Adventures by Disney announced their 2009 destinations that include eight new itinieraries as well as 15 returning trips for a total of 23 options. The new trips are as follows:
· Bella Italia – Sorrento and Florence, Italy
· Safari to South Africa – South Africa
· Taming the Last Frontier – Alaska
· Golden Path to Yosemite – Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and San Francisco
· Beantown & The Big Apple – Boston, Newport (R.I.) and New York City
· Rocky Trails & Mountie Tales – Glacier National Park and Banff National Park
· Alpine Magic – Italy and Switzerland
· Gateway to the Galapagos – Ecuador and Galapagos Islands
I just read a story in the New York Times about Adventures by Disney that talk about its success despite having only word of mouth to promote it. ABD is an example of how Disney is trying to extend the Disney Travel brand beyond the theme parks. This trend started with the Disney Cruise Line and is continuing with Adventures by Disney and Disney’s Grand Hawaiian Resort. What makes ABD interesting is that it has virtually no Disney character presence. It is relying on the quality aspect of the Disney brand to be successful and all indications point to it being very well received. I will look forward to seeing what is coming next from Parks and Resorts. Now if only the theme parks would announce what they are doing for 2009…
Studio Entertainment: Swing Vote is in theaters today. This Touchstone release stars Kevin Costner and Madeline Carroll in a heartfelt political comedy. Since Bob took over, Touchstone has becoming increasingly less relevant. Therefore when Touchstone releases something, I try to see what makes it special enough that Bob and Dick decided to green light it. I can’t figure it out on this one.
Media Networks: While watching the X Games and trying to ignore Dark Mane, I noticed Steve Braband. Steve is a 25 year old International Program Coordinator for ESPN that is carrying around a huge clock that counts down until SportsCenter is live from 9am-3pm starting August 11th. Steve pops up on ESPN live and you get to follow him around during his day. I find this fascinating and I am defiantly not proud of that. To get to know Steve, you can visit his website at http://steveislive.com
Consumer Products: Toys “R” Us (I can’t figure out how to type the backwards “R”) and Disney announced a line of exclusive costumes that will support the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation. You can check them out here, and no they don’t come in adult sizes.
Interactive Media: At Disney.com/urock there is a new contest to create your own rock video and win such fabulous prizes as a trip to the premiere of HSM 3 and a chance to meet the Jonas Brothers. You can start getting your video ready now, but you can’t enter until Monday. For the record, I still hate user generated content like blogs.
What to Watch: On Sunday at 8/7 central on Disney Channel the Muppets finally return to TV with Studio DC: Almost Live. The focus this time will be the Disney Channel connection, but look at it this way. Can’t be much worse than the Muppets Wizard of Oz.
Video of the Day: The Princess and the Frog trailer is live on the film’s website. I find it odd that they premiere this trailer the week AFTER Comic-Con. Perhaps they realized that the trailer features more Randy Newman that the average fan boy like me can handle.
News from Around the Web:
ABC News: ABC News reports on the Jonas Brothers and how they have no time for romance. The report also conveniently mentions that the Jonas Brothers will perform live on Friday August 8th as part of the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series. Synergy has gone too far.
NY Times: Time Warner has blocked the nomination of Jonathan Miller, the former chairman and chief executive of AOL, to the board of Yahoo. Time Warner said Miller signed an agreement not to work for any of its competitors until March 2009. You would think Time Warner would want someone that was involved in AOL to be involved with their competitors with the hopes that they would mess up Yahoo like the y messed up Time Warner. Go figure?
USA Today: Ticket prices at Disneyland and Walt Disney World will be going up on Sunday. I don’t mind. My pass is worth every penny I pay for it.
LA Times: The LA Times is reporting from X Games 14 at the Staples Center. Soon, ESPN will be opening a West Coast HQ near the Staples Center as part of LA Live. If ESPN continues its presence in LA, perhaps they will give-up their world famous east coast bias.
Orlando Sentinel: Here is an interesting article on the elephants at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It is a great example how DAK is much more than a theme park while being much more than a zoo.
Variety: Disney has pushed back their Prince of Persia move one year to 2010. Officially this is to allow for more post-production but it might be to prevent going against Transformers 2. Now Prince of Persia is scheduled to open up a week after another Dreamworks production; Shrek Goes Fourth. Now that is a film I can’t wait for Disney to take on.
Finally, I want to congratulate Doobie and Rebekah on the ninth anniversary of LP. At its heart, LP represents a dream of theirs to create a website that covers Disney like no other, and I am proud to be a small part of that dream. But more importantly, I am proud to be their friend. While they are fantastic at running a website, they are EVEN BETTER at being friends and I couldn’t imagine my life without them. So I wish them the best of luck for the website and everything else they undertake in their lives.