Genie’s Stay Being Extended

Genie fans listen up!!!

Disney has extended showings  of  Disney’s Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular. The show was originally planned to close on August 15th to make way for the Toy Story Musical, which was scheduled to debut in 2011 at the Hyperion Theater at California Adventure, but due to fan feedback, the show’s closure has been postponed.

Disney has not yet said how long Aladdin will remain at the Hyperion but stay tuned to DLNT for updates.

Also Toy Story Musical will remain aboard the Disney Wonder for the time being.

Humbug Made Official

Disneyland has now officially announced the entertainment cutbacks for 2009:

As The Year of a Million Dreams celebration comes to a close and the Disneyland® Resort heads into 2009, entertainment offerings and show times are being updated for the kick-off of “What will you celebrate?” 

Disneyland Park 

  • A Christmas Fantasy Parade and “Believe In Holiday Magic” Fireworks Spectacular will run through Sunday, Jan. 4 to close out the holiday season.
  • Disney’s Princess Fantasy Faire will have its last showings of the Royal Coronation Ceremony and Disney Princess Storytelling on Sunday, Jan. 4. Disney Princess Meet & Greet will continue to remain at the Fantasyland Theatre.
  • “Remember Dreams Come True” Fireworks Spectacular will return to the skies above Disneyland® on Jan. 17-19 (Martin Luther King Jr. weekend) and Feb. 13-16 (President’s Day weekend). The show is scheduled to make a full return in March 2009. 
  • Fantasmic! will continue to run daily through most of January and February. 
  • Walt Disney’s Parade of Dreams will not return to Disneyland® Park after the holidays. There will be no parades at Disneyland® Park after the holidays due to track work being done on Main Street, U.S.A. 
  • Celebrate! A Street Party will make its debut down Main Street, U.S.A. in Disneyland® Park on March 27. 

Disney’s California Adventure Park 

  • Disney’s Electrical Parade will have its final run on Sunday, Jan. 4 at Disney’s California Adventure® Park and will not return until June 12 for the summer season. 

Beginning Monday January 5th:

  • Pixar Play Parade at Disney’s California Adventure® Park will be dark on Mondays and Tuesdays. 
  • High School Musical 3: Right Here! Right Now! will be dark on Mondays through Thursdays. 
  • Disney’s Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular will be dark on Wednesdays and Thursdays. 

All entertainment offerings are subject to change without notice.

More End Dates

We once again have some updates to the attraction refurbishment list for you. First up, as previously reported, today is the last day for the Indiana Jones Summer of Hidden Mysteries, which includes the Secret of the Stone Tiger & Random Acts of Indy shows. Various reports have been saying that the Oasis theater (home to Secret of the Stone Tiger) will not have any shows performing in it until next summer. Yet another classic example of cost-cutting!

We finally have dates for when 2 of the 3 former McDonalds locations at the Resort will open without McDonalds. Harbor Galley is planned to re-open on December 16th. Burger Invasion will re-open sometime in May 2009! But we do not yet have a date on when the Conostoga Wagon will re-open. All 3 close tomorrow.

Disney’s Electrical Parade will return on December 19th, & Disney’s Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular will now return on December 12th, as opposed to December 19th, with a partial new cast.

Finally, a short refurbishment for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will be conducted from December 1st to the 5th.

Stay tuned to Disneyland News Today for updates on all attraction refurbishments. And for up-to-the-minute information on the various refurbishments, be sure to check our Attraction Refurbishments page!

Refurb Season Is Coming!

UPDATED @ 11:00AM

We have a few more updates for you to the attractions refurbishment list. First up, over in Entertainment, for the week of August 25th, both Disney’s Electrical Parade & Fantasmic! will not be offered on the Monday through Thursday, due to a lot of kids being back at school. The following week, both will go on hiatus. Fantasmic! will return on November 7th, & Disney’s Electrical Parade will return in mid December.

August 17th will be the last day for the lovely Ariel’s Grotto meet ‘n greet. Work will then begin on changing over that area to Pixie Hollow for Tinker Bell & her fellow Fairies. So if you want your picture taken with Ariel in her Mermaid form, August 17th will be your last day to do it until 2010!

The New Orleans Square Railroad Station will close on September 2nd for repaving of the station & surrounding area (including the area in front of the Haunted Mansion). Trains will just go straight through that station, & continue on to Toontown. It’s due to re-open on October 17th.

Big Thunder Ranch will be closed from September 15th to the 25th (it originally was planned to be closed until the 27th) so they can add the Woody’s Halloween Round-up overlay. It will then be closed from November 3rd until the 20th for the Santa’s Reindeer Round-up overlay.

The previously planned Pirates of the Caribbean refurbishment that was to of gone from October 13th to November 14th seems to have been completely removed from the list.

A second Mark Twain Riverboat refurbishment will happen in November (the first is from August 25th-29th), from the 3rd to the 5th.

Finally for Disneyland Park, the new store, replacing New Century Timepieces will open September 30th, & the It’s a Small World Toy Shop will open before the attraction on September 28th. And over at It’s a Small World itself, the new flume has been painted.

One quick thing over at DCA, the Hyperion Theater refurbishment that starts on September 2nd, finally has an end date, that being December 18th.

