 Disneyland News |
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February 15, 2006: First 2006 Disneyland Podcast Debuts
This time around, host Michael Geoghegan takes listeners on a behind the scenes tour of two attractions at the Southern California theme park.
The Walt Disney Company yesterday announced that they’d made available the first 2006 episode of the “Official Disneyland Resort Podcast” series available for download from either the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or an official Disneyland site.
The monthly Disneyland podcast, said Disney, focuses this time around on the opening of the all-new attraction "Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!" at Disney's California Adventure Park and then goes backstage for a peek at the workings of the Matterhorn Bobsleds ride. Both segments include interviews with those who are involved with the attractions. The podcast is hosted by Michael Geoghegan.
The Official Disneyland Resort Podcast first debuted in October 2005. It has achieved a good ranking at iTunes, said Disney, scoring four-and-a-half stars out of five.
February 14, 2006: Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean gets Makeover
ANAHEIM - In a case of life imitating art imitating life, Disney's popular theme park attraction "Pirates of the Caribbean" will add several characters from the 2003 film it inspired.
The ride features lifelike figures that gesture and speak, called "animatronics." Several new figures, including Capt. Jack Sparrow, the character portrayed by actor Johnny Depp, and his nemesis Barbossa, played by Geoffrey Rush, will be added to the attractions at Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida, the company said.The attractions will close in March. Disneyland's will reopen in June and Florida's Magic Kingdom version will reopen in July, in time for the movie's sequel, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."
The new additions will interact with some of the current characters as they race each other to reach a treasure chest. New special effects will also be added, as will the character of Davey Jones from the new film.
"Pirates" was the last Disney theme park attraction to be personally supervised by Walt Disney and opened at Disneyland in 1967, the year after Disney's death.
The attraction includes the theme song "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)."
February 12, 2005: Disneyland Resort plans to ban smoking in resort hotels.
All 2,224 rooms at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif., will be smoke-free on March 1, says Disney Vice President Rob Doughty. Last month, Westin became the first big chain to adopt such a policy, banning smoking throughout its 77 U.S., Canadian and Caribbean lodgings.
Disney is making the move because of "steadily declining requests" for smokers' rooms at the three Disneyland hotels at the resort, Doughty says. Only 35 rooms for smokers have been reserved through 2010.
The 990-room Disneyland Hotel and the 489-room Paradise Pier Hotel will become smoke-free in March. The 745-room Grand Californian has been smoke-free since it opened five years ago.
The hotels have a high occupancy rate, and a smoking ban ensures that non-smokers are accommodated in a smoke-free room, Doughty says. Smoky rooms cost more to clean, but Disney didn't decide to go smoke-free to save money, he says.
At Walt Disney World in Orlando, there are no plans to switch to smoke-free hotels, says spokeswoman Kim Prunty. Smoking, however, is not allowed in about 95% of more than 24,000 rooms at 22 hotels there, she says.
Walt Disney World and Disneyland allow smoking only in designated areas at their theme parks. That's also the rule at the company's parks in Tokyo and Hong Kong, says Donn Walker, spokesman for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts.