News / Walt Disney Studios Park

We reported last week that, for three weekends in late November and early December, both parks would be opening at 9am rather than 10am, as has been custom since the introduction of those two Extra Magic Hours (EMH) at Disneyland Park.

Better than that, there were hints of those extra hours making their way to Walt Disney Studios Park for the first time. Hints that are now… confirmed! From the official Disneyland Paris website:

NEW
Walt Disney Studios will be exceptionnally opened from 8am to 9am for Extra Magic Hours on November 28th and 29th, and on December 5th, 6th, 12th and 13th, 2009.

So, if you’re visiting on those six dates (and qualify for EMH), you’ll get to enjoy a world-premiere: one hour of exclusive ride time in the Studios, from 8am to 9am, before other guests.

Coming soon to a Studios near us?

The attractions to be opened for the trial haven’t been publicly announced anywhere, but it appears generally agreed upon that they’ll be the most prominent ride-based favourites: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith, Flying Carpets Over Agrabah and of course, Crush’s Coaster.

Riding the EAC may no longer take an hour or more of queueing, but it remains to be seen what effect this has on regular, non-EMH-qualifying guests. Since it became the norm to run straight to Crush as soon as the park opens, how will these regular visitors feel if they arrive only to find the Crush’s Coaster queue already populated by more privileged ride fans?

Finally, park hours for the rest of December have now been published. Though they’re not as generous as these three weekends, we do see the opening time at Disneyland Park giving way slightly to regular guests — now set at 9.30am, rather than 10am, making EMH a still-respectable hour and half window. This is the first time in almost 10 years we’ve seen park hours go into half-hours, and the flexibility is very welcome indeed.

• Check the December 2009 park hours
• Find out more about Extra Magic Hours

Disneyland Paris has published a great new collection of famous Disney “fun facts”, all about the upcoming 2009/10 Christmas season.

Amongst the fascinating figures of the festive period, it also reveals a little about the refreshed “Dreams of Christmas” unit to again follow at the end of Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade from November 8th…

The Christmas Tree

• Towering 24 meters high (from the grass to the star on the top) and weighs more than 24 tons.

• Near to 500 light bulbs illuminate the tree tinsel.

• 590 Christmas baubles (390 round ones and 200 byzantine shaped ones) decorate the tree.

• 240 various decorations (figures, candy canes, toy soldiers, drums, red bows…) hang on the branches.

• The assembling of the tree takes place over one night

• 23 persons (of all different types of professions) are required to help install and completely set up the tree.

The Christmas Illuminations

• From Town Square, all the way up Main Street and right up to Sleeping Beauty, more than 1 million lights twinkle at night fall.

• Around 7 km of fairy lights are used to decorate the Main Street, U.S.A. lampposts.

• Between 300 000 and 400 000 leds are needed to transform Sleeping Beauty’s Castle into a Cristal Castle.

• The final lighting concept has been completed this year with the light overlay of the castle giving a maximal sparkling effect.

• 3 full nights of work are necessary to lay the led lighting curtains (entertainment technical term) on the castle towers, roofs and turrets

• 15 nights are planned to install all the other Christmas light overlays in the trees and firs of Critter Corral for the transformation process of the area into the Santa Claus Village

• 6 nights are necessary for the dismantling of the Halloween season decorations and overlay to transform Main Street U.S.A. for our Christmas Season

“Dreams of Christmas” Santa Claus Float

• The new Santa Claus float weighs around 6 tons.

• The new float was built in the Paris region and represents Santa’s Sleigh, filled with presents and pulled by the reindeer, floating above clouds…

• This Parade unit is composed of 12 Toy soldiers, 18 Elves, 1 nutcracker

The Santa Claus float Elves

• 70 sets of costumes and 45 hats have been made for the elves accompanying the Santa Claus Float.

• The costumes were made in three different sizes to cater for the different body shapes of the performing artists.

• Nearly 400 meters of different material was necessary to make these costumes

• Various accessories were sew on the costumes: 90 bobbles, 500 sleigh bells, 700 golden buttons

• A total of 180 pairs of shoes were necessary to shoe all the performers

• 6 different types of Elves are performing in the Parade

Look out for an exclusive series of interviews with the artists and directors behind Disney’s Fairytale Christmas over on DLRP Magic!.com very soon, beginning with season director Christophe Leclercq as he reveals all about the new Tree Lighting Ceremony and more!

This “Paiements sans Contact” initiative was first announced back in July and began right on schedule on 3rd October.

How does it work? Unfortunately, it won’t work at all for most of us yet. Although most of us have seen the waterslide advert for Barclaycard’s system, the technology now at Disneyland Paris is currently only open to users who have a (French) bank account with CIC or Crédit Mutuel (who just recently actually became a new official partner of the resort), and have already signed up to a trial of those banks’ early contactless payment schemes.

If you’re lucky enough to qualify for all of that, your new credit card contains a special chip that can be read without contact when lightly touched or flashed across one of the new devices, first caught on camera by Scrooge at Disney Magic Interactive in Walt Disney Studios Store:

This allows users to pay for their Disney shopping — or even better, food — in a second. No fumbling with Euro cent coins, no waiting behind someone as they try every combination of four digits possible. Contactless cards allow instant payments up to a certain, safe amount. Just imagine the effect that could have within a few years on those ugly counter service queues.

You’ll find the trial machines now at the following locations:

• Casey’s Corner (Disneyland Park)
• Café Hyperion (Disneyland Park)
• Chalet de la Marionette (Disneyland Park)
• Disney Blockbuster Café (Walt Disney Studios Park)
• Club House Grill (Golf Disneyland)

• Walt Disney Studios Store (Walt Disney Studios Park)
• Goofy’s Pro Shop (Golf Disneyland)

Not that such an innovation needs a carrot to quash any possible stick, but Disneyland Paris are also offering trial users of the scheme an incredibly generous 25% discount at boutiques and 20% discount at restaurants!

Oh, but one more condition of the test — you need an Annual Passport, too.

Phew, we don’t see the man on the waterslide going through all this… but it’s definitely something to watch for the future. Find out all the official information (in French) right here.

Photo: Scrooge.

We actually saw the first of these images in September, featuring Sulley peeping out of a trapdoor as Buzz Lightyear, Princess Tiana and a host of other characters parachuted down in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. This new set of images, provided for travel companies to use as their Summer 2010 brochure covers, follow the same template.

The first is a real surprise. RC in the spotlight? A minimal character really only in the first Toy Story, who can’t even talk? Well, it’s a refreshing change from the usual Mickey, and he does have that still as-yet-unannounced attraction at Walt Disney Studios Park coming up next year. (Come on Euro Disney SCA, the game is up!)

Next up, another star from Toy Story Playland — Slinky Dog. Underneath him, Buzz peers out of a trapdoor in Main Street (you know, that trapdoor on Main Street), held up by Toy Soldiers, alongside four Little Green Men.

In the background of this one, spot Emile from Ratatouille, Jessie with a suitably cow-themed parachute and, er, Nemo. In some of the images he’s been shown floating down in a kind of water bubble… not this time. You also have to wonder about the fate of racing car Lightning McQueen as he smashes to earth, but maybe we’re over-thinking the concept.

Sulley and Buzz Lightyer feature most heavily in the next option for those travel companies. This one we’ve already seen:

Oh, well look at that! Lightning McQueen made it down safely!

Here we also spot a couple of new poses — yes, the folks at Pixar were nice enough to send over several different stock images of their characters — so we see Woody holding his cowboy hat as he parachutes and Buzz folding his arms. All in a day’s work for a toy who can fly!

One nice feature of the parachutes concept, at least, is that most of them are becoming “themed” to their respective character. So we see Emile with a cheese-patterned parachute, Woody with one to match his shirt, etc. In case you still don’t “get it”, it seems like the “Big Idea!” on the giant boardroom paper pad for 2010 is to show these “new” characters “parachuting” into the parks to visualise their arrival and new-ness. Got it?

Plus, in these images, compared to the main New Generation Festival image (which will probably be the official Summer 2010 brochure cover) the characters floating down in the background have even actually been scaled and faded properly, so the image — however much still constructed like a series of stuck-on fridge magnets — does have a bit of depth.

Finishing up, we’ve got Rémy and Emile from Ratatouille.

There you go. Expect to see those on a travel company brochure near you in just a few months. Now, if you were sitting in the offices of one of those companies, which would you choose? Strangely, the RC version looks the most appealing from here.

It’s worth repeating the slight moan from the article featuring the first of these images last month: what’s the need to mess with Sleeping Beauty Castle? Does sticking little Mickey silhouettes over its ornate stained-glass windows really achieve anything? If certain people had their way, would it not be a fantastical medieval palace but a monument to Mickey Mouse, with Mickey shapes on every spire and a hideous character decoration stuck on it’s fron… oh, wait.

And here’s one extra criticism not from DLRP Today. Member MagicStar on magicforum was keen-eyed enough to notice the odd situation to the left of the Castle, where one of the famous square trees has been… squashed! Clearly, that pesky castle wall the Imagineers designed was getting in the way of the character clip-art, so it had to be shrunk down… taking the tree with it! Even more oddly, there’s a spot of branch — or something — still there on the right, sticking up into the air. Good to see important images like these are checked thoroughly.

Even better — no, surely worse — something else has now cropped up on the left of these images, which isn’t there on the original one. Take a look just to the bottom-left of Tiana’s dress in the final image. Looks like the castle hill — almost — got the chop, but a dirty trail of Photoshop remnants was left behind.

Disneyland Paris marketing, we know your secrets.

Images © Disney.

It seems like only a few weeks ago we were adjusting to a new layout for the all-important Programme. Probably because it was just a few weeks ago.

Well, they’ve been at it again! Take a look:

The new format spreads itself much more freely over three pages, with one side for each park.

Rather than having both times grids together in the middle, they’re now positioned horizontally on each park’s page, surrounded by additional images and graphics. On the front, the “featured” events remain from the previous design, giving extra prominence to the key events of the day.

