Friday, October 4, 2013
Walt Disney World Transportation Map
Inspired by the legendary design of the London Underground map, here an amazing map of Walt Disney World transportation buses and monorails, in high-res!
Thursday, October 3, 2013
The Theme Park Guy is Back, with great pictures of Shanghaî Disneyland construction site !
Stefan Zwanzger - aka the Theme Park Guy - has the scoop of the month as he succeeded to achieve the impossible: to shoot pictures of the Shanghaî Disneyland construction site! And as you can see on the pictures above and below there is plenty of activity right now on the SDL site!
It's very difficult to shot pictures of the works on the SDL site because you can't get close to it easily. But Stefan who never give up,succeeded this time! Even if for now the park and hotels are still not enough built to see clearly what will be what, it's a fascinating look at a work in progress on this highly awaited new Disney theme park, so jump right now to Stefan's website right HERE as there is plenty of others pics to see.
Stefan also shot the the Shanghaî Disney Resort map near the entrance of the site. More pictures HERE !
Pictures: copyright The Theme Park Guy
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Why Did It Took So Long ?
I know, we've passed the age to play with dolls but, hey, it's "It's a Small World" dolls! Recently released on the Disney Store online i have to admit that for once they did it right, as these dolls looks exactly as they do in the beloved ride, as Mary Blair designed them.
The most surprising is not that they're at last available but why did it took so long to Disney to release them? The merchandise potential of dolls - or anything else - inspired from It's a Small World is absolutely huge and i still can't believe it took them almost 50 years to finally make them available.
So far there is seven different dolls available as well as four plushs inspired by IASW animals. Each dolls are dressed in its original IASW costume, are 16" high ( 40 cm ) and they sing in both their native language and english! The seven dolls include the one of England...
...the one of France...
...the one from Kenya...
...the one from India...
...the one from Hawaii...
...the one from Japan...
and the one from Holland...
Considering the number of different dolls in the original attraction if they decide to do them all - which i wish - be prepared to make room in your children bedroom! Each of the dolls cost $29.95 - 22€ - which is still reasonable, but i have a bad news for those of you living outside the U.S , if you order for instance one doll and have it shipped to Europe the additional shipping is $34 ! All this because they ship it with DHL or UPS, etc... If you order three different dolls the total is $89.85 and you still have $61 of shipping. Which makes $150.85 for the three ( 111 euros ) on which you'll pay at least 20% of customs and VAT so the bill at the end should be around 135 euros which put each doll at 45 euros! ( yes, i know, it was too cool to be true, you knew that something was going to go wrong somewhere ).
So, unless you have a friend in the U.S to whom the Disney Store can send them and then your friend forward them to you, you may think twice before ordering these as-good-as-the originals- It's a Small World dolls.
That said it's indeed a good merchandise idea so here is the link to the Disney Store!
And if you prefer books to dolls... click on the pic below.
Pictures: copyright Disney
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
It's Walt Disney World 42nd Anniversary !
Forty two years ago, on October 1st, 1971, Walt Disney world - Walt's big dream - was opening. LIFE photographers were there and the magazine did a special issue two weeks later, on October 15. You can read the whole article on Google Books and here is the LIFE memorable cover as well as the original picture from the photo shoot with 1500 WDW cast-members and characters!
Pictures: copyright Time-Life
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Disneyland Paris Update : Indiana Jones Temple of Peril to be Rebuilt "in Stone" in 2014 !
Here is a new Disneyland Paris update with some amazing news about DLP Adventureland Temple of Peril as Joe Schott "DLP Directeur General Adjoint" revealed in a meeting with DLP fans that Indiana Jones Temple of Peril will be destroyed and rebuilt entirely all in REAL STONE, and the looping track, too, will be rebuilt!
I know that it's hard to believe and personally i couldn't believe it - just like you, i presume - so i double checked to make sure that it was not an April Fool at the end of September and, yes, this is really what Joe Schott said, they are really going to rebuild the temple in real "stone" like in the good old times when Pharaohs were building the Pyramids!
Works should start next year and last five months. I don't think they will rebuild the coaster structure itself as, as you can see on the great aerial picture below coming from my DLP book, the temple itself has been built around or inside the coaster structure, so they probably can rebuild the temple without touching to the coaster structure. The only thing that remain to be confirmed is if they are really going to rebuild the WHOLE temple or only a part of it? I know that all this sounds insane but no need to say that considering the financial situation of DLP if they decide to rebuild the whole temple it's not for the pleasure to spend money and there is probably a good reason behind all this.
