Disneyland Paris is preparing a programme full of surprises for the Christmas season, including a brand-new Christmas parade that will magically transform at night.
Disneyland Paris will also celebrate the return of the resorts nighttime spectacular Disney’s Illuminations on December 21.
This October The Lion King: Rhythms of the Pride Lands show is returning.
Disneyland Paris will be introducing a new Disability Access scheme from Friday 3 December 2021.
The new scheme will see a total overhaul of Disability Access protocols at Disney’s European resort.
The Disability Priority Card and Easy Access Card processes are being updated to increase the number of accessible attractions at the resort with the mandatory carer requirement to ride many attractions being removed.
New colour coded categories focusing on what guests can do rather than what they cannot is to be introduced.
For the first time guests with a disability will be able to apply for a Disability Access Pass before their visit to the resort via an online questionnaire on the Disneyland Paris website.
Under the new scheme Disability Passes will feature a photograph of the bearer with a QR code, which will be scanned by Cast Members at attractions to verify the validity of the card and to assign ride return times.
One change that will raise some concerns will be the removal of the existing 10% discount for disabled guests and their free carer tickets. This will l be replaced by a 25% discount for both the disabled guest and their carer.
Further details of the new scheme will be announced closer to its implementation.
By Jonathan Lewis-Jones 10/10/2021
All that remains of the Disney Store at the Grand Arcade Shopping Centre in Cambridge, England is an empty retail unit.
The pop-up store opened in 2019 and closed last month as part of the controversial decision by The Walt Disney Company to move retail operations online and close the majority of their Disney Stores in North America and Europe.
“While consumer behavior has shifted toward online shopping, the global pandemic has changed what consumers expect from a retailer,” Stephanie Young, President of Consumer Products, Games and Publishing, at the Walt Disney Company said in a statement.
“Over the past few years, we’ve been focused on meeting consumers where they are already spending their time, such as the expansion of Disney store shop-in-shops around the world,” Young said. “We now plan to create a more flexible, interconnected e-commerce experience that gives consumers easy access to unique, high-quality products across all our franchises.”
The only Disney store remaining open in the United Kingdom is the flagship Disney Store in Oxford Street London.
The closings don’t affect the more than the 600 stores inside the Disney theme parks and other locations, including the Disney shops inside third-party stores.
Disney Stores in Asia remain unaffected by the move where consumer spending on the high street remains strong, especially in China and Japan.
The London Resort Company has announced that building work on its proposed London Resort theme park in Kent will commence in 2022 when the planning application is expected to be accepted.
The theme park will be built inside The London Resort development on 29.5 hectares of land in the Swanscombe Peninsula, Kent, England.
The project, encompassing houses, hotels with 3,500 rooms and shopping districts, is estimated to cost £3.5 billion.
The project will be the first theme park of its kind in Europe to be built from scratch since Disneyland Paris opened in 1992.
London Resort Company CEO PY Gerbeau said: “To all the naysayers and doom-mongers, the London Resort is going ahead, as planned.”
He added: “It is a day to celebrate British innovation and technological wizardry”.
The plans for the park have it set to open by 2024, although the specific date is not yet known.
However, The London Resort Company have plans to make this a two park resort, with the first park opening in 2024, followed by and the second park in 2029, after another five years of further development.
“We will be the first theme park across Europe to be built from scratch in nearly 30 years.”
70 per cent of the park’s attractions are to be built under shelter, future visitors need not worry about the temperamental English weather.
The resort will be made up of six separate ‘lands’ and visitors will enter through a grand plaza, where they will be greeted by a range of shops, restaurants and hotels, before leading them through to an area known as ‘The High Street’.
Following on from this, visitors will find ‘The Studios’, which will be set with “the exhilarating thrills of big, blockbuster features” and designed to look like a warehouse business park.
To the north, visitors will discover ‘The Woods’ – an area described by The London Resort Company as where the “young-at-heart will be invited to step through the pages of a storybook” and into a fairytale.
Another area is known as ‘The Kingdom’, where visitors can explore an immersive land filled with history and magic such as castles and swords, as well as dragons, sorcery and mythical Arthurian legends.
Other regions include ‘The Isles’ which feature thrill rides, and ‘The Jungle’, which is designed to be an overgrown, strange and mystical land for visitors to explore.
The sixth land will be known as ‘Star Port’ and will be focused on creating a futuristic experience for visitors, along with several rides to enjoy.
The Liverpool Disney Store is closing its doors this week after more than a decade at the Liverpool ONE shopping centre.
The Disney Store has informed customers of its impending closure ‘on or before’ this Friday 8 October 2021.
The Liverpool ONE shop has a large sign outside, in a nod to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, which says: “Thank you for being our guest”.
The notice continues: “This store will close on or before Friday 8th October. You’ll still be able to find amazing items from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic plus lots more magic at shopDisney.co.uk.”
During the 1990s Liverpool’s original Disney Store was located in Clayton Square before relocating to the Liverpool ONE shopping centre in 2008.
As previously reported all the Disney Stores in the UK are set to close except the London flagship store in Oxford Street.
Variety are reporting that Disney and Scarlett Johansson have settled their legal dispute over the release of “Black Widow”.
Johansson sued The Walt Disney Company two months ago, accusing them of breaching her contract with Marvel Studios when Disney offered the movie on the Disney+ streaming service while the Marvel superhero movie was still showing in cinemas.
Johansson’s management team said the decision meant that she was deprived of potential earnings of $50 million.
Details of the deal between Disney and Johansson have not been disclosed.
TWDC revealed in a filing in August that “Black Widow” had grossed $125 million on streaming, in addition to its $367 million box office gross.
Johansson has said that she was pleased to have resolved her differences with Disney and looked forward to further collaboration.
“I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done together over the years and have greatly enjoyed my creative relationship with the team,” her statement said.
“I’m very pleased that we have been able to come to a mutual agreement with Scarlett Johansson regarding Black Widow,” Alan Bergman, content chairman for Disney Studios, said in a statement.
“We appreciate her contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and look forward to working together on a number of upcoming projects, including Disney’s Tower of Terror,” he added.
Warner Bros., which released its entire 2021 film slate with the same hybrid model, paid out handsome sums to compensate its stars for lost revenue.
