I have been to Walt Disney World five times in 25 years, from my first visit at age four to my Disney honeymoon last fall. Five visits isn’t much to brag about, and that number is easily eclipsed – yearly – by Florida locals with season passes and Disney fanatics with frequent flier miles. I’ve been to all four resort parks, but there’s still a lot of Disney World that I’ve never experienced, including Epcot’s International Flower & Garden/Food & Wine Festivals, the Disney marathon, and the spectacular holiday lights.
A view of Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, photograph by Valerie Champagne
Although I occasionally suffer Disney withdrawal symptoms, I’m happy with the infrequency of my park visits. Other than saving $$, the greatest advantage to visiting the parks every few years is that the magic never gets old (even when you do!), and there’s always something new to see.
I don’t remember much about my first visit to Disney World, other than watching my two-year-old brother transform into a hitchhiking ghost at the end of the Haunted Mansion ride. There were four of us squeezed into the Doom Buggies: my parents on the ends and my brother and I in the center where the ghosts are projected. The Haunted Mansion was my first Disney memory and it’s still one of my absolute favorite Disney attractions that only gets better with age.
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The Disney Princess franchise, which features a line-up of Disney’s most beloved heroines, is one of Disney Consumer Products’ most successful campaigns, helping raise product sales from $300 million in 2001 to $3 billion in 2005. The success of the line is far from surprising; after all, what little girl doesn’t fantasize about growing up to be a beautiful princess like Cinderella or a kick-ass warrior like Mulan? Disney Princess merchandise makes the fantasy come alive through costumes, clothes, dolls, tea party sets, sing-along CDs, bedding, accessories, castle play sets, books, figurines, and more.
Seven of the princesses featured in the current Disney Princess line, copyright Disney
Officially, the current line includes nine “princesses”: Snow White, Pocahontas, Aurora, Ariel, Tiana, Cinderella, Jasmine, Belle, and Mulan. In the past decade other characters have made unofficial appearances in the line, and recently Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled has been featured in a number of Disney Princess sets. Given Tangled‘s enormous success at the box office, it is likely that Rapunzel will soon join the ranks as an official Disney Princess.
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Although there’s been little disclosed about Pixar’s 13th feature (and 10th non-sequel), Brave, scheduled for release on June 22nd, 2012, the film is already eagerly anticipated. Pixar is branching into new territory with its first ever fairy-tale film, and if it’s anything like Disney’s recent Tangled or any one of Pixar’s mega-hits, it’s going to be fantastic.
Concept art from Pixar's Brave, copyright Disney-Pixar
Pixar’s 16-year track record is exceptional, and even its weakest installment, Cars, garnered a respectable 74% approval rating on RottenTomatoes, a higher score than 60% of the Disney animated features released in the last decade. It’s hard to find fault in a production company that dedicated to the quality of its storytelling and so consistently excellent that it produces hit after lovable hit. But one thing that’s always vexed me is that not one of Pixar’s eleven features (twelve, if you count Cars 2) has a female protagonist as the central character.
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There are very few real-life princes and princesses in the world, and today an enraptured world watched a fairy tale come to life as Prince William, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, married his sweetheart Kate Middleton, now Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton marry, Source: Reuters
The ceremony was appropriately royal, taking place in one of the world’s most beautifully lavish Gothic churches with 2,000 high-profile guests and 2 billion world viewers. The bells rang, the choir sung, and the couple departed the church in a horse-drawn carriage for a royal processional through the streets of London on the way to Buckingham Palace, parading before the throng of citizens straining for a glimpse of the beloved royal couple.
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On April 30th, the current Blu-ray and DVD releases of three animated classics: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Diamond Edition, Pinocchio: 70th Anniversary Edition, and Fantasia/Fantasia 2000: 2 Movie Collection Special Edition are going back in the Disney Vault.
On April 30th, 2011, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 return to the Disney Vault
In the 1940s, the Walt Disney Company began to theatrically re-release its animated features every few years as a way to introduce these beloved classics to new generations of children. The re-issued films performed well at the box office, earning hundreds of millions of dollars while helping to recoup losses from some of the company’s less successful films. The re-issues also helped several Disney films climb the ranks of the All Time Domestic Box Office Chart (Adjusted for Inflation), including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (#10), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (#11), and Fantasia (#21).
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