Disney World

A 44-year-old man died Tuesday after riding a roller coaster at Walt Disney World that simulates a runaway train ride through the Himalayas, authorities said.Jeffery Reed, of Navarre, Fla., was pulled unresponsive from the ride, given CPR and pronounced dead at a hospital. He had no visible signs of injury, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said.Authorities are investigating whether Reed had a previous medical condition, said Jim Solomons, sheriff’s spokesman. An autopsy is planned.Inspectors found that the ride, Animal Kingdom’s Expedition Everest, was working properly, but Disney kept it closed during further review.The ride, Expedition Everest, made its debut in 2006 and features an 80-foot drop. Before Tuesday’s death, at least 15 people had died at Disney’s theme parks in Florida and California since 1989, some with previous health conditions.

Attendance at Hong Kong Disneyland, which the government had already branded unsatisfactory, fell to just over 4 million in its second year, it said on Tuesday, representing a fall of more than 20 percent.Walt Disney Co’s second Asian-based magic kingdom after Japan has spluttered along since opening to great hype in September 2005.After attracting a lower-than-expected 5.2 million visitors in its first year, Hong Kong Disneyland said its second year attendance was near the 4 million mark.”The second year we had more than 4 million visitors, which makes up a total number of more than 10 million for 26 months,” said spokeswoman Glendy Chu.Disney wouldn’t give a more specific figure, given its policy of not sharing commercially sensitive information, though the 4 million figure represents a drop in attendance of over 20 percent.”In the short term, we did not achieve the attendance targets for which we had hoped. We recognise that we need to bolster our numbers which is our focus today,” Disney added in a statement.Hong Kong Disneyland had not previously released a second year attendance figure following its slow start, prompting Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Frederick Ma to say recently that Disneyland’s performance was “not satisfactory”.The park has suffered from its small size, peak-period crowds and a limited number of major attractions, making it a challenge to snare repeat visitors, especially those from China. A rival theme park, Ocean Park has also eaten into Disney’s business against the odds, and now enjoys higher attendance numbers.The firm is also under pressure to find funds for a revamp.

It had to recently negotiate with its lenders to re-schedule its commercial term loan facility of HK$2.3 billion (US$295 million), and to remove financial performance covenants to ease its debt burden.Disney said it would add new attractions next year.Disneyland’s main theme park rival in Hong Kong, the home-grown Ocean Park, pulled in 4.92 million visitors for the same period, according to the Ming Pao newspaper.

Camel riding in the Australian Outback. Dining in the Eiffel Tower. Snorkeling over a Costa Rican coral reef. Sleeping in an Irish castle. Biking around Golden Gate Park. Those are just some of the vacation experiences that Disney just can’t bring to its theme parks.So Walt Disney Co. officials decided: If they can’t bring the Tuscan countryside to Disney, they can always take Disney to the Tuscan countryside — and find ways to make it Disney, arranging everything from hotels to cooking lessons from local chefs with that Disney style. Now, with its 3-year-old “Adventures by Disney” program, the company appears to have claimed a strong position in the worldwide packaged-tour business.”We have created Adventures by Disney to be these immersive, authentic, distinctly Disney vacation experiences, providing travel opportunities for families to go visit these places in the world, with Disney,” said Ed Baklor, senior vice president of Adventures by Disney, a division of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.Disney appears to be having a swift effect on the industry. And while the business is still a small enterprise within corporate Disney, it is growing rapidly, giving Disney tourism beachheads at locations around the world and offering its loyal customers more travel options.

Disney entered the business with a pilot project, offering just two tour-group itineraries in 2005, but the program has grown every year. For 2008, the company is booking 18 itineraries in 13 countries, with a total of 370 scheduled tours throughout the year.Each Adventures tour ranges from six to 12 days, at prices (excluding airfare) ranging from less than $2,000 for a child to more than $5,000 for an adult. The program typically shoots for groups of 30 to 40 people for each tour.Disney does not release booking numbers or revenue projections for the program. Yet if Adventures by Disney consistently attains its stated goals, it could draw between 11,000 and 15,000 tourists next year. The published prices suggest that much business could generate revenue in the range of $30 million to $40 million.

That would make the program a small enterprise within Disney’s Parks and Resorts segment, which this year had more than $10 billion in sales through Walt Disney World, the company’s other four theme-park resorts, Disney Cruise Lines and the Disney Vacation Club time-share business.And the entire international-tourism industry is a $740 billion-a-year business, with more than 840 million tourist arrivals, according to the Travel Industry Association.But Adventures by Disney has entered a market niche so new that the company is one of the first in. Until recently, scheduled package group tours tailored for families were virtually unheard of, travel professionals say.”I think a lot of people felt children and tours are two things that just didn’t go together,” said Carol Blevins, a travel consultant with the Orlando-based GoTravel travel agency.That first began to change when Disney entered the cruise-ship business, first by partnering with Premier Cruise Lines in the mid-1980s and then by starting its own line in the late ’90s, both out of Brevard County’s Port Canaveral. As it developed family-oriented cruises, other cruise lines — then other package-tour sectors — followed suit.Now, Blevins said, “The family market really is growing tremendously.”Tauck World Discovery, an 82-year-old, Connecticut-based package-tour wholesaler, says it pioneered the family-oriented overseas package tour nearly five years ago, in 2003. Today, 13 of Tauck’s 100 tour itineraries are in its “Bridge” program, so named because they’re designed to bridge generations.Disney’s emergence should actually help other companies in the market by giving the concept a higher profile, said Tom Armstrong Tauck’s communications manager.”We welcome them into the arena,” Armstrong said. “They’ve got, certainly, incredible marketing muscle. Our position is, a rising tide lifts all boats. We’ve been sort of the lonely voice in the wilderness here, trying to do the business of escorted family travel.”

Yet Disney’s entry might not be welcomed by all.”They should be a pain in the neck to established wholesalers, because th’re big enough to be,” said Jim Barker, longtime Orlando travel agent.And Disney can leverage more than just its size, said Larry Yu, professor of tourism studies and hospitality management at George Washington University. He expects Disney to become a big player quickly, because its brand is so powerful and so trusted by consumers, which should offer comfort to those who are nervous about international travel.”Disney very definitely leverages on its brand and, I think, on loyal customers who’ve been to the parks, and they’d like to take their kids to different destinations,” Yu said. “I’m sure that they [Disney officials] very selectively choose their suppliers in those places, and that they have very high expectations and values.”That is what Disney is trying to achieve, Baklor said. Adventures tours have Disney-employed hosts, guides, concierges and even, here and there, actors to role play. Disney has written storybooks to provide a Disney-flavored basis for each itinerary.”We have vetted out the whole vacation experience,” he said. “The minute you get off the plane in Italy or Spain or Germany, there is someone standing there with an “Adventures by Disney” sign. Once you go through customs . . . we pick up your bags. You don’t touch your suitcases again.”We vet out all the details, the meals, where to go, when. So all of those hassles are taken out of the vacation experience.”Might so much programmed activity and controlled circumstances take the adventure out of an adventure by Disney?For some people, maybe yes, said Ray Heckmann, owner of Orlando-based Festival Tours, which specializes in customized, private tours to Peru and Costa Rica (two destinations included in Disney’s program). According to Heckmann, the majority of world travelers are still not interested in such standardized packages. They go to agents to nail down basic details and create options, but they prefer more loosely organized experiences and traveling on their own.

So he’s not worried about losing those customers to Disney. Still, many people traveling with children are likely to be enticed by the security of the group tours that Disney, Tauck and others can offer, he said.”There is a segment in the U.S. consumer market that likes that idea, and likes the idea of safety in numbers,” Heckmann said.Baklor said that Adventures by Disney are adventurous. There is plenty of free time in each trip’s schedule, he said, and all of the locations — such as the little hillside villa, surrounded by olive groves, where one Adventures tour stays in Tuscany, Italy — are real, he noted. So are the gondolas, kayaks, double-decker buses, horse-drawn carts, boats, camels and bicycles that various Adventures tourists might ride.Disney has already tried and dropped a couple of destinations — the Canadian Rockies and Hawaii. Other popular spots, such as Las Vegas, might seem to be a bad fit for the Disney model. But Baklor would not rule out anything, saying: “We want to make sure we keep the trips fresh.”

The film, a contemporary twist on the traditional Disney fairytale, changes between traditional 2D Disney animation and live action.Instead of being banished to a dungeon, Princess Giselle (Amy Adams) is sent to the present day where she emerges in the centre of New York’s Times Square.In the city the Princess meets a divorced divorce lawyer (played by Patrick Dempsey, on hiatus from his hit show Grey’s Anatomy).Producer Barry Josephson, in Auckland for a few days working on his upcoming film They Came From Upstairs, says his biggest challenge was figuring how to best take animation and carry it through to live action.”Kids know the Disney classics so well. We had to work out how to bring forward a Disney princess into the real world.”Josephson praised director Kevin Lima for the realistic portrayal of characters.”He did a great job of bringing them into the action.”As in every good Disney movie, Enchanted has music and dancing.Composed by Allan Menken with words by Stephen Schwartz, music is an integral part of the film.Giselle repeatedly bursts into song in the middle of bustling New York City.Josephson has huge praise for the main star, Amy Adams, who he says is the “insanely rewarding” thing in the movie.”We would all marvel at Amy who take after take would blow us away by her dancing and her performance.”He says Adams’ portrayal of Giselle is “very emotional, very satisfying”.

Dempsey, on the other hand, was more reluctant with his dancing, and he does not sing in the movie.
“Patrick was a little bit afraid of doing the ballroom dance scene, and Amy would say: ‘don’t worry Patrick, I’ll catch you if you stumble’.”According to Josephson one of the hardest act to film was the Happy Working Song.”It was one of the most complex filming scenes. We’ve got real life rats, mice and pigeons as well as a CGI animated character, and with the music the timing had to be specific.”What will surprise the audience, says Josephson, is the comedy in Enchanted, much of which comes from a little computer-generated chipmunk called Pip.”Patrick (Dempsey) would get really jealous of him because he thought he stole the show.”He would say to Amy: ‘You think we’re the stars of the show, but no - it’s the Chipmunk!’”Dempsey, who Josephson calls “wonderful” and “the most humble person”, would have people on the streets chanting “McDreamy” in the middle of a scene.He was amazed by the amount of ardent adulation Dempsey received, and how he dealt with it.”Patrick would put his finger up to us and say ‘one minute’ and would always go and talk to his fans.”Enchanted is already a hit in the US, and Josephson is confident this “homage” to Disney films will please audiences.”There are so many serious movies around so this stands out as a feel-good movie.”Josephson describes Enchanted’s originality as a “fish out of water”, but makes it clear that is not a spoof - which it has been called by some media.”I don’t buy that - we take it really seriously and have drawn on classic elements.”

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - St. Croix is readying its brightly painted colonial buildings and centuries-old sugar mills to welcome cruise ship passengers again.Disney Cruise Line announced new eastern Caribbean itineraries for 2009, with one seven-night cruise featuring a day stop in St. Croix, the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands.Tourism provides much-needed income on the island, and locals greet passengers with a fair of crafts and music.Most major cruise lines suspended visits to St. Croix five years ago, citing crime and a lack of consumer demand.The director of the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce, Michael Dembeck, said robberies have become far less frequent on the island - the poorest in the three-island chain - while adding that safety concerns were “overblown” by the cruise ship industry back in 2002.”I think the entire community has become aware and very cognizant of the importance of combating crime,” Dembeck said. “There is a real commitment here to keeping our streets safe.”Cruise ship cancellations were estimated to cost roughly $50 million a year in lost revenues in St. Croix, which went from hosting about 230,000 passengers a year to a couple thousand from lines that made short nighttime stops to refuel.Tourism Commissioner Beverly Nicholson Doty said the Disney stopovers will be a significant boon for St. Croix, which has long stretches of scenic coastline, Danish facades and historic sites including plantation ruins that were once home to U.S. founding father Alexander Hamilton.The U.S. Caribbean territory’s governor, John deJongh Jr., said the introduction of St. Croix visits by Disney was an important first step.”St. Croix is poised to become a port of call for other cruise lines as well,” said deJongh.The United States purchased St. Croix in 1917 from Denmark along with St. Thomas and St. John - the other two islands in the U.S. Caribbean territory of roughly 110,000 people.

The Walt Disney Co (DIS.N: Quote, Profile , Research)., which says it employs more people in one place than any other company in the United States, announced plans on Wednesday to build a medical center for workers at its Florida theme park.The new $6 million, 15,000-square-foot clinic is scheduled to open on the Walt Disney World property in 2009, Disney said.More than 40,000 of the resort’s 60,000 employees, along with their dependents, participate in the company’s health care plan. The clinic will be open on nights and weekends, offering same-day appointments and longer-than-average visits with medical professionals, Disney said.”Our motivation is to provide quality health care, convenient access and choice,” Walt Disney World President Meg Crofton said after the announcement.Neither Crofton nor Al Weiss, president of worldwide operations for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, would estimate potential savings to the company or employees, or the total number of people in Central Florida who will be served by the center.But Becky Cherney, president of the Florida Health Care Coalition, which represents 23 of Florida’s largest employers, said businesses, squeezed between escalating health care costs and the tightest job market in history come 2011, are looking for ways to keep existing employees healthy.”We all have the same escalating costs that aren’t sustainable,” Cherney said. “And what employers know now is that our indirect costs are more than our direct costs,” meaning that rehabilitating and filling in for a disabled employee is more costly than initial medical care.To assure privacy, Disney’s center will be operated by a yet-to-be-chosen health management company. (Editing by Leslie Gevirtz/Brian Moss)

With High School Musical 2, available on DVD today, Disney continues the spic-n-span spin it’s been putting on life since it began making contemporary teen movies such as The Misadventures of Merlin Jones and The Monkey’s Uncle back in the mid-1960s.Not that there’s anything wrong with that.For what it’s worth, the music and choreography are excellent — and catchy. Disney has made a science of knowing what the ‘tween and early-teen set want. My 7-year-old daughter loves the soundtrack (much more than the movie), and I’ll admit the Sharpay/Ashley Tisdale-sung Fabulous occasionally pops into my head, where it remains stuck despite efforts to unstick it.But watching HSM’s young stars makes the mind wander. I wonder which paths these pretty young things will take after the Disney springboard has landed them who knows where. They could follow Mouseketeer Britney Spears (arguably bad). They could also become the next Ryan Gosling or Justin Timberlake (arguably good).hat outcome could be determined by motivation. Why do these young stars do what they do? Does a Corbin Bleu sing, act and dance because he is passionate about his work or because he wants to be celebrated? If it’s the former, there could be a train wreck ahead.

Several months ago, my daughter revealed she wanted to be a singer. Why? “Because I want to be famous,” she answered. There’s a lot wrong with that.ve of the art of acting, music, etc., may bring an added bonus of fame, but that love is the important thing; it should be there first.It becomes harder, then, not to be cynical about HSM’s staged innocence: Watching Troy and Gabriella fall further in love; Sharpay scheme and eventually find redemption; Ryan learn to stand up to his sister (Sharpay); and Chad be, well, a sidekick with quirky hair.Still, there’s a reason for Disney’s world. If HSM2 told a real-life story of teen love and high school drama, it would feel creepy.Last week, Superbad, a film that is much closer to real high school than HSM2, made its DVD debut. As a former teenage male, I can verify the movie’s authenticity, which makes me very nervous about what my daughter will have to contend with when she’s 15,16 or 17. It would be so much more easy for me if high school was like Disney’s East High.Disney’s wholesomeness is simply part of popular culture now — we’ve been conditioned to suspend disbelief in the realm of morality, and that brings us comfort. Just like the fries at a McDonald’s in Tulsa taste just like the fries at a McDonald’s in Tucson. It’s a brand. And maybe that’s OK.

