Disney Tests RFID Theme Park Entry System

Inside the Magic: Given its emphasis on future technology, it’s no surprise that Walt Disney World has chosen its Epcot theme park as the location to use a new ticket entry system. Testing began (Sunday) on an RFID based system that requires no turnstiles to enter the theme park. Guests instead simply place a chip-equipped ticket up to a Mickey Mouse-themed device and after a quick finger scan, a green light lets them know they can proceed into the park.

RFID stands for radio-frequency identification, which allows tiny electronic chips to be scanned without the use of lasers or barcodes. Information can be stored on these chips to, in this case, give Disney’s guests quicker entry into theme parks.

@DisKingdom took part in the new test at Epcot, sharing information and a couple of photos with us of the new scanners that have replaced some of the park’s turnstiles. A full report with more photos can be found on their Disney Projects web site.

Guests visiting Epcot today have the option of having their tickets scanned and then equipped with a Mickey Mouse sticker with an embedded RFID chip, presumably encoded with the same information found on the ticket’s magnetic strip, normally used for entering the park. The sticker itself is a bit thicker than a standard paper ticket due to the chip inside, but not thick enough to be intrusive. If the test goes well, future tickets presumably will have RFID chips embedded inside them.

Upon approaching the new RFID scanners, guests are instructed to simply hold their chip-equipped tickets up to the Mickey Mouse head shape, then place a finger onto the biometric scanner, and wait for the green light to pass through. Reports suggest it is a faster process than going through traditional turnstiles, taking only a few seconds.

During the test, many of Disney’s cast members are monitoring guests’ flow through, offering instructions on how to use the new system. While lines can and will still form leading up to these new scanners, the goal is to reduce the amount of time each guest spends in using a ticket to enter the park, ultimately reducing the wait time to get in.

Rumors of Disney using RFID throughout their theme parks have been around for a while, indicating that not only could guests enter the park using this technology, but also to purchase items within the park (like many credit card companies’ existing scan-and-pay options), as well as in interactive and personalized experiences throughout theme park attractions and shows. So it’s possible this Epcot test is far more than just an enhancement to entering the park, but the beginning of the future in how Disney guests enjoy the theme park experience.

Security concerns are always raised when RFID technology is used, as the ability to have quick scans has the potential of being abused or hacked. Some may be concerned about the use of finger scans, thinking Disney is fingerprinting its guests, but these biometric scans have been in use for select passes for several years, scanning only finger dimensions and not the fingerprint. Disney has also likely taken all necessary security measures to prevent abuse of the RFID chips, though given how the technology works, it’s easy to imagine that someone with enough equipment and knowhow could potentially find a way “into” the new setup, even possibly cloning and duplicating someone else’s annual pass. And depending on just how much personal information is stored (or accessible) on the RFID chips, now or in the future, the potential for identity theft is another issue Disney surely will be considering as the test continues. Fortunately, extreme close proximity to a ticket would be required to “read” it, so it’d be rather obvious if someone was trying to access it without permission. In other words, keeping an RFID-equipped ticket (or credit card) safely tucked away is the best way to avoid this issue.

This is the second time Disney has tested a turnstile-free entry into Epcot. The first occurred in March, featuring rows of barcode scanners. At the time, Disney commented, “Our teams are always trying out new ideas – stay tuned to see if this makes it into the parks.” And the same statement likely holds true for the new RFID test that began today. It’s another way in which Disney will learn valuable information in an effort to continue to improve the overall guest experience, with the ultimate goal of reducing lines and waits, enhancing the magic of visiting a Disney theme park.

Disney Fighting Florida's Casino Bill

Orlando Sentinel: The biggest challenger standing between Miami and casinos is a mouse.

Walt Disney World, the giant resort near Orlando whose four theme parks draw more than 45 million visitors a year, has made preventing "destination" casinos a top priority. And few, if any, businesses carry as much weight in Florida as Disney, which employs more than 60,000 workers, generates nearly $600 million a year in tax revenue — and doled out more than $2 million to political candidates and causes during the past election cycle.

Some analysts say Disney — and, by extension, Orlando's entire tourism industry — has good reason to be wary of casinos. Though adult-oriented resorts in South Florida are unlikely to appeal to Disney's core audience of families with young children, they could siphon away travelers in narrower segments that are also important to the resort, from South Americans to conventions to weddings.

"Disney has lots of little pockets or niches that they're really good at getting market share in. And it adds up," said Duncan Dickson, a professor at the University of Central Florida's Rosen College of Hospitality Management. "Disney doesn't want another Las Vegas anywhere close to them. Who needs the competition?"

Disney has always opposed efforts to expand gambling.

The Walt Disney Co., one of the most brand-protective companies on the planet, does not want to jeopardize its kid-friendly reputation by any association whatsoever with casinos and the taboo images they often conjure. The company's cruise line is the only major operator to sail ships without onboard casinos, which are typically one of the biggest generators of on-board spending.

"We've studied this issue carefully and remain opposed for many reasons," said Disney spokesman Mike Griffin, "including the fact that it is inconsistent with Florida's brand as a family-friendly destination and with the efforts we've long supported to diversify Florida's economy through research, innovation and entrepreneurship."

The legislation to be considered in Tallahassee would authorize three "destination" casinos in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Each would boast a luxury hotel, shops, restaurants, convention space and casinos with every major game, from blackjack to roulette and craps. Any company awarded a casino license would have to spend at least $2 billion building the facility.

Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts, both based in Las Vegas, and Genting, a Malaysian-based resort developer, are among the companies expected to seek licenses. Genting has already spent more than $300 million to buy bay-front property in downtown Miami and has announced plans for a $3.8 billion resort.

All have promised they will create thousands of jobs in South Florida, making the deal attractive to lawmakers hoping to lower the state's 10.6 percent unemployment rate.

Analysts say anyone that invests that much capital to build a resort also will have to spend lavishly to market the property. At a minimum, that will force Disney to ramp up its own spending on advertising, eroding its profit margins.

"Anytime you've got to fight and compete with more marketing dollars, which you know these folks have in abundance, it makes Disney's job that much harder to battle against," said Vicki Johnson, a tourism-marketing expert in Orlando.

More specifically, casinos could prove attractive draws in key markets for Disney. Executives at Genting, for instance, have said they would market heavily in Latin America.

Latin America — particularly Brazil, its biggest country — has become one of Disney World's most valuable markets in recent years. This summer, even as overall attendance at the resort was about flat with a year ago, Disney officials said traffic from Brazil was up by a double-digit percentage.

Though Disney doesn't disclose exact attendance numbers, national data show that visitation from Brazil is up 27 percent to more than 833,000 so far this year. And though Miami is the most popular destination for South American travelers, Orlando is growing more rapidly.

Disney says its business from Brazil is predominantly family-leisure travel, the group least likely to be swayed by casinos. But some industry followers say lavish resorts, when combined with the boutique shopping already in Miami, might be enough to peel away some of that business, especially Brazilians with older children or none at all.

"All of a sudden, it really cuts into their [Disney's] South American markets," Johnson said.

Group meetings and conventions business is also a growing profit center for Disney, which has nearly 470,000 square feet of meeting space spread among its hotels. It also routinely picks up lucrative private parties and other business tied to shows using Orange County's massive, publicly owned convention center.

Finally, allowing casinos in South Florida could lead to pressure to build more in other parts of the state. Already, some hoteliers in Orlando — led by Harris Rosen, owner of three major convention hotels — have made rumblings about bringing casinos to Central Florida. And officials at Port Canaveral — Disney Cruise Line's home port — are interested in casinos, too.

"Once they get their foot in the door, what's next? Orange County is going to say, 'Well, if it's legal in Dade County, why isn't it legal here?' " said Dickson, the UCF professor.

Disney has worked to enlist broader business groups to fight the casino legislation, most notably the Florida Chamber of Commerce, even though more than half of the businesses represented on the chamber's board of directors say they are neutral on the issue.

And the opposition from Disney has put casino boosters on the defensive during the past few days.

"Florida's identity cannot be changed because one casino or two destination resorts open in Miami-Dade County," said state Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, who is sponsoring the casino legislation in the Florida House of Representatives.

"Florida will always be the Sunshine State," he added. "The dominant trademark of Florida will always be Disney World. I don't think they have anything to worry about when it comes to that."

Disney World's Most Endangered Attractions

Disney's Country Bear Jamboree

MyJoy Online: Sometimes, Orlando's Walt Disney World proves to be a little too small, after all.

As the Florida resort battles changing entertainment standards, longstanding classic attractions throughout the resort’s four theme parks -- the Skyway aerial trams, the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea submarine excursion and the future-predicting Horizons ride to name a few -- are torn down to make way for newer, flashier rides.

The Mickey Mouse Revue, an automated musical tribute to Disney songs that opened with the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World’s flagship theme park, in 1971, was sent to Tokyo's Disneyland in 1980 and was warehoused for good in 2009. Some of the 188 “Audio-Animatronic” figures in Epcot's transportation retrospective World of Motion (1982 to1996) have been re-cast in rides at other Disney theme parks, such as Anaheim's Pirates of the Caribbean and Paris's Phantom Manor.

Despite a fervent fan campaign to save Mr Toad's Wild Ride, the Coney Island-style, runaway car goof was run off the road in 1998 in favour of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. As both a nod and an injury to its defenders, a statue of Mr Toad wound up in the pet cemetery at the Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion.

Given the furore over the Mr Toad closure, Walt Disney World management holds its planned phase-outs close to the vest. But history shows a pattern: when attractions prove too expensive to maintain, score low on guest approval, lose sponsorship or have difficulty churning through high numbers of visitors, they are likely to meet the wrecking ball. Following that pattern, the following beloved Disney World attractions are, or might be, in the crosshairs. See them before it is too late.

Snow White's Scary Adventures, Magic Kingdom
This attraction, one of the last remaining from the Magic Kingdom’s opening four decades ago, will be demolished to make way for the park's reportedly $425 million expansion of Fantasyland, one of the park’s several themed areas. The indoor electric cart ride told from Snow White's perspective will be replaced with a meet-and-greet area for Disney's current banner brand, the Princesses. A closing date has not been announced, but it is expected in early 2012, so now is the last chance to try an insider's secret pleasure: buying smears of glow-in-the-dark hair gel at Main Street's Harmony Barber Shop that will light up under the black lights of the ride. Disney is not evicting its first princess from the grounds entirely, however. It is building a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train coaster nearby.

Country Bear Jamboree, Magic Kingdom
One of Walt Disney's triumphs was the faithful re-creation of life, first in animated characters and later through "Audio-Animatronic" robotic figures. In 1971, a stage full of 18 robotic bears convincingly singing saloon songs was the cutting edge of amusement technology. Sadly, few of today's computer-reared guests appreciate such true technological prowess and instead, regard the attraction as an opportunity for air-conditioned rest. Citing poor attendance, California's Disneyland shed its version of the attraction in 2001, and with its audiences on the wane, the Orlando version is supported mostly by nostalgia. For the modern Disney, which prefers operating at high capacity, thinning crowds are a sure route to the red-line list.

Sounds Dangerous with Drew Carey, Disney's Hollywood Studios
Disney's rides are known for being among the best in the business, so the opportunity to catch the company slumming is rare indeed. In fact, this Michael Eisner-era misfire has been demoted to that rarest (and most ignoble) attraction status: it operates only on extremely busy days to alleviate crowds. This Hollywood Studios theme park attraction is a vestige of a period of enforced synergy with Disney sister unit, ABC television. The 1999 movie attraction with Drew Carey demonstrates the importance of movie sound effects by shutting off the lights (and needlessly terrifying children) for seven minutes -- convenient for saving a bundle on production costs but patently unimpressive. A Star Wars-themed Jedi Training Academy show squats in its theatre on hot days, and it is reported (but not confirmed) that the Force will evict it full-time at some point.

Universe of Energy/Ellen's Energy Adventure, Epcot
The Epcot Center that opened in 1982 purported to explore the sciences in an intelligent way, and this pavilion was a perfect example of that promise. The roof is crowned with a glittering field of solar panels that partly power a dazzling seating system of six, 97-passenger mobile slabs that turn a theatre into a gliding ride. But as the attraction is sponsored by ExxonMobil, it virtually ignores solar and alternative fuels to pump up the merits of the oil industry. The fact it is narrated by 15-year-old filmed segments featuring Ellen DeGeneres (then an ABC star) and the largely forgotten '90s personality Bill Nye the Science Guy makes it even more dated. Waits of a mere five minutes are the norm. These combined deficits predict a gut renovation in the not-so-distant future.

Swiss Family Treehouse, Magic Kingdom
This ingenious concrete-and-steel walk-through castaway camp was built to impress in 1971 for the opening of the Magic Kingdom, with 300,000 hand-attached vinyl leaves and a working waterwheel system that sends fresh water from room to room. But people no longer recall its movie inspiration, a 1960s smash hit. The 14-story Tree of Life that was built for the opening of Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom theme park in 1998 makes the Swiss Family Robinson's home a sapling in comparison and California's Disneyland converted its own Treehouse to a more relevant Tarzan theme in 1999, so the writing may be on the treehouse wall Further undermining its future, the tree requires refurbishment every three to five years and the design flouts modern accessibility codes by requiring the navigation of 116 stairs and catwalks. It may not be long until this charming but cumbersome attraction ceases to exist in its current form.

Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, Magic Kingdom
This 20-minute lesson about how appliances will rescue the nuclear family from drudgery is a genuine artefact from a period of consumer optimism in American history, having premiered with General Electric sponsorship at the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. The novel show system places the audience on a ring that rotates past four stationary stages stocked with Audio-Animatronic actors, yet people stay away in droves from this misogynistic chestnut. In 1973, it was booted from California's Disneyland for poor attendance, and now this antique spins in Orlando, where waiting more than five minutes is rare. Such low numbers would doom any other attraction, but since Walt is on record as having adored this one, and because it is billed (in a stretch) as the longest-running theatrical show in the United States, it has been permitted to remain in a forlorn corner of Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland -- for now.

Journey into Imagination with Figment, Epcot
Catch it now, because since Epcot's opening, Imagineers have struggled to make this dark ride click. In this third try, the talent is not to blame. Eric Idle appears as a Dr Nigel Channing, a scientist at "The Imagination Institute" while Figment, a fan-favourite, kid-friendly mascot created for the park, serves as the mischievous spoiler. The fault lies in a delivery deemed so low-budget and uninspired that riders can usually walk on without a moment's queueing. Kodak yanked its 28-year sponsorship of the ride in 2010, and any sponsor-to-be is unlikely to take kindly to this albatross of an attraction, sending it into Disney history in favour of Imagination 4.0.

Imagine Life Without the Mouse

Tampa Bay Online: Standing in the spooky darkness of the Haunted Mansion, Paul and Sherrye Archer wait their turn to enter the Magic Kingdom attraction at Walt Disney World.

The mansion filled with ghoulish illusions has been one of the Archers' favorite spots inside the park for the 19 years they have owned season passes. Disney World is the Valrico couple's escape from the pressure of their teaching jobs. Only an hour's drive from their front door, the four parks serve as weekend getaways several times a year.

Their set-in-concrete routine for every Magic Kingdom visit: a beeline to Adventureland and the Splash Mountain ride — their favorite — followed by the rib-rumbling Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Then the mansion, lunch, a dessert and the Buzz Lightyear laser shooting gallery.

Inside the mansion's dark entrance lobby, a narrator speaks in a mortician's ominous monotone. Sherrye, 61, whispers the script word-for-word. "Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding, almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis. Is this haunted room actually stretching? Or is it your imagination?"

Ah, imagination. The foundation upon which Walter Elias Disney built his entertainment empire. It was imagination that brought a whistling Mickey Mouse to the movie screen, then to TV and then to a land named after Disney in Anaheim, Calif. And it was imagination that led Disney to buy 30,000 acres of mosquito-choked scrubland in the middle of Florida with the idea of building a themed resort where visitors could spend money on rides, in restaurants and at hotels, immersed in a world of his creation.

It would take a Disney-size imagination to ponder what Orlando and Florida would be like if that first shovel of dirt hadn't been turned to build the Magic Kingdom. As the park marks its 40th year in business Saturday, it maintains its spot as the most popular theme park in the world, with an estimated 17 million visitors a year who spill into Orlando and use it as an entry point for exploring the rest of the peninsula.

"You're talking about the 500-pound gorilla in terms of tourism," said Mark Bonn, a professor at Florida State University's College of Business and president of Bonn Marketing Research. "Historically, we were promoted as a sun and sand and ski destination," Bonn said. "That all changed in a hurry when the Magic Kingdom opened."

Bonn's company has been tracking visitors for the city of Tampa for 17 years. His numbers show that 20 percent of the tourists who visit Tampa and St. Petersburg come here because of Disney and the other Orlando attractions it paved the way for. "If you were to take away 20 percent of spending in Hillsborough County, it would be a devastating loss," Bonn said. "Disney was the engine that started it all."

There are stories about why Walt Disney chose to build a duplicate park in Florida. One often-told tale is that Disney saw an employee, or "cast member," dressed in cowboy garb strolling through the futuristic Tomorrowland at Disneyland. For the big-picture Disney, who framed the construction of Disneyland with a cinematographer's eye, the contrast ruined his intended illusion. A theme park built properly would have tunnels for cast members to move without being seen, an innovation he used at Magic Kingdom.

The other story mixes illusion with money: When Disneyland was built outside Anaheim, Disney didn't anticipate the hoards of stores and rundown hotels it would attract outside the gates. As they surrounded the park, it limited any chance to expand. "He wanted them to be immersed and not see a 7-Eleven outside the gates of the Magic Kingdom," said Matt Roseboom, owner and publisher of Orlando Attractions Magazine. "He bought enough land to do just that."

After scouting other places in the United States and within Florida, Disney started scooping up land through dummy corporations to keep prices low. The Florida Project, as he called it, was intended to build Progress City, a concept that became Epcot and the town of Celebration.

Florida was all about big projects then. An hour away, billions of dollars were being spent to launch men into space at Cape Canaveral. In 1962, the nearby Kissimmee River was being straightened and drained to make way for grazing land and agriculture. In 1964, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began digging the Cross Florida Barge Canal to give ships a shortcut between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

"When you think about that time frame in Florida, you had a climate that was conducive to having a year-round operation like they had in California," Disney historian Dave Herbst said. "And they had the ability to buy a lot of land at a manageable price."

Using its considerable lobbying power, the company negotiated with the state to grant it eminent domain over the property to avoid the red tape of building in Osceola and Orange counties. The Reedy Creek Improvement District — overseen, managed and policed by Disney officials — was created. After Disney died from cancer in 1966, his brother Roy took over the project, nudging it toward a first phase of construction that included the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary and Polynesian resorts, golf courses, a campground and a monorail.

When Lakeland residents William "Bill" Windsor Jr. and his wife, Marty, were picked from the opening day crowd of 10,000 visitors to be the first to see Magic Kingdom, along with their toddler sons Jay and Lee, there was no way to predict the park's explosive growth. That 43-square-mile property now consists of four theme parks, two water parks, 33 resorts and hotels, a shopping district, a sports complex and a boardwalk. There remains ample room for parks and resorts if demand grows. Its success spawned similar versions in France and Japan.

So large was Disney's economic gravity back then that SeaWorld duplicated its San Diego theme park with an Orlando version in 1973. Universal Orlando more closely mimicked the Disney model in 1990, with what later became multiple parks and resorts. The three cemented the region as the world's top tourist destination.

A Disney-commissioned study released in April estimates that the Disney property generates $18.2 billion in annual economic activity in Florida, totaling 2.5 percent of the state's gross domestic product. The study by Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics showed Disney employs 62,000 who earn an aggregate of $1.8 billion. Statewide, 160,000 jobs lead back to Disney: one out of every 50 jobs in Florida. That doesn't include the millions of dollars that have flowed to Tampa or St. Petersburg as travelers filter through. Or the construction workers that built houses and widened Interstate 4 and Florida's Turnpike.

