MickeyBlog Updates and Disney News – October 1 2018
A swanky Halloween party, special photo ops at Disney Springs, an update to last week’s news, and a surprise Star Wars announcement highlight this week’s Disney news roundup. The latest edition of MickeyBlog updates and news will kick off October’s Halloween season the right way!
Here’s a Halloween Idea…
Will you be at Walt Disney World on Halloween? If so, I have a wonderful suggestion about how to spend the evening. The Edison, the hottest nightclub at Disney Springs (and technically the only nightclub) is celebrating its first Halloween the right way.
The eclectic steampunk restaurant has already thrown a couple of killer parties during its first year of operation. On October 31st, it’s poised to outdo itself. The Edison will host a 25th anniversary celebration of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Guests are encouraged to dress like their favorite characters (bonus points if you can pull off a great Zero costume) and enjoy all the festivities.
Announced parts of the Halloween party include the standards you’d expect at The Edison such as live music, the stilt walkers, the 1920s Pearls Dancers, and aerialists. You could also win prizes in the costume contest, and the restaurant will hold giveaways all night. This sounds like an awesome party, although the admission price of $85 per person isn’t cheap. You could attend Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party on Halloween for just a few dollars more. At a minimum, you’ll want to check out The Edison’s Halloween pictures on their social media, though.
Speaking of Halloween Pictures…
Disney Springs has become arguably the best place at Walt Disney World to enjoy Halloween season. The decorations and limited edition merchandise at the stores make the entertainment district a must-visit destination during October. And a new place is getting in on the action.
The official PhotoPass Studio at Disney Springs has introduced some seasonal photo ops. These virtual backdrops will place you and/or your traveling party inside the Haunted Mansion. One of the shots positions you in the Attic next to The Bride. A less ominous one sets you in the middle of the Library, where statue heads look on in displeasure. You can stand in front of the humorous tombstones, too.
Guests who want something happier have new photo ops, too. A couple of them create the illusion that you’re standing on Main Street U.S.A. at Magic Kingdom, which you have to yourself. And the most entertaining one lets you carry a sword and shield into battle against the fire-breathing dragon version of Maleficent. You can see pictures of the various photo ops at the official Parks Blog. Suffice to say that they’re all adorable. You have to pay $16.95 to download individual photos, but the smarter strategy is to purchase Memory Maker for your trip.
One Final Halloween Note
While you’re visiting Walt Disney World this month, make sure to download and use the Disney Play app. The service is barely three months old, but Disney’s already found new ways to enhance it. Disney will help you celebrate Halloween on your phone, too!
Disney Play has a ghoulish holiday overlay right now. From now through the witching hour of October 31st, guests at Walt Disney World and Disneyland will receive several spooky surprises when they pull up the app.
The music playlist is decidedly gothic in nature, playing many of the classic songs associated with Disney animated movie villains. They mix in some Grim Grinning Ghosts and This Is Halloween, too. You’ll also get special achievements for riding the attractions with Halloween overlays like Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion.
The best part about this update is what it indicates about the future of Disney Play. Think about the possibilities this Christmas season! Now imagine what Disney will do when Star Wars Land opens…or when Walt Disney World commemorates its 50th anniversary! The Play app is going to become an integral part of your park experience moving forward.
About Those Closures…
In last week’s edition of MickeyBlog News, we broke a few hearts by revealing the closure of a couple of attractions at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Unfortunately, Conservation Station and Rafiki’s Planet Watch are going away on October 21st, and the original belief was that they were gone for good. Disney does need space for some new projects. These two attractions take up a lot of room at the park. They honor the overriding theme of Animal Kingdom, though.
Disney has now revealed their plan for the area. It’s not as sad as expected. To the contrary, the company is not ending these attractions. Instead, Imagineers will spend 6-8 months rehabbing the current facilities. During the Spring of 2019, new and improved versions of Conservation Station and Rafiki’s Planet Watch will debut. Presumably, Disney will plus them during the renovations, bringing them back better than ever before. So, for fans of these two attractions, this is the best possible news!
Speaking of Surprises…
Earlier this year, Disney experienced a first. They released a Star Wars movie that didn’t dominate the box office. Instead, they spent the body of a month explaining why Solo: A Star Wars Story didn’t do better. At the time, movie analysts predicted the ouster of Kathleen Kennedy, the person that George Lucas hand-picked to run Lucasfilm. The expectation was that someone must fall on their sword for the struggles of that movie as well as the lackluster reception to Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
A few months later, much has changed. Kennedy did something that no woman had ever done before. She earned the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award alongside her husband, Frank Marshall. The two of them were honored for their body of work as movie producers. It’s such a huge accomplishment that the award isn’t even given out each year. In fact, the most recent winner was Francis Ford Coppola in 2010.
Kennedy’s merits speak for themselves. Since 2012, she’s been Disney’s point person on the Star Wars franchise. During that timeframe, the franchise has earned more than $4.5 billion in revenue while setting the all-time opening weekend and domestic box office records. Given time to reflect on Kennedy’s successes, Disney has chosen to extend Kennedy’s contract for three more years. She will continue to anchor all Star Wars movies through 2021.
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