A 63 year old woman from Pennsylvania was arrested on Sunday after attempting to enter Walt Disney World with a loaded handgun. Walt Disney World security personnel discovered a silver color, Beretta .32 caliber semi-automatic handgun during a routine safety check as the woman was attempting to enter the park with other family members.The woman, identified as Mary Ann Richardson of Nickelson, Pennsylvania, stated that she traveled with the handgun and had forgotten she was carrying it in her purse. Walt Disney World Security notified The Orange County Sheriff’s Office which sent deputies to recover the gun. It was in was loaded with seven live rounds in the magazine; the chamber however was empty.Inside her purse the woman also had a pair of scissors and a locked blade knife. Orange County deputies took the woman into custody and charged her with possession of a concealed weapon. The incident remains under investigation.Stringent, zero-tolerance, security measures have been in place at all Central Florida theme parks since September 11, 2001.

It’s been a big week if you’re into watching major media companies gobble up high-traffic, family-friendly websites. First you had News Corp.  (NYSE: NWS) purchase Beliefnet, the spiritual community hub that draws more than 3 million unique monthly visitors. You also have Disney  (NYSE: DIS) picking up iParenting Media.Terms of the iParenting purchase aren’t being disclosed, but Disney’s getting more than 40 content-rich websites. From Preconception.com to Grandparents Today, iParenting’s destinations run the gamut of parent — and potential parent — topics.It’s a perfect fit, but not just because Disney is the leader in family entertainment. From Family Fun magazine to its Family.com website, Disney has been a parent magnet for years. Its acquisition earlier this year of the popular, virtual, kid-community site Club Penguin also fits well here. If parents trust Disney to entertain their kids through various media outlets, premium communities like Club Penguin become easier sells.It’s actually surprising to see Disney on a dot-com buying spree, when it has excelled at being the top draw organically. However, it certainly didn’t want iParenting to fall into the wrong hands. Rival Viacom (NYSE: VIA) could have done some neat things in tying its Nickelodeon cable properties to iParenting. Companies such as The Knot (Nasdaq: KNOT) and Martha Stewart Living (Nasdaq: MSO) have also tried to reach young mothers in cyberspace.

Disney is launching an elaborate new version of its UK website on Monday, combining its retail and content offerings with virtual worlds, widgets and interactive tools as it tries to cement its audience base among a new generation of web-savvy children.The new site is designed to be a “front door to everything Disney”. Disney.co.uk will use “one-click” navigational tools that allow users to browse the site by Disney character, brand, media platform. Or by selecting a different profile, such as boy, girl, teen or family to view content through a customised, relevant home page.Customised channels on the site include Hannah Montana, High School Musical and Pirates of the Caribbean, which all push branded merchandise, DVDs, trailers, live events and games, which Disney found to be the most popular content among younger users.The site also promotes Club Penguin as a channel, linking to the children’s social networking site bought by Disney in August for about £175m in cash and £175m performance dependent.”We want to present ourselves in the way that guests think of us rather than the way we think of our business,” said Disney’s UK vice-president of technology and operations, Myles MacBean.”Our research shows that our guests think of the brand in terms of characters.”

Disney.co.uk will be advertising-supported from launch, using ads on widgets, overlay ads on video and sponsored elements as well as display, but also generate revenues from merchandise sales.The site promotes a wide range of content and products around each brand, such as video trailers, games, DVDs, live events and music, although users cannot watch films or TV shows in full on the site.MacBean said Disney’s research had identified two different consumption patterns; sitting and watching a film, and snacking on small chunks of content. The site is designed for the latter.Disney’s senior vice-president and managing director for Europe, Cindy Rose, added that the site launching on Monday includes some exclusive web content, such as interviews and mini episodes, and that full TV shows or movies on the site would happen “some day”.The site also features a customiseable channel, Disney Xtreme Digital, that invites users to add and share content and small branded tools or widgets, along with a proprietary messaging tool.Disney has implemented strict parental controls, so that all instant messages are limited to pre-written answers unless parental permission has been granted for free chat. The site also uses keyword monitoring and human moderators to check its content.Rose said Disney has a tradition of marrying storytelling with new technology, and that the new site enabled the same basic play patterns that children have always had.”Technology has empowered the audience. Today’s kids are online community literate and naturally multitask, combining watching TV with playing a game, messaging their friends at the same time,” she added.