So, i tried to learn a bit more about how the temple was built 20 years ago, in 1993, and although there is certainly a steel framework and concrete substructure to support the whole thing, it seems that a big part of the temple is in fact made of block of foams covered by cement - sculpted cement of course, or eventually sculpted concrete. One of the reasons they did it like this in 1993 seems to be because of the small budget which was available. No need to say that if the temple is really made in foam + cement it's no surprise that they need to rebuilt it twenty years later. May be they realised that the way it was built is not strong enough anymore, becoming potentially dangerous, and may be they don't have any other way to resolve the problem than to rebuild the whole thing... Well, may be they shouldn't have called it "the Temple of Peril"! Bad omen!
That said, if they rebuild the temple, may be it would be a good idea to improve the ride at the same time. There is quite a lot of ideas that were envisioned during the design at WDI and some of them included great additional decors, specially this one showing the train entering inside the head of a giant asian statue...
...or also this one showing a never built arch...
...not to mention this idea of the train entering a gorilla mouth.
And if they re-build the loop - i mean: this loop...
...may be it's the right time to remember these others concepts of a loop with the track going under and over a giant gorilla statue...
...and what about this other idea with the ride vehicle going through the mouth of a stone eagle?
But one of the easiest element to add could be this audio-animatronic tiger - coming right from the “Jungle Cruise”... It surely would be a great addition, and this one probably not so expensive. But for weather reasons it might be difficult to have this AA Tiger in open air. Also, they might think that due to the speed of the train during the ride guests won't have the time to see and enjoy the tiger. I have the solution: there is one part of the ride where they could put it, and it's at the very end when the train slow down before the arrival. What they should do is to build there a ten meters tunnel in which they'll put on the right the tiger in a small niche ( like on the artwork below ) and it'll be a great finale for the ride, at low cost as the Jungle Cruise Audio-Animatronic has very limited movements and is probably not very expensive. And they should put at the start of the tunnel the giant asian statue head, the one you can see on the first rendering above.
...as well as those audio-animatronics baby tigers which were envisioned to be part of the pre-show decor.
Editing: I just remind that these two tigers scenes were not in fact part of the original WDI story for the Temple of Peril. Those tigers scenes were done when it was announced that Esso was going to be a possible sponsor of the attraction and WDI was brainstorming to introduce scenes linked with Esso - remember the famous Esso tiger? Finally, with no budget available for the Audio-Animatronics tigers DLP Imagineers suggested logos on stuff and oil drums instead. That said, sponsor or not sponsor, if the Imagineers thought it was possible to introduce these tigers scenes without damaging the original story they could as well do it now... as long of course as the park give them the budget to do so.
DLP won't probably introduce any of these exciting ideas for budget reasons - the same reasons than twenty years ago - but what they could do more easily is to add the same fire and water effects that they did at Tokyo Disney Sea's Raging Spirits temple, which is basically an improved Temple of Peril.
Don't go away, there is a "one more thing", as Joe Schott also revealed that after the rebuild of the Temple of Peril it will be the turn of Big Thunder Mountain! No kidding. But for this Frontierland favorite the plan is not to rebuild BTM but only to increase the ride capacity. How they will do it is another question that we will talk about later. By the way, some of you might think that all these new announcements from DLP might be done in reaction to the fans petition sent recently to Bob Iger, but in fact i've been told that these projects are part of a long term strategy scheduled since 2009. That said, may be there is a link between the petition and the fact that they communicate about all this now. Anyway, even if i'm sure you would have prefer the announcement of a brand new ride, the fact that one of the park's favorite coaster will receive improvements in a near future is a great news, and of course i will let you know when works will start on the Temple of Peril.
Also, as i announced last week, now that the english collector's edition of the Disneyland Paris book is almost out of stock, we are reprinting the english edition in its normal edition, and it should be a very good news for those of you who still don't own the book but couldn't afford the 120€ price of the collector's edition. All the inside of the book will be similar with always 320 pages and the same 750 pictures including 250 WDI artworks, this time printed on a luxury "silk art matte" paper. You can place right now the pre-orders and enjoy a special pre-order price of 55€ ( + 15€ shipping worldwide ). Shipping is expected at the end of November when we will receive the books from the printer. As usual you can pay with Paypal or bank transfer and please send us an email to confirm your order at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com
For more infos about this reprinting please jump HERE, and you can also watch the video below showing the whole book.