Disney and Florida have become so synonymous that marketing money spent by the company to draw visitors acts as de facto promotion for the rest of the state, economist Bonn said. The state has a $25 million tourism marketing budget, while Disney spends $250 million to promote its attractions.

Without Cinderella's Castle, there's no reason to assume Orlando would be the 29th-busiest airport in the world, according to Airports Council International. There's nothing to suggest "the I-4 corridor" would have become so coveted in national politics. "There would be no Orlando Magic basketball team," Bonn said, joking. "Funny how they got that name, eh? What would they have called them, the Orlando Oranges?"

Roseboom recently broke the news in his attractions magazine that Disney plans to feature a land in its Animal Kingdom park dedicated to "Avatar," the largest-grossing movie ever.

Without the Magic Kingdom, Herbst never would have left his job as a sports copy editor for the Pittsburgh Press to become a Disney historian. He will retire this year after 30 years. In 1977, he begrudgingly took a trip to Magic Kingdom instead of visiting his grandmother.

"My friends loved Disney," Herbst said. "They said, 'You have to go to Walt Disney World.' My response was, "Why? We have Kennywood!' "

After two days in the Magic Kingdom, he told his wife while driving north on Interstate 95, "I'm going to work there someday.

"I was seeing myself as the guy on the horse-drawn trolley or some fun little job," Herbst said. "I immediately sent a crazy letter to them after we got home. I got back a letter that said, 'Thank you for your interest.'"

Four years later, he was a cast member.

Paul Archer worked as a cast member in the mid-1970s, sweeping up trash along Magic Kingdom's impeccably clean Main Street U.S.A. His favorite park is Epcot: Once you have swept up after the horses, it changes your view of Magic Kingdom, he said. Archer, 55, owns no Mickey Mouse-adorned apparel. His wife once bought them matching Mickey Mouse outfits during a Disney cruise. He wore it. "Once," he said, flatly.

The couple, who met as physical education teachers and coaches at schools in Palm Bay, spend thousands of dollars a year at the park. Married for more than 20 years, they have no children but enjoy seeing the parks through the eyes of their relatives' kids.

Paul, a physical education teacher at Corpus Christi Catholic School in Temple Terrace, runs the Disney Marathon each year through the streets of the theme parks and resorts. Sherrye, who teaches physical education at Stowers Elementary in Lithia, wears her oversized Minnie Mouse hand to wave goodbye to students at the end of the school year. They rarely buy souvenirs.

One time in 2005, they broke that rule. They got through the front gate of Magic Kingdom at opening time and ran to their beloved Splash Mountain. As the first two riders of the day, they went down the water toboggan alone. Twice. They plunked down $15 for the 5- by 8-inch souvenir photo. It sits in a frame on their mantel. "That was the best day at the park ever," she said. "I'll never forget that."

Not everyone has been entranced by Disney's magic, though. Members of the I Hate Disney World page on Facebook, for example, see the resort as "a blight on the fetid swampland it was built on."

"It makes your average refugee camp look like a garden party," the page says. "The most accursed place on Earth."

In 2008, Newark Star-Ledger parenting columnist Peggy O'Crowley bemoaned a trip to Magic Kingdom, confessing her boredom and saying her kids were equally underwhelmed. "The heat, the long lines for rides, the $5 hot dogs, the plastic castle, the adults wearing Goofy or Mickey ears … it was all too much for us," she wrote.

Disney fans swarmed to the newspaper's website to defend the resort. "I am guessing if there was one of the seven dwarfs you admire and resemble the most it would be Grumpy," one wrote.

The definitive anti-Mouse screed remains Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen's 83-page book, "Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World." Published in 1998, the book has become the Rosetta stone for despising the Disneyfication of Florida and the country.

Hiaasen attacks the company for what he sees as its manhandling of the Legislature to get its way, for destroying the environmental purity of Central Florida and for insisting that nature is something to be managed instead of nurtured.

"Disney is so good at being good," Hiaasen writes, "that it manifests an evil; so uniformly efficient and courteous, so dependably clean and conscientious, so unfailingly entertaining that it's unreal, and therefore is an agent of pure wickedness. Imagine promoting a universe in which raw Nature doesn't fit because it doesn't measure up."

Disney has responded to critics with efforts to tout its recycling efforts. Visitors staying at resort hotels are asked to conserve towels to reduce water use. Attractions at Animal Kingdom and Epcot tout the wisdom of being ecologically minded.

But even critics know Disney isn't leaving Florida anytime soon. Consider those big projects that emerged about the time Magic Kingdom was built. NASA this year stopped sending people into space from Cape Canaveral. The Kissimmee River straightening is being undone to rectify damage to the region and to the Everglades. The uncompleted barge canal didn't see the end of the first Nixon administration and is now a greenway named for its most strident opponent.

Magic Kingdom, on the other hand, will add a village of new princess-themed attractions to Fantasyland next year. And Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo announced Thursday the company's plan to expand into India. Shanghai Disney is slated to open in 2015.

Disney endures.

Disney Announces 'Avatar' Attractions

Orlando Sentinel: The Walt Disney Co. will build a theme-park "land" based on the movie "Avatar" in Disney's Animal Kingdom as the first step in a broader licensing deal that will lead to similar attractions in Disney parks worldwide.

The deal announced Tuesday gives Disney exclusive theme-park rights to use elements from the 2009 blockbuster and from sequels due out in 2014 and 2015. "Avatar," which was directed by James Cameron and grossed nearly $2.8 billion in worldwide box-office receipts, is widely considered one of the most valuable intellectual properties not already tied up by a theme park.

Disney said it plans to build multiple-attraction lands based on the film's fictional world of "Pandora," including themed food and merchandise, rides and entertainment. It's the same approach Universal Orlando has taken with its wildly popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which has fueled huge attendance and guest-spending gains since opening in Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park last year.

"Avatar is just a set of worlds that is really rich and offers so much to explore, we thought that offering a land-based approach gives us a much better opportunity to explore," Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Tom Staggs said in an interview following the announcement.

Disney said it would begin construction of Animal Kingdom's Avatar land in 2013 and expects to open it to guests about five years from now. A company executive indicated that the price tag would be approximately $500 million.

Cameron said he initially thought Disney would want to build only an individual ride based on his film.

"I quickly realized that their vision for this thing is far beyond what I imagined," he told reporters. "It was kind of thrilling that they wanted to do a land and really bring the world of Pandora to life."

More Avatar lands would follow down the road. Disney currently has five theme-park resorts worldwide and is building a sixth in Shanghai, China.

"We obviously appreciate that this was a film that was enjoyed by millions globally. So it's now a global product," Disney Co. President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger said. "We can clearly leverage the global interest in this property in multiple places, although we don't have any plans at the moment or specifics to announce to you."

Disney will license the rights from Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment studio and Fox Filmed Entertainment.

The Avatar land should provide a huge jolt in the arm for the 13-year-old Animal Kingdom theme park. The youngest of Walt Disney World's four theme parks has been criticized by some park fans for lacking attractions and not amounting to a full-day experience on par with the Magic Kingdom or Epcot.

The last major new ride added to Animal Kingdom was the Expedition Everest roller coaster, which opened in 2006. That ride cost more than $100 million.

A precise date hasn't been set for completion of the Avatar attractions in Animal Kingdom, but an opening sometime in 2016 could allow Disney to capitalize on a fresh wave of fan interest in the 'Avatar' film franchise from the two sequels currently in development. Cameron said the tentative plan is to release the first sequel around Christmas 2014 and the second around Christmas 2015.

"The timing seems to work out well in terms of the sequels," Cameron said. "Really, what we need to resolve is how much of the elements of the second and third films are incorporated into the Avatar land."

First Ultraluxury Hotel Planned Inside Disney World

Artist's Rendering

 USA Today: Disney World is opening its gates to the first hotel that's not a Disney-branded one — and the first five-star hotel that will be inside the Florida theme park.

Four Seasons has announced construction will begin in December on a $360 million, 444-room resort with views of Disney's Magic Kingdom as well as several restaurants, a spa, basketball and tennis courts and three pools.

When it opens in late 2014, it will be the largest of the Toronto-based luxury hotel operator's properties.

The announcement is a sign the luxury hotel business is gradually returning. The project is fully financed, with a Mexico City bank tied to billionaire Carlos Slim providing $190 million in construction money.

Whether Disney-going families can afford to pay a big hotel bill is a question.

Four Seasons expects to fill half the rooms with families who want to take in Disney World and the other half with conventioneers and business-meeting attendees.

The company says room rates haven't been discussed. But rooms at the Grand Floridian — Disney World's highest-end option — run $440 to $2,185 a night, according to its website. A room at the Four Seasons two years from now — if travel continues to recover from the lows of the recession — could easily cost $600 and up.

Disney is ready for an ultraluxury hotel, says Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University's hospitality school.

"It's not just Middle America that goes to Disney," he says. "It's a very diverse market."

Luxury-travel agent Stacy Small, president of Los Angeles-based Elite Travel International, says her customers currently stay at Disney's Grand Floridian. High-end travelers to Orlando also can stay at a Ritz-Carlton or Waldorf Astoria.

"We will have a lot of clients wanting to stay at Four Seasons Disney," Small says.

The project was announced Tuesday, as Orlando hotels fill a higher percentage of rooms.

For the first seven months of this year, Orlando hotels filled 72% of their rooms. That's more than the 67% rate a year ago and 65% in 2009. But it's not quite back to the 73% of 2007, according to Smith Travel Research.

Four Seasons secured financing despite lenders' lack of interest in luxury hotels since the global financial collapse in September 2008.

"One of the things we're excited about is that we were able to move forward in an environment that's certainly been challenging," says Scott Woroch, Four Seasons' global development chief.

Disney Goes "Transmedia" for Gen iPad

This is London: Adults are changing their behavior but kids are born into this," says Tricia Wilber, the Walt Disney Company's chief marketing officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as she explains how so many young consumers are not just embracing the internet, smartphones and video on demand. They have never known anything different.

"Transmedia" is the buzzword that Disney likes to use.

This takes in everything from physical to digital and all points in between - from cinema and cable TV to new fast-growing areas such as online streaming and social media and traditional live experiences such as theme parks and theatre shows.

"Consumers now have access to that brand in any way they want. That creates opportunities for us," says Wilber.

Yet this also makes it more complex for Disney, which owns top children's brands such as Mickey Mouse, Toy Story and Pirates of the Caribbean as well as TV networks ABC and ESPN.

In the transmedia age, no single communications channel is dominant. So Wilber says Disney tries to avoid being wedded to any particular platform. "Our content and story-telling and emotional connections are what make Disney Disney," she says.

Every platform can potentially play a leading role, depending on the particular brand and target audience.

For example, Disney used both traditional media and Facebook to promote the recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie to teenagers. In contrast, Disney Channel on cable TV was crucial for Cars2 to reach younger fans. Clearly digital and social media offer great opportunities to increase engagement - both in terms of depth and over a longer timescale. Disney UK's official Facebook page for Toy Story 3 won half a million followers. But in a sign of the times, a fan from Luton created his own unofficial page, called "Move out of the way, children, I've been waiting 11 years to see Toy Story 3", that got 1.7 million in the space of a week.

Disney had to think fast and decided to collaborate, giving this fan special content and access - an interesting example of how even the world's biggest media company needs to be nimble and willing to cede a degree of control.

Even younger Disney fans are experimenting with social networking on its games website Club Penguin.

Despite the growth of digital, it is still traditional media such as cinema, cable TV, DVDs and theme parks that generate the vast bulk of Disney's $38 billion (£24 billion) in annual revenues.

Theme parks are particularly important because, as chief executive Robert Iger says, it is "where we make the closest emotional connection with consumers as millions of them experience first-hand the magic of Disney".

At a time when consumers are looking to engage more deeply with brands, the theme park and other live events offer an opportunity for fans truly to immerse themselves - as well as being a powerful beacon for the brand.

Disney has been investing in digital to make its theme parks more relevant (see right). But as even the iPad generation is discovering, digital is not essential when it comes to having fun.

Ultimately, the live experience is when a brand comes alive in the transmedia world.

"This is like being in a computer game," shouts one nine-year-old girl excitedly as she zaps aliens on the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast ride on a recent visit to Disneyland Paris.

Meanwhile, over at Stitch Live, a group of enthralled children interact with a cartoon character who appears on a digital cinema screen, tells jokes, addresses them personally and even takes their photos in real time.

These attractions demonstrate how Disneyland Paris is embracing digital as it seeks to match consumers' changing expectations.

Yet any visitor is also struck by the fact that most children are just as thrilled by many of the older fixtures - from boat ride It's A Small World, with marionettes in national costume, to the daily parades with life-size characters such as Mickey Mouse.

This is not all about digital. Rather it is the live experience that counts.

The theme park has always been a way for Disney to connect with fans, ever since Disneyland opened in Los Angeles in 1955. Yet arguably "live" has become more important in the internet age because it engages in an emotional, 360-degree way that the virtual world cannot match.

Disneyland Paris reinforces the brand and generates big revenues as families splash out on entry passes, accommodation and merchandising.

Euro Disney, the listed company that runs the park and is half-owned by Disney, has annual sales of over ¤1.2billion. Revenues rose 7% in the past quarter, thanks in part to an increase from the UK. Around one in eight visitors are Britons.