Stay tuned to Disneyland News Today for updates on all attraction refurbishments. And for up-to-the-minute information on the various refurbishments, be sure to check our Attraction Refurbishments page!

Electric Screams of Color: The Musical, This Christmas

Screamscape have posted a few interesting rumors from through-out the Resort, some of which we have already reported, but they give extra backing to what we have already said:

Some improvements are slated to be made to the Electrical Parade for Summer 2009. First off it seems that the California parade will import a couple of floats from the old Paris parade, namely a new Pinnochio float and the Diamond Mine float. Meanwhile we’ve heard that the Blue Fairy float is likely to be on the way out and will be replaced with a brand spankin’ new Tinker Bell float that will serve as the new lead float for the parade. Apparently the float itself will still use the old-school style lights like the rest of the parade, but Tink herself will be covered in new LED lights instead. Speaking of LEDs… apparently the plan is to install a few new LED effects in all the floats so that Tink can create some kind of magic effect at the start that will travel back through the rest of the floats in the parade.

While the improvements to the parade are likely to happen, the only question is if it will be in DCA or Disneyland.

In a disappointing twist, it seems that the real world Wall-E may not be coming to California Adventure after all. If the rumors are true something may have gone amiss with the first robot that we’ve all seen clips of already, that may be caused them to drop or delay plans to bring one to the park. Also due to construction on the Little Mermaid ride, there will not be another Golden Screams show held this fall. They may come up with some kind of replacement Villains concept in the Hollywood Backlot instead. And the fun news is that the new DCA Preview Center that will show off all the proposed changed coming to the park may be ready to open sometime this fall.

I have been hearing that they will actually close Golden Dreams as Golden Screams as soon as Halloween is over & then they will start work on the Little Mermaid. Although if you look at Disneyland’s official page for Halloween Time 2008, Golden Screams doesn’t appear to be listed. Time will have to tell on this one.

Early 2010 – Toy Story: The Musical – Rumor – (8/3/08) While I don’t know what the short-term plan is for the Aladdin show, we’ve heard that Toy Story: The Musical is now scheduled to open in early 2010 as a replacement. So I guess the question remains as to when exactly the current Aladdin show will close down.

2010 – Wonderful World of Color – Confirmed – (8/2/08) Sometime in very early 2009 I’ve heard that we may see the park drain the lagoon to do some of the extensive work needed for the upcoming World of Color night show.

And moving quickly over to Disneyland…

For the Holiday season we’ve heard that the park may add the “light up” snow effect to cover the front and back of the castle this year as well as expand it into the trees and garland in the hub and main street areas as well as the Town Square Christmas Tree. I’ve also been told that a new Toy Factory float will be added to the Christmas Parade to replace the old float.

I did once hear that what Screamscape is talking about might even be expanded to the Matterhorn, but I highly doubt that would happen. However, if the lighting effects do expand to the back of the Castle, that will make the whole thing look even nicer, & more complete!

The next few years at the Resort are going to be really exciting, & if even one of these rumors come true, I’ll be happy!

Refurbishment Updates

We have a couple more updates to the attractions refurbishments list. First up, it looks like the Harbor Galley, Conostoga Wagon, & Burger Invasion refurbishments wont last as long as we originally thought. The refurbishments will start on September 2nd & end on September 26th. It looks like they’ll all just get new menus, & have all McDonalds references removed. So it seems we’ll have to wait a little while longer for a Burger Invasion re-theme.

Also, last week it had looked like Disney moved back the refurbishment of the Hyperion Theater to start on September 29th, but that is no longer true, & will start as originally planned on September 2nd.

Finally a little update on It’s a Small World… The new flume apparently has apparently been installed, & the attraction will be going through a 10 week test & adjust phase, & if all goes according to plan, it will re-open on November 29th.

Stay tuned to Disneyland News Today for updates on all attraction refurbishments. And for up-to-the-minute information on the various refurbishments, be sure to check our Attraction Refurbishments page!

Honey, I Shuttered the Magic Eye Theater

Rumors are floating around saying that Honey, I Shrunk the Audience could possibly be closing after Labor Day, & there are 2 possible reasons as to why:

  1. Disneyland is seriously looking at cutting down on the money spent, by closing shows during the slow season, & this seems to be stretching to Honey now, as it may join Fantasmic & Aladdin in the shuttered department this fall.
  2. And then there’s the reason everyone is hoping for, & need I say more than, a New Film?

Stay tuned to Disneyland News Today to find out the ultimate fate of Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!

Whole New Perfomers

According to the OC Register, Disney is looking for new performers in the Aladdin stage show at DCA. This Wednesday there will be an auditon at 2pm, as listed on the Disney Auditions website. Similar auditions will be held in New York City on July 29th.

Again, as previously reported, the Hyperion Theater will be closed from September 2nd through early December for “rehabilitation & system upgrades”. Aladdin will then return in time for Christmas!

Is Disney’s Aladdin Leaving?

From the OC Register:

Is Disney’s Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular closed after July 21st?

The question above was asked on a MiceChat discussion board by someone identified as “moncho.” He said that he checked the Disneyland calendar and that the show is not scheduled after July 20.

Disney Spokesman John McClintock said the Disney’s California Adventure show will be closed between late September and early December. McClintock said the show will be down for rehabilitation and system upgrades. The show will then reopen in early December, McClintock said.