NOTE for the french édition: Si le bouton Paypal ci-dessous ne fonctionne pas lorsque vous choisissez l'édition française merci d'envoyer le montant directement le montant depuis votre compte Paypal à: neverlandeditions@gmail.com
Pictures: copyright Disney, Daniel Rous, Altitude
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Disneyland Paris , From Sketch to Reality Book NOW AVAILABLE in ENGLISH NORMAL EDITION at the Best Price Ever - 55€ Only !
I have a great news for those of you who still don't own the Disneyland Paris, From Sketch to Reality book and couldn't afford the collector's edition price of 120 euros as we are reprinting the book in its ENGLISH regular edition, and anyone who will place his order before October 31st will enjoy a special price of 55 euros only - $74 - ( plus 15€ of shipping wherever you live on the planet ) !
Note: For those of you who have never seen a copy of the book you'll find below a video presentation of the full book which will show you each of the 320 pages of the book.
Orders can be placed by Paypal, using the Paypal Buy it now button below or by sending your Paypal payment at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com
If you don't have a Paypal account you can pay by credit card or by bank transfer, please send me an email at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com and i will let you know how to do.
Now, what are the differences between the regular edition and the collector's edition?
The english regular edition is identical to the collector's one and both have 320 pages and 750 pictures including 250 WDI artworks. What you don't have in the new regular edition is the gold printing on the jacket and cover text, a glossy paper, the four prints of Walt Disney Studios artwork and copies don't have a "number".
BUT What you will have in the new english "normal" edition is the same number of pages with exactly the same pictures and text, a printing on a beautiful "silk art matte" paper, AND, because we reprint we did an update in the Discoveryland chapter with new pages on the Buzz Lightyear ride and Space Mountain Mission 2. And also in the Adventureland chapter a gorgeous WDI artwork for the Indiana Jones Temple du Peril ride is now on a full double page. See below a full description of the book as well as a video.
We expect to ship all orders for this english updated normal edition at the end of November when we will receive the bounded copies from the printer, and of course we will let know everyone when the books will be shipped.
Here is how to do to order the book:
So, how to pre-order a copy of this updated regular edition? First, send an email at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com ( with as subject: "dlp book order" ) to let me know that you want to pre-order a copy, how many copies you want and your shipping address. Please also note that a pre-order needs to be paid to be consider as an order.
Until October 31st one copy of the english normal edition is at the special pre-order price of 55 euros, plus 15 euros only for shipping wherever you live on the planet. After October 31 the English Normal Edition will be at the price of 75 Euros. So, order your copy now to enjoy the 55€ price!
Also note that we still have a few copies of the english collector's edition available for immediate shipping and the french collector's edition is always available so you can still order these if you wish - see the choice and prices in the Paypal button menu.
How to proceed for your payment: We prefer a Paypal payment. Paypal is a very safe way to pay without giving your credit card number. For a payment with Paypal the total amount must be sent through Paypal at the email adress: neverlandeditions@gmail.com
NEW! You can now order the book directly from this page and proceed to the payment with Paypal by clicking on the "Buy it Now" Paypal button below! Don't forget to let us know your shipping address and to confirm your order and payment by sending us an email at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com
If you don't have a Paypal account: You can now pay with your credit card with Paypal EVEN if you don't have a Paypal account, or you can also pay with a bank wire transfer ( no foreign checks, sorry ). If you want to pay by credit card or do a wire transfer please let us know in your email and we will send you what you need to do it.
Below you'll find a description of the book as well as visuals of the inside pages ( click on the mosaic pictures to see them in larger scale ).
Although you've probably heard about this beautiful book, many of you may have never seen a copy of it. So we've done a video presentation of the full book which will show you each of the 320 pages of the book! The book includes 750 pictures of the park, including 250 gorgeous renderings of Walt Disney Imagineering and stunning pictures of the park seen from above. The book is so big that it took us seven and a half minutes to show you the full book, and that's without stopping turning each pages! So, if you want to have a closer look at a page don't hesitate to stop the video.
Alain Littaye
Description of the book:
The book is a gorgeous "coffee table book" with 320 pages and 750 pictures - of which 500 are park and attractions photos and 250 are Walt Disney Imagineering renderings!
The size is 9 x 12 inches, all pages are in color and it's hardbound with a glossy dust jacket. The text (by Disney historian Didier Ghez), was written after more than 75 interviews he conducted with all the Imagineers who created the park. He goes into just about everything you wanted to know about this unique place that many describe as the best "Magic Kingdom" ever created by WDI.
It took five years to create the book, but it was worth all the time we spent on it, and the book looks just as good as we had hoped for at the beginning - in fact Imagineer Bruce Gordon told us that it was "probably the best book ever done on a Disney theme park". Coming from Bruce who did with David Mumford the great "Disneyland, The Nickel Tour" book, it was more than a compliment.
The first chapter about Main Street has 52 pages and introduces the reader to the "legend" of Main Street, USA. You'll learn all about the Disneyland Paris Railroad, the unique "Discovery" and "Liberty" Arcades; find out about the architecture, the restaurants (like "Walt's," a tribute to Walt Disney, but also inspired by Club 33 in Anaheim) and the shops; with dozens of photos, renderings, models, and reproduced for the first time here, all the "cities of the future" posters located in "Discovery Arcade."
The second chapter on Frontierland discusses the park's western side with extensive sections about its major attractions, "Big Thunder Mountain" and "Phantom Manor." In fact the book has the longest sections ever put together in a book on all the major attractions. The Pirates of Caribbean section in the Adventureland chapter is 26 pages, Phantom Manor has 16 pages devoted to it, as does Space Mountain, it's a small world, etc. The photo material was so great that we kept adding more pages to the book, which was supposed to have only 240 pages when we started... we ended up with 320 upon completion!
The Frontierland chapter also covers the Mark Twain, the River Rogue Keelboats, Fort Comstock, all the restaurants, the shops and Cottonwood Creek Ranch.and featuring stunning photos of Disneyland Paris from the air by Yann Arthus Bertrand, author of The Earth from Above that make spectacular "double-pages," and allow the reader to discover the park from a whole different angle.
The Adventureland chapter is even more interesting, as many elements of the land exist only in Paris - such as the Bazaar and Aladdin to Africa and the ex-"Explorer's Club." Plus there's a long section about "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril," "Adventure Isle" and "The Swiss Robinson Treehouse" and, of course, "Pirates of Caribbean" the land's major attraction and featuring its amazing Audio-Animatronics! All in all there are 56 full pages about Adventureland, and as in the previous chapters, there are dozens of photos, lots of concept art, and many shots of Imagineers at work. There's even a great bonus here, with the Marc Davis artwork for "Pirates" also included.
56 full pages are also dedicated to Fantasyland. There's an extensive look at Sleeping Beauty Castle, sections on all the dark rides (Snow White, Peter Pan and Pinocchio), as well as a look at "Alice's Curious Labyrinth," the "Mad Hatter's Tea Cups," "Storybookland," and "Casey Jr." There are even 14 pages about "it's a small world" with stunning photos of nearly all the scenes in it. Here the reader can discover a new attraction that exists only at Disneyland Paris, with a great view from above of Alice's Labyrinth.
Discoveryland also gets 52 pages of special treatment, with sections on the Visionarium, the Nautilus, Star Tours, Space Mountain, and everything you wanted to know about the other attractions in this land – Autopia and Orbitron. In fact the Nautilus chapter takes you on a visit with photos of every room of this detailed walk-through and two double page photo spreads, one which makes you feel you're inside Captain Nemo's grand salon, and the other showing you a unique view of Discoveyland featuring the Nautilus and Space Mountain in a kind of "CinemaScope" view.
When the book was released in early 2002, the Walt Disney Studios didn't exist, so you won't see them in the book. But there's still one last chapter about the hotels of the park, and Disney Village too, with the great Buffalo Bill Wild West show that entertains hundreds each evening.
And because every day in a Magic Kingdom should end with a parade and fireworks, we have the Main Street Electrical Parade that close the book, with also an Herb Ryman gorgeous painting in the very last pages!
Order the book directly from this page and proceed to the payment with Paypal by clicking on the "Buy it Now" Paypal button below! Don't forget to let us know your shipping address and to confirm your order and payment by sending us an email at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com
Pictures: copyright Disney
Video: copyright Alain Littaye 2012
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