Little wonder that rival children's brands have been looking at theme parks this year - albeit on a smaller scale. Viacom opened Nickelodeon Land in Blackpool and Entertainment One has Peppa Pig World in Hampshire. Disney has no UK theme park but sees live events as important - from West End musical The Lion King to a newly revamped Disney store in Oxford Street, which has a daily opening and closing ceremony and digital touch-screens where shoppers can watch their favourite movie clips.

Disney Goes Hawaiian

Barrons: This week, Walt Disney unveils its first hotel and timeshare project that isn't connected to a theme park, in a master-planned resort community on the west side of Hawaii's Oahu. It's similar to Disney's multigenerational cruise offerings, only at the beach and sans life rafts. "This isn't Disneyland. This has never been done, within Disney or not," says Jeffrey Stone, founder of The Resort Group, the Honolulu-based developer of Ko Olina, where the resort is located.

The $800 million project is called Aulani, Hawaiian for "messenger from a higher authority," owing to Disney's intent to tell the story of Hawaiian history and culture throughout the site. There are still tricked-out swimming pools, character-hosted breakfasts—and the Black Pearl pirate ship of Johnny Depp fame is moored nearby. This is Disney, after all. But accommodations aren't Mickey Mouse—witness amenities such as teen-only spas and adult-only pools.

Disney has also given the Hawaiian economy a shot in the arm during a woeful slump in construction and tourism. The company projects it will have generated 4,800 jobs and $634 million in economic activity during the construction phase alone, which will be completed in early 2013. Timing couldn't be better, after an already punk tourism industry was weakened further by disasters in Japan, whose tourists tend to favor Oahu over neighboring islands. Ironically, Japanese affinity for all things Disney helped Oahu and Ko Olina snare the project, which should augur well for the "Five-0." Mahalo, Mickey.

23 Riders Stuck on Disney Coaster

KTLA: Nearly two-dozen people had to be rescued when a roller-coaster at Disneyland's California Adventure theme park came to a halt Friday afternoon.

According to the Anaheim Fire Department, an object fell from one of the cars on the California Screamin' ride around 6:30 p.m. Friday.

The object, later identified to be a backpack, fell onto the track while ride was upside down, causing the ride to stop.

Firefighters used ladders to rescue all 23 riders. No injuries were reported

The bag was removed from the track and the ride was not reopened Friday, according to Disney officials.

In 2005, 33 people were injured on the roller-coaster when the brakes failed.

Animal Kingdom Lodge Earns Devoted Following

Orlando Sentinel: Ten years ago, amid a national recession, Walt Disney World opened what may have been the toughest-to-sell hotel it had ever built: a high-end resort themed as a simple African village, erected on Disney World's western fringe and away from its busiest theme parks, and whose central attraction was real-life zebras rather than animated mice.

Today, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge isn't Disney's biggest hotel, or its most popular. But it has carved out a loyal niche from among the millions of people who visit Disney World every year, making it one of the most resilient of the giant resort's nearly two-dozen hotels.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary by earning a coveted Four Diamond rating from the AAA travel club, demonstrated its strength during the most recent recession. Disney says the lodge churned out higher-than-average occupancy rates during the downturn, even as resort-wide occupancy sank from a peak of 93 percent to low of 81 percent.

Disney executives say the Animal Kingdom Lodge does particularly well with two key pools of travelers: animal lovers and repeat visitors.

The strength with animal lovers is easy to explain. The hotel's biggest, draw, after all, is a 40-acre wildlife preserve filled with more than 200 animals. Thirty species are spread over four Disney-created "savannahs," from long-necked giraffes to tiny Thompson's gazelles.

Approximately 70 percent of the lodge's 1,681 rooms — which includes 360 time-share units built in recent years — have balconies overlooking the savannahs. And the animals spend 22 hours a day grazing in view of guests.

But Disney says it is the many subtler touches to have earned the lodge a devoted following.

The lodge, for instance, is home to the largest publicly displayed collection of African art outside of the continent. More than 800 artifacts are on display between Jambo House and Kidani Village — the two buildings that constitute the lodge — from royal drinking horns out of Cameroon to a 16-foot-high Ijele mask that is the first of its kind ever to leave Nigeria.

Similarly, the lodge boasts the largest collection of South African wines outside South Africa, with 167 varietals served across three table-service restaurants and one counter-service eatery.

Disney also recruits roughly 90 "cultural representatives" from African countries every year, to staff the lodge with local experts who are encouraged to tell guests stories about their homes.

Disney Planning Another Ride-Inspired Film

Disney's Matterhorn

The Province: As its fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film races to the billion-dollar mark at the worldwide box office, Disney is developing an adventure movie based on another theme-park attraction.

This time it's the Matterhorn rollercoaster ride, also known as the Matterhorn Bobsleds, which has been part of Disneyland's Fantasyland section since 1959.

The studio has hired Jason Dean Hall to write a script for the project, which has a working title of The Hill. The idea is to do a thrilling, fast-paced movie centring on five young adventure seekers who, for mysterious reasons, are called to the top of the mountain and encounter Yetis on the journey down.

The Matterhorn ride was inspired by Walt Disney's desire for a tobogganthemed roller-coaster, as well as a trip to Switzerland, the location of the famed Matterhorn mountain. The ride, a centrepiece of the park, was refurbished in 1978, with one of the upgrades being the addition of three automatronic Abominable Snowmen, or yetis, who growl at riders.

Adapting rides into films is clearly a priority for Disney. Pirates of the Caribbean is the most successful of the ridesturned-movies, generating $3.7 billion worldwide over four films.

A movie was made out of the Haunted Mansion and another is being developed. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a Disney film, then a theme park ride, and is now being rebooted as a David Fincher film. But the ultimate theme park movie might be Disney's Magic Kingdom, which is set entirely in the park. That project is being developed by writer Michael Chabon and director Jon Favreau.

Disney Presents 'Star Tours 3.5'

Florida Today:  Just in time for Star Wars Weekends, Disney's Hollywood Studios opened its revamped Star Tours attraction on Friday, adding 3-D effects and other improvements.

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas and Disney president and CEO Bob Iger joined thousands of fans, as well as some favorite characters from the movie, to board Starspeeder 1000 flight motion simulators. In addition to adding 3-D effects, the new Star Tours features R2-D2, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, and Chewbacca.

"We decided to place our storyline between the two sets of Star Wars trilogies, giving the project the working title 'Star Tours 3.5,' " Tom Fitzgerald, executive vice president and senior creative executive, Walt Disney Imagineering, said in a press release. "This time period gave our show team the ability to tap into the very best of the 'Star Wars' characters and adventures.

"But turning the clock back also required some interesting changes for the Star Tours show. The Starspeeder 3000 would need to be an earlier model, the Starspeeder 1000, with a new pilot..."

The original Star Tours attraction opened in late 1989, 10 years before the three "Star Wars" prequels were released. The original attraction was powered down in 2010 so Imagineers could begin work on the new version.


