Disney World

Democrats - and especially Hillary Clinton - look like winners this year to the Walt Disney Co. The House of Mouse has given 64 percent of its total political contributions so far in the 2008 election cycle to Dems and has showered Clinton with more Mickeybucks than any other presidential contender this year, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Disney has shelled out more than $424,585 in political donations during the current election cycle, putting its election spending on track with its 2004 total, the data showed, and maintaining the favoritism it has shown for Democrats since at least 1990. While Democrats have long controlled the California statehouse, Disney operates its home resort, its profit powerhouse, Walt Disney World resort, in GOP-controlled Florida.
It isn’t saving the money it’s not spending on Republicans either. The data showed the company’s lobbying budget has more than doubled to $4.5 million over the past decade.
In the media world, however, Disney’s aggregate campaign spending was dwarfed by that of Time Warner Inc, which has laid out more than $1 million so far this year mainly to Democrats. If its contributions to the presidential candidates are any indication, the media conglomerate sees Barack Obama as the next Commander-in-Chief — but only by a slim margin.

Disney Channel is set to debut three new music videos from the world’s first alternative rock band for preschoolers, the New Orleans-based Imagination Movers, beginning SATURDAY, MARCH 8. The videos are a precursor to Disney Channel’s new “Imagination Movers” series in production in New Orleans for premiere later this year. Both the videos and the new series will introduce viewers to the band’s energetic rock and roll style of music, and encourage creative problem solving skills for preschoolers. On March 18, Walt Disney Records releases the definitive introduction to the Imagination Movers with a collection of songs entitled Juice Box Heroes. Tracks from the three new music videos – “Can You Do It,” “Calling All Movers” and “Numbers in a Bag” – are included on Juice Box Heroes, as are more than half a dozen songs from the new “Imagination Movers” series. A new studio album will follow later in the year. The quartet started writing music for their own children and went on to perform nationwide in high-energy, interactive rock/hip-hop concerts. Their funky, catchy songs, which have won over critics, parents and kids alike, are heard on satellite radio where they’ve topped the charts. They’ve won multiple national music awards and were named a “Parenting Pick” by Parenting Magazine. On April 26 they will make their fifth appearance at the world-renowned New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, where they will perform songs from Juice Box Heroes and the forthcoming “Imagination Movers” series on one of the festival’s main stages. Imagination Movers are Rich Collins, a former journalist and father of four young children; Scott Durbin, a former award-winning teacher and father of two young children; Dave Poche, an architect and father of two young children; and Scott “Smitty” Smith, a New Orleans firefighter who was a member of the Hurricane Katrina search-and-rescue team. Playