public premiere tomorrow, until the end of Disney’s Enchanted Christmas season on 6th January 2014. This early video was likely filmed during last night’s exclusive Cast Member preview. So draw those curtains, put an extra log on the fire and enjoy 20 minutes of all-new, incredibly festive Disneyland Paris magic…

• VIDEO: Watch the regular Disney Dreams! show, updated for 2013, here

VIDEO BY Fabien Marliot VIA @CafeFantasia

EXCLUSIVE — Marianne Sharpe and David Sultan of the Disneyland Paris merchandising team preview the new Disney Light’Ears at an informal panel discussion just for fansites. Learn about the design, development and production of the ears, how they work and what we can expect when they launch this July at Disneyland Paris.

• Watch, like and share on YouTube here!

It’s here! Our complete, original 1080p HD video of the new Disney Dreams!, now updated for 2013 with new The Lion King and Brave scenes. This video also features our exclusive preview of Disney Light’Ears, set to launch at Disneyland Paris this July for €20. We filmed the video from directly in the middle of Central Plaza, and for the first time used a tripod to steady the camera — enjoy!

More news updates from the 20th Anniversary Extended launch to follow — in the meantime, please scroll back through our many live photo updates from the events on Twitter to get a great recap of all the action!

• Watch, like and share on YouTube here!

This Sunday, Disneyland Paris celebrates St Patrick’s Day for one day only with music, dance, fireworks and special character appearances. The full programme of events was released today, confirming the annual Irish celebrations will again be hosted largely in the Cottonwood Creek Ranch area of Frontierland, a tradition begun last year and continued with the St David’s Welsh Festival just last weekend.

On 17th March 2013, guests can expect special appearances from Disney characters in costumes inspired by the Emerald Isle, along with free face painting, a pipe band, Irish musicians and dance shows from the Sarah Clark Academy with special guests Chip ‘n’ Dale. A special fireworks display ends the day as a precursor to Disney Dreams! and the fun continues into the night at Disney Village.

All the times and details are in the programme attached below… Read More…

Just can’t wait to see how one of the new scenes coming to Disney Dreams! will look? Here’s your first sneak preview, courtesy of a new teaser trailer on the official Disneyland Paris website. For a few brief seconds, visible in the screen capture above, we see the face of Simba from “The Lion King” roaring across Sleeping Beauty Castle, surrounded by colourful projections and fountains.

With Simba’s red-leafed mane, this is unmistakably the “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” segment of the new scene, scheduled to be officially added to the show from 1st April 2013. We reported last week that this new scene is said to be a medley of the songs penned by Tim Rice and Elton John for the film, also including “Circle of Life” and “Hakuna Matata”.

Along with a scene from Pixar’s “Brave”, it will apparently replace the current “Mary Poppins” and “The Jungle Book” scenes – so catch those “originals” while you can.

However, unlike that second new scene featuring Princess Merida, Simba’s guest role in the nighttime spectacular was reportedly already animated and programmed for the launch of the show last year, but held back in favour of Baloo and King Louie’s “I Wanna Be Like You”, so this footage could actually date from then. One confirmed change to the scene since its 2012 trials, though, will be the young singers of Dutch TV show “The Voice Kids” now providing vocals for its soundtrack, recorded just last month at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Watch the new 20th Anniversary – Extended! trailer here… Read More…

There will be more than just two new scenes to light up Disney Dreams! on its first anniversary this year: you too can “glow with the show” as the illuminated Mickey Mouse ears first introduced for World of Color at Disney California Adventure will come to Disneyland Paris, the resort has confirmed.

Named “Glow with the Show Ears” in California, they’ll be known instead by a new name in Europe: Disney Light’Ears. Once activated and placed on your head (or anywhere!) within the spectacle’s viewing area, they light up and change colour in sync with the show itself.

This is an optional, paid add-on, of course — in California the ears were priced at $25 for launch and, though no price has been publicly announced, reports from research questionnaires carried out in Paris suggest they could be looking at a €25 price point to own a pair over here. For added value, California later activated the ears for use during Fantasmic! at its own Disneyland Park, as well as controlling them to light up in certain areas such as inside the new Cars Land.

Battery powered, the hats are controlled by infra red signals from emitters placed around the audience area. For World of Color, this comprises around 40 “zones” which can each be sent a different command to illuminate and change the colour of the ears.

Unlike in Disney’s home state, Mickey ear hats have never particularly taken off at Disneyland Paris — you’re more likely to see a sorcerer’s apprentice, a Goofy or at most a Minnie Mouse bow. Could Disney Light’Ears be the spark to finally bring popularity to this classic park merchandise item in Paris? Would you pay to own a pair yourself, and do you think they’ll really add to the experience of Disney Dreams! or just be a distraction from the show itself?

It’s fair to say at least that, for such a high-rating signature attraction, Disney Dreams! needs more supporting merchandise, so this can only be a positive step in that direction. The ears were also only debuted in California last August, so the stated “Summer 2013” makes for an unusually speedy rollout to Paris — now only the second Disney resort in the world to have them.

Now watch “Glow with the Show” in action at Disneyland Resort, California… Read More…

Hurry, you’ve not got long left to see Disney Dreams! — the original show that is. Disneyland Paris has now confirmed that the show will be updated for its first anniversary with two brand new scenes based on the Pixar film “Brave” and classic Disney animation “The Lion King”. The new segments are believed to be replacing the original “Mary Poppins” and “The Jungle Book” numbers respectively, so you’ve only until around the end of March to sing along with “Step In Time” and “I Wan’na Be Like You” in person as fountains and projections fill the air. However the rest of the scenes — certainly the Peter Pan-themed “bookends” which tie together the various segments — are expected to remain the same.

Further information came to light today when it was revealed that the song featured from The Lion King will be “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King”, certainly an ideal choice to replace the similar earlier Jungle Book hit. Six young finalists from the Dutch TV talent show The Voice Kids were given the chance to record it exclusively for the show at Abbey Road Studios in London (pictured below), where this time last year the entire Disney Dreams! soundtrack was recorded by Joel McNeely.

Meanwhile the Brave segment will be the first for a single film that isn’t a musical. A short Ratatouille scene was included in the original show, but is really little more than a transition.

Steve Davison, who masterminded the show, was at Disneyland Paris along with Chuck Davis, Senior Technical Director, during the heavy snowfall last month, making it a strong possibility they were working on the new scenes.

Premiering on 31st March 2012 to worldwide acclaim, Disney Dreams! has scored an impressive 93% guest satisfaction rating and is now confirmed to be continuing daily at Disneyland Park until at least the end of September 2013, when the extended 20th Anniversary celebrations close.

Update: InsideDLParis reports The Lion King scene will come first in the show and be made up of three songs — “Circle of Life”, “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” and “Hakuna Matata” — while the Brave scene will utilise two parts of the film’s score by Patrick Doyle — “Remember to Smile” and “Fate and Destiny” — along with “Touch the Sky”, the original song by Julie Fowlis. It’s likely the scenes will officially premiere on 1st April 2013 but may be introduced shortly before then as a “soft opening.”

• Watch our 4 different complete videos of the original Disney Dreams! here

• Watch the scenes rumoured to be replaced: “Mary Poppins” and “I Wanna Be Like You”

VIA Disneyland Paris Press, @HyperionPilot, @DisneylandNL, @Jorienvh_