Have you heard the big news coming out of the Magic Kingdom? In January, new details emerged about the planned Fantasyland expansion that will more than double the size of the area with new attractions opening in 2012 and 2013. For more details on the Fantasyland expansion, click here. One of the new attractions will be The Beast’s Castle featuring the Be Our Guest Restaurant, a 552 seat dining establishment that will offer a casual counter-service lunch by day and an elegant sit-down table service dinner by night.
Concept Art of the Be Our Guest Restaurant at the Magic Kingdom, copyright Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
When it opens, the Be Our Guest Restaurant will join the ranks of more than 150 restaurants, cafes, and food courts at the Walt Disney World Resort. Many of the restaurants are ranked among the best in Orlando, from the elegant Victoria & Albert’s to the African-themed Jiko – the Cooking Place. During our Honeymoon visit to the Walt Disney World Resort last fall, my husband Matthew and I ate at several of Disney’s most popular sit-down restaurants and thoroughly enjoyed our dining experiences.
Read More: http://www.disney-blog.com/?p=542
At 30,000 apps, the Android mobile app market is minute in comparison to rival Apple’s 350,000+ applications, but in February, a free Radio Disney app – Disney’s first non carrier-exclusive app – finally joined the Android ranks.
Screenshot of the Radio Disney app for Android
Like its Apple counterpart, the app offers 24-hour live channel streams and allows users to request songs, send shout-outs, see recently played songs, add songs to a Favorites list, and learn about local Radio Disney events. And most significantly, the app has multitasking capabilities, meaning that users can listen to Radio Disney while using their phones for other things like texting, browsing the internet, and sending emails.
Read More: http://www.disney-blog.com/?p=535
In 2007, renowned portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz was hired by the Walt Disney Company to recreate some of Disney’s most iconic scenes in a series of photographs featuring Hollywood celebrities. The Disney Dream Portrait series originally began as part of the “Year of a Million Dreams” campaign to promote Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
Recently, three new photographs were added to the series, which has previously featured an eclectic mix of celebrities, from Tina Fey as Tinkerbell and Beyoncé as Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) to David Beckham as Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty. The new portraits star Olivia Wilde, Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Jeff Bridges, and Queen Latifah.
“Where magic speaks, even when you are not the fairest of them all”
Alec Baldwin as the Magic Mirror and Olivia Wilde as the Wicked Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, photograph by Annie Leibovitz
Read More: http://www.disney-blog.com/?p=513
Cast of Tokyo Disneyland, image from the Japan National Tourism Organization
The Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of the Walt Disney Company prides itself on the hospitality and friendliness of its park employees, affectionately known as “cast members”. The cast members of Japan’s two Disney theme parks, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea, recently had the opportunity to prove themselves in the aftermath of the devastating Tohoku Pacific Earthquake on March 11th, 2011.
Amidst the unfolding tragedy, Twitter offered an outlet for the people of Japan to connect with their family and friends and to share their experiences with millions of concerned world citizens. Often these Twitter feeds featured messages of hope and reports of kind deeds, both large and small, as friends and strangers banded together to survive the aftermath of the earthquake and ensuing tsunami.
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Walt Disney Studios proudly presents its 50th animated feature, Tangled, which opened Thanksgiving weekend to rave critical reviews and a strong $48.8 million opening weekend, just shy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One’s second weekend haul of $49.1 million.
If you are like me and you grew up with the best of Disney dominating your movie shelf (The Lion King, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Bambi, etc), you may still have a hard time naming 25 of these animated films, much less all 50. Below is the full list of Disney’s Animated Classics, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Tangled, with trivia about each film.
Part 5 of 5 (Atlantis: The Lost Empire through Tangled)
Screenshot from Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
41. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
- Although this is the first science-fiction film in the Disney Animated Classics cannon, many of the film’s stars are veterans of the science-fiction genre, including Michael J. Fox (Back to the Future series) and Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek series)
- The production design was based on the style of comic book artist Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, and one of four production designers who worked on the film
- This was the last film role of Jim Varney who voiced ‘Cookie’ Farnsworth in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Slinky Dog in Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story II (1999), and who starred as Ernest P. Worrell in the Ernest film series
- The producers originally planned a TV series spin-off called Team Atlantis, but when the movie underperformed at the box office, the series was scrapped, although a 2003 direct-to-video sequel Atlantis: Milo’s Return was later released
Read More: http://www.disney-blog.com/?p=358