For the Disneyland Park programme, the entire side has been given a very smart Halloween dressing, far better than we’ve become used to in recent years. The Halloween events themselves are picked out with an orange background, courtesy of the new full-colour printing method.

Will it be all-change again once Halloween is over? Hopefully not — the Programme could look fantastic with a full-colour Christmas overlay, although whether such “extravagance” would continue into the quieter Winter months is debatable. This format is surely somewhat more expensive than the previous, greyscale on lower grade paper, but does help make the Halloween Festival seem that little bit more special.

And no, not the kind of guest who writes graffiti in the Crush’s Coaster queue, stands in front of you on the parade route or climbs on the flower beds of Central Plaza.

For all the masses of people and sickly sweet foods, what’s the one thing mostly — and surprisingly — missing from Disneyland? The wasps.

Unfortunately, when you’ve got a bin with four wide open holes and a collection of sticky drinks bottles, that seems to be what you get:

Being “tested” across Walt Disney Studios Park since August, the new bins seemed to attract rather a lot of the unpopular insects on a warm day, far more than your average (closed) park trash can. These photos were taken in the Toon Plaza area at the back of Toon Studio within just a few minutes.

Open holes also seem to be used for the better-themed bins we provided as examples from other Disney parks around the world, but only one or two per bin. Seeing the wasps, let’s hope there’s a rethink of the design if these are to be rolled out “resort-wide” — if only for those few fleeting months of hot weather Paris enjoys each year.

The chaos caused by a single wasp in a Disney queue line cannot be overstated.

Pictures: DLRP Today.com

This new design solves a few of the flaws in the old version (introduced in June 2008) and allows for the folded paper guide to be a little more “customised” to each park.

Well, look at this:

As you can guess, the Cast Members are now able to place the Disneyland Park side face-up under Main Street Station and the Walt Disney Studios Park side face-up at the entrance of Disney Studio 1. Very smart.

Unlike the old design, which wasted a lot of space on its cover and reverse, each park is given its own little “notice board” to boldly display the times of the main featured events, park opening hours and any attraction closures.

Then, when you open it up, the times for your current park are shown straight away, with the times of the other park upside down, making the divide between the two much clearer (who knows, maybe guests were looking for Minnie’s Party Train in the Studios?).

The sensible change here is that now the events being pushed are on the front cover, this clever grid can fill the whole page — and crucially, include all the events. The previous design didn’t feature the times for say Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars in the main grid if it was also in the “featured” column, making the whole idea of having this hour-by-hour grid quite pointless. Problem solved.

Also pleasing is the new typeface used throughout — rounder and more legible in small print. The only downside to the whole re-think is that the resort still provides a PDF download of the Programme as an answer to providing entertainment times on its website, rather than having a fancy calendar like Hong Kong or California.

So, anyone who doesn’t want to print and doesn’t know of the “rotate” function in Adobe Reader… will be getting a bit of a twist in their neck.

The Programme was re-introduced back in 2006. Always looking for shameless promotion, this is a good time to mention that you find various versions of this new-generation Programme — and several fascinating old programmes — on our Memorabilia pages, well worth a look.

Images © Disney.

Here we go, the official logo of the New Generation Festival…!

As you can see, the design takes on a modern and very “Toy Story”-inspired design, with big, ,3D yellow letters for “New”, a slimy green “Generation” and a “Festival” built out of… building blocks, just like the word “Playland” will be at the Toy Story Playland entrance.

Naturally, the logo comes in a couple of additional variations.

First, we’ve the new resort logo for 2010:

As with Mickey’s Magical Party, the name of the event is slotted in across the top. Unlike 2009’s logo, however, there’s no balloon or extra graphics on the end.

Note also that both here and above the classic ‘Disneyland Paris’ logo is back to its good old navy blue self. No shoehorned “Resort”, no having “Paris” in a separate colour, nothing. To long-time fans, it’ll feel like an old friend has returned.

The third and final logo is the largest:

Here we see the first, main logo above — but with a scattering of the characters who’ll “star” in next year’s events. Lightning McQueen, Princess Tiana, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mickey Mouse, Sully, Rémy, Nemo and Stitch. The idea is to contrast between the very classic characters of the current year (Donald, Goofy, Peter Pan), making 2010 seem as fresh as possible.

Phew. Are you all New Generation-ed out? Sorry, but there’s yet more…

Finally, here’s the key visual for the New Generation Festival. As promised in the earlier reveal, balloons are out. In 2010, it’s all about — erm… parachutes!

Buzz Lightyear leads the image as Lightning McQueen, Rémy, a Toy Solider, Slinky Dog, Princess Tiana, Nemo, Sully, RC, Woody and Stitch glide towards Sleeping Beauty Castle behind.

This “key visual” is the main piece of advertising imagery we’ll be seeing throughout the entire promotion of the event. You might remember those for Mickey’s Magical Party, and this here is our brand new one. Get used to it, we’ll be seeing it a lot.

Thoughts? Opinions? Ahh, we’ll leave that to you for now!

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• If you missed our original exposé on the events of the New Generation Festival, including the new Toy Story Playland and new parade characters, click here!

Images © Disney.