The fun begins even before visitors board their craft. C-3PO and R2-D2 are the first to greet guests waiting in line, and Animatronic characters add comic relief to the wait. At the end of the line, riders walk through a heat-sensor before boarding their simulator.

"It was fantastic," said Victor Gory of Toronto, Canada. "When you have been such a fan for 30 years, it just makes it that much better."

And repeat visits are encouraged. The attraction features more than 50 story combinations, so it's unlikely a guest will have the same experience twice. For an added touch, one rider in each ship may be identified as a Rebel spy.

"Star Wars" characters including Yoda, Admiral Ackbar and Boba Fett pop up to offer help -- or hindrance -- during the journey.Actor Anthony Daniels, who played C-3PO in the movies, was in Orlando on Friday.

"Wow! Back in the gold suit for the first time since 'Revenge of the Sith,' but on this occasion in front of a beloved Starspeeder," he said in the press release. While greeting guests Friday, he admitted the costume wasn't very comfortable. "It was awful," he said. "I could see straight ahead for thousands of miles, but you had to be so careful to not bump into other things."

The revamped attraction opened Friday at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando. It will open June 3 at Disneyland in California. "The ride is so cool," Fernanda Marino of Orlando said. "Even if you are not a fan you should come out and see it."

New Disney Cruise Ship Details Revealed

Disney Fantasy

Cruise Critic: Disney Cruise Line has unveiled its design plans for the 4,000-passenger Disney Fantasy, which is scheduled for launch next spring.

While retaining many of the design elements of its sibling Disney Dream (including the AquaDuck, the semi-thrilling water coaster onboard), there are a few new elements:

"Animation Magic": The dinner show takes place in the Animator's Palate restaurant and features a salute to animation, starring Mickey Mouse himself. Expect a wide range of Disney icons to appear, via animation, and an homage to "Be Our Guest" from "Beauty and the Beast."

Europa: This adults-only entertainment district will include bars and lounges and give off a European vibe. Venues include O'Gill's Pub, an Irish bar, and Skyline, which will provide bird's-eye views of European capitals.

"Disney's Aladdin -- A Musical Spectacular": Rub the lamp, and poof -- new stage entertainment appears. This Broadway-style show will occupy the 1,340-seat Walt Disney Theatre.

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique: The theme park stalwart makes the leap to the high seas. Kids can be transformed into princesses and pirates, courtesy of a staff keen on giving wee ones the royal treatment.

More Storybook Rooms on Disney's Radar

Orlando Sentinal: Walt Disney World's soon-to-open princess-themed "Royal Rooms" in Disney's Port Orleans Resort are the second chapter in what resort executives have dubbed "storybook rooms," which are more intricately themed than Disney's conventional hotel rooms and are linked to specific company franchises.

They may not be the last chapter, though. Disney considered several other storybook possibilities before launching the renovations, including rooms themed around the Haunted Mansion theme-park attraction and Princess-and-the-Frog-themed rooms conceived specifically for the Alligator Bayou section of Port Orleans.

Disney says all three concepts tested well. And while it decided to go forward only with the Royal Rooms for now, resort officials say the other concepts remain possibilities for future hotel renovations.

That said, the "Royal Rooms" proved an obvious first choice, according to Disney.

Mark Rucker, vice president of lodging for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, said princess rooms scored better in surveys than the resort's first story-book effort: pirate-themed rooms in a wing of Caribbean Beach Resort, which opened in 2009.

"If the research is any indication of how well they'll do, we're going to feel pretty good," Rucker said.

Ageing Euro Disney Feeling the Pinch

Daily Mail: Euro Disney is scrambling to convince lenders to boost its budget for refurbishments following an accident at the ageing theme park which left five visitors injured, one seriously.

Europe’s biggest visitor attraction, which is quoted on the Euronext stock market, turned 19 this month, but the fanfare and fireworks which usually mark its birthdays have been put on ice.

An investigation by French prosecutors into the incident on Easter Sunday – one of the park’s busiest days of the year – follows a probe by France’s stock exchange watchdog. The Financial Markets Authority is looking into an unexplained spike in Euro Disney shares over a 10-day period in February. And after scenery fell on to a roller-coaster French prosecutors said they will investigate charges of ‘involuntary injury’ against Euro Disney.

The accident happened on one of the park’s most popular attractions, the runaway mine train, which was due to begin a month-long refurbishment next month. The investigation is sure to raise questions about the upkeep of the attraction and comes at a crucial time as Euro Disney battles to increase its investment budget.

Attendance fell 2.6 per cent to 15 million last year as more holidaymakers chose to stay at home. In the year to September 30, Euro Disney’s revenue grew 3 .7 per cent to ($1.9 billion) due to a ($103 million) windfall from the sale of a shopping mall.

However, it was pushed into a ($66.9 million) net loss after making repayments on ($2.8 billion) of debt used to fund construction and that still sits on its books.

Last year, as a result of missing performance targets it deferred ($66.9 million)of interest and royalty fees to the Walt Disney Company, which owns 39.8 per cent of Euro Disney. As a result of reaching the maximum amount which could be deferred, Euro Disney was forced into negotiations with lenders over its annual recurring investment budget.

This specifically covers renovation of its assets and the annual report revealed that if no agreement is reached with lenders the budget for 2011 will fall by approximately ($37 million from its total of ($109.4 million) last year.

Euro Disney usually celebrates its major anniversaries with new ride openings to drive visitor numbers. But the park has no net profit to fund expansion.

Its 2010 annual report highlights this problem by revealing that the company’s ‘high degree of leverage and its financial covenant obligations. . .can have important consequences for its business, such as limiting the Group’s ability to make capital investments in new attractions and maintenance of the Theme Parks and Hotels, both of which are essential to its business, in particular to continue to attract guests’.

Disney World Converting Rooms to Princess-Themed Suites

Orlando Sentinel: Walt Disney World is converting some of its 25,000 hotel rooms into moderately priced, princess-themed rooms and high-end, "health-and-wellness" suites, in a bid to carve out new niches from within its existing hotels.

The overhauls are part of a directive across the Walt Disney Co.'s theme-park division to develop more specialty hotel rooms that appeal to targeted demographics. The initiative includes the company's first new hotel in Orlando in nearly a decade: Disney's Art of Animation Resort, in which more than half of the roughly 2,000 hotel rooms will be basic suites aimed at budget-conscious families.

"We are really putting significant focus and intensity and resources into driving that strategy," said Mark Rucker, vice president of lodging for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Major Construction Finished on Disney Hawaii Resort

eTurboNews: (On Friday) in a ceremony on the lagoon fronting the site of Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa, Ko Olina, Hawai'i, local crew members from Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company, Inc. joined with Disney cast members (employees) to celebrate the completion of major structural work on the Disney resort and the beginning of Disney's "time to add the magic."

