Magical Moments Festival for Disneyland Paris in 2011

Thanks to a blog post from good friend Johnny I was made aware of the new Magical Moments Festival that is coming to Disneyland Paris in 2011, presumably to replace the New Generation Festival.

To the left is the badge logo for the new festival, which in a departure from the New Generation Festival sees a mix of both new and old characters – in fact we have the very new in Princess Tiana from The Princess and the Frog to the White Rabbit from 59 years earlier, as seen in Alice in Wonderland.

The current rumours consist of four changes or additions to the resort and they are as follows:

Characters Express once again re-used – this will be in place of the Disney All Star Express so will not be much of a change. Like the badge logo above I’d imagine it’ll be some of the newer characters making way for the older characters. This is something that will please my son as he watches videos of the Character Express and It’s A Small World ad nauseum at the moment.

Mickey’s House from Hong Kong Disneyland inside Festival Stage – I love this idea. When we visited Tokyo Disneyland in 2001 we went inside Mickey and Minnie’s houses and they were utterly charming to say the least. They also had Winnie the Pooh’s house but the the queue was prohibitively long given that we were only there for the day. It’s also unlike anything in the parks at the moment, and could well be a new photo location for Mickey.

Permanent Princess Meet ‘n’ Greet location in “It’s A Small World” post show area – I have to be honest and say that I hate this idea. What they had before, the little houses with telephones and animated children talking to each other, along with the ability to communicate with other visitors, was a really fun and original addition to the park. I was really disappointed when I heard it would already be closed for our visit two weeks ago as I was looking forward to showing this to my son, knowing he’d love it. Princesses and It’s A Small World – on what planet do they belong together?

New hub show with Sorcerer Mickey, one time a day – As seen featured in badge logo to the right, this is great news for me. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the animated short from Fantasia, is one of my favourite pieces of Disney animation and by far my favourite featuring Mickey Mouse. I’m guessing a hub show is the one that takes place on the Central Plaza which lends itself so well to the Sorcerer’s Apprentice theme – I can already imagine the ‘broom dancers’ coming up the stairs onto the raised part of the stage. I’m super excited to be in Disneyland Paris where Sorcerer Mickey is a big part of the theming – the merchandise opportunities will have me saving all my spare money until we go!

All in all I’m really looking forward to the Magical Moments Festival and when it starts will determine when we go, as we will want to be a part of this. I’m sure there’s more to come and it’s important to keep in mind that these are just rumours at the moment.