MickeyBlog News for December 2nd, 2024
Happy holidays, everyone! I hope that our American friends enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving Weekend.
As usual, Disney didn’t take the holidays off, though. No, the action came fast and furious this week.
Disneyland added a new section while planning for more, as Walt Disney World flipped festivals.
Oh, and Disney quietly announced a ghost of Christmas past, a hotel whose concept we’ve seen before.
We’ve got plenty to discuss in this holiday edition of MickeyBlog News!
Plussing Haunted Mansion


Photo: Disneyland
Walt Disney himself worked on Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion for more than a decade.
While Uncle Walt never got to witness the final version, he’d anticipated it since the early 1950s.


New Haunted Mansion Queue
Nowadays, whenever Imagineers plus Haunted Mansion, they try to build something their company’s founder would love.
This week, it was definitely mission accomplished, as the Haunted Mansion campus added some new sections.


Photo: Disney
For starters, the long-promised Haunted Mansion store has finally announced its upcoming opening.
Madame Leota’s Somewhere Beyond will debut this winter close to the attraction’s exit.


Photo: Disney
So, from now on, guests will exit through the gift shop at Haunted Mansion as Madame Leota spies us from her crystal ball.
More immediately, the extended Haunted Mansion attraction queue has finally debuted.


New Haunted Mansion Queue
You can watch a video of it here, and something that should shine through is everyone’s excitement in exploring it:
As a byproduct of this change, Disney has finally dropped the virtual queue for Haunted Mansion Holiday.


New Haunted Mansion Queue
I mentioned the suspicion about this decision when the ride reopened.
I was one of many who thought Disney only added the virtual queue because the plussed attraction area wasn’t ready yet.
That appears to be the case. So, everything is basically back to normal now, with Leota’s store still yet to come.
Speaking of which, Disneyland definitely isn’t resting on its laurels.


Photo: OC Register
Park officials have submitted the initial plans for the Avengers Campus expansion at Disney California Adventure.
Folks, there is soooo much plussing about to happen at The Happiest Place on Earth!
Return of Reflections…Mostly
During the week before the 2024 D23 Expo, I posted a comprehensive list of all the Disney Rumors I’d heard this year.
Notably, I phrased one of the descriptions a bit differently. The project was the former Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge.


Photo: Disney
At the time, I said that “recent filings STRONGLY suggest that Reflections will rise from the ashes and live again.”
With most Disney Rumors, I’m going off hearsay and deciding on the fly which ones are credible versus which ones aren’t.



Photo: Disney
The conversation changes once Disney files the paperwork for its various projects, as I just mentioned with Avengers Campus.
Once Disney performs filings, something becomes a Go project. It’s gonna happen.


2024 D24 Expo
That’s why I was so confused in the aftermath of the D23 Expo, as Disney didn’t announce anything about a new hotel.
Josh D’Amaro and other Disney executives stood on stage for hours and had ample opportunity to do so. They just didn’t.


D23 Expo
That decision still confuses me, but we learned this week that Reflections WILL return, albeit with a slightly different name.
Reflections: A Disney Lakeside Lodge is no longer what Disney will call the property. Instead, we’ll know it as Disney Lakeshore Lodge.
Otherwise, the details sound uncannily similar, at least thus far.
Disney actually didn’t provide much context for the creation beyond the opening year of 2027.



Photo: Disney
The project will still go on the site of the former water park, River Country.
It’s the same build Disney previously started but then stopped due to the pandemic.
So, everything old is new again at Disney. Plus, there will be more sorely needed hotel inventory coming in a couple of years.
Festival of the Holidays Begins
Speaking of old becoming new, the long-in-the-tooth EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival closed this past week.
However, EPCOT didn’t go without a festival for long. On Friday, the EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays debuted.


Our Holiday Cookie Stroll Items
As usual, MickeyBlog’s loyal staff nobly arrived early on the scene on Black Friday, ceding their holiday shopping deals to bring you the story.
Our amazing reporters brought you news of everything happening at the festival, starting with the delightful Figment news.


Figment Sweater
Disney is selling a new Figment sweater that’s the star of this year’s event from a merchandise perspective.
To get guests talking about the sweater, Disney cleverly dressed Figment in this outfit for his EPCOT character greeting, too.
Obviously, we tried all the new foods available in November and December, including the one with the best name.
Here are the Experimental Prototype Cookies of Tomorrow! I love when Disney’s cheeky.
Of course, you’re probably most interested in all the merchandise and décor.
The best thing this year is the Spaceship Earth gingerbread display. And yes, Santa Claus has a character greeting, too!
Overall, we really liked the new foods and drinks available during the Festival of the Holidays.
This really is one of the best times of year for tourists to visit, and everyone seems to know that.
I say that because every night of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party has officially sold out.
Disney after-hours events are always the hottest tickets in town, but it’s been particularly true during the second half of 2024.
Disney Miscellany


Living with the Land — Glimmering Greenhouses
One of my personal favorite holiday moments has arrived.
The Glimmering Greenhouses holiday overlay is now available at Living with the Land at the Land pavilion.
Elsewhere at EPCOT, Moana has debuted a new look, and it’s not even the only one in the world! She’s got a new look at Hong Kong Disneyland as well.
Given the staggering success of Moana 2, you can expect more Moana at the parks in the coming months and years.
Finally, Disney has revealed the dates for Destination D23 at Walt Disney World.
You can attend from August 29th through August 31st, 2025. So, the Parks Panel will probably be on August 30th.


Photo: Disney
That’s when Disney should announce additional news about theme park expansion, particularly in Orlando.
I’ve suspected all along that Disney wanted to wait until Universal Epic Universe had opened.


D23
Only afterward will Disney reveal its full plans for what’s coming soon. That’s my belief, anyway.
So, I’d strongly recommend that you go ahead and book a Disney resort now for that week. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting sold out.


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