The event was a symbolic representation of the shared efforts of Disney and Hawaiian Dredging in building the new resort, which will welcome its first guests on Aug. 29, 2011. The construction crew and Aulani Disney team met on the beach to exchange gifts – lei from the construction workers to the Disney cast, and Mickey Mouse ears from the Disney cast to the construction workers. As part of the milestone moment, Hawaiian Dredging "handed over the keys" to the people who will add final detailing, theming, landscaping and all the other magical touches guests expect to find at a Disney resort.

Djuan Rivers, vice president of Disney Vacation Club and Resort, Hawai'i, joined with Eric Hashizume, vice president of Hawaiian Dredging and Elliot Mills, managing director of Aulani, to bring the construction workers and Disney team members together to begin "adding the magic" to Aulani. They gathered on the sand to form the image of the trademark Aulani arch and then transformed it into the familiar silhouette of Mickey Mouse. Mickey, Minnie and their Disney character pals joined in the celebration.

As Walt Disney Imagineers continue adding the magic to Aulani, they are weaving Hawaiian stories into the buildings, interiors, art and gardens of the resort with the help of local architects, artisans and historians. The celebrated Disney magic, storytelling and service will create wonderful family vacation memories at the resort, drawing on the beauty, fun, enchantment and traditions of the islands.

Tokyo Disney Reopens 5 Weeks After Quake

AFP: Five weeks after Japan's quake, tsunami and nuclear crisis struck, Tokyo Disneyland threw open its doors again Friday, bringing some welcome relief to thousands of disaster-weary families.

Mickey Mouse greeted and hugged many of the 10,000 visitors who had queued up, some of them all night, outside the giant theme park, which had been shut despite suffering only minor damage in the tectonic disaster of March 11.

Many guest were visibly relieved to revel in Disney's fantasy world amid the grim realities of an ongoing nuclear crisis and scores of recent strong aftershocks from the massive seabed quake that have badly strained nerves.

To celebrate its reopening, the park put on a colourful musical parade of floats featuring Disney characters at the facility located on reclaimed land on the outskirts of Tokyo at Urayasu in Chiba prefecture.

"I was touched and encouraged to see the happy smiles of our guests," said Kyoichiro Uenishi, president of Oriental Land Co., which operates the Tokyo Disney resort under a licence from the Walt Disney group.

He said that while some people thought it was too early to go back to normal, "we were also prompted by many to reopen early, to create an environment to cheer people up".

Despite the lashings of Disney magic, the atmosphere was somewhat subdued as some lights were switched off amid a nationwide electricity saving campaign prompted by damage to atomic plants and the power grid. The park also stopped some fountains and waterfalls, turned down air-conditioning systems, and shortened its opening hours to 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, four hours less than usual at this time of year.

The only major attraction at the park to be closed for now was "Big Thunder Mountain," under repair because of quake damage to its rock surface. The park resumed operations on the 28th anniversary of its 1983 opening as the first Disneyland outside the United States, which was later followed by Disney theme parks in Paris and Hong Kong.

The adjacent Tokyo DisneySea park remains closed for the time being, but the operator said it hopes to reopen it soon too.

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Disney Breaks Ground on Shanghai Theme Park

CTV News: Dipping golden shovels into a trench of sand, Walt Disney Co. executives and their Shanghai partners broke ground Friday for a long-sought theme park that will feature the world's biggest "Magic Kingdom" castle, and ambitions to match.

The 24.5 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion) park in Shanghai's southeastern suburbs is meant to serve as a brand-building cornerstone, luring legions of newly affluent Chinese with world-class facilities that will be "authentically Disney, but distinctly Chinese," said Disney CEO Bob Iger.

"Today is the culmination of many years of hard work, dedication and partnership," Iger said. "This is a defining moment in our company's history."

After over a decade of haggling, Shanghai's communist leaders seemed equally enthusiastic about the project, which will serve as an anchor for an "international tourism resort zone" with hotels and other large-scale entertainment venues. It will be Disney's fourth theme park outside the U.S., after Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

"Disney is a classic urban entertainment brand," said the city's mayor, Han Zheng. "This project will help improve Shanghai's profile as a world famous tourism destination."

The project is a new showcase for this city of 22 million, whose aspirations as a tourism destination were fortified by the 2010 World Expo. It drew a record 72 million visitors during its six-month run, almost all of them Chinese tourists.

Initial plans call for the Shanghai park, at 91 hectares, to be even smaller than the 125 hectare one in Hong Kong, which is now undergoing expansion by about a quarter. But the surrounding resort area in Shanghai, at 390 hectares will be more than twice the size of the Disney resort in Hong Kong, making comparisons of size between the two venues difficult, said Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, calling it "apples and oranges."

"Any park that we build is designed to grow over time," Staggs said, citing Walt Disney's line that his parks were "never finished." "It's clear there is plenty of room for growth here," Iger said.

The Shanghai park will have several advantages going for it, including the general lack of historic attractions in the region, which is home to over 300 million people all looking for ways to spend their growing incomes and leisure time. Details of the park's design are still being worked out, but plans call for it to feature Disney's biggest castle, an "attraction unto itself," a spacious green area, a lake and plenty of space for anticipated huge crowds, Iger said.

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Construction to Begin Friday on Shanghai Disney

Bloomberg: Walt Disney Co. and its partner in a proposed theme park in Shanghai scheduled an April 8 groundbreaking for the project, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

Disney scheduled an event, with government-owned partner Shanghai Shendi Group Co., in an e-mail (dated 4/1) without elaborating. Construction begins that day, said the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The start of construction marks a milestone in a five-year process involving negotiations with city and central government officials. Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger and Parks & Resorts Chairman Thomas Staggs will attend, said one of the people. The park’s size, investment commitments and final approval from Beijing’s central government will be announced as well, the people said.

Iger said at the shareholder meeting on March 23 that Disney, the world’s largest theme-park operator, was close to receiving final approval for its first resort on mainland China, the world’s most-populous nation. A public-comment period on the plans ends on April 6.

The Magic Kingdom will open in “about five years,” Staggs said at an investor meeting on Feb. 17. The first phase calls for an investment of 24.5 billion yuan ($3.7 billion), Han Zheng, Shanghai’s mayor, said in March.

Shanghai has designated a 7-square-kilometer (1,730 acres) tourist zone that will include the Disney park. The first phase will also include hotels, car parks, a lake and commuter stations, according to a blueprint posted on the Shanghai city website last month.

Shanghai also plans to spend 4 billion yuan on a 9.2- kilometer (5.7-mile) subway line for the complex in the city’s Pudong area. Construction will begin in September and the line is scheduled to open by July 2015, according to a Jan. 18 government statement. The city government started building infrastructure for the project last year, Jiang Shujie, deputy director of the city’s construction and transport commission, said on Jan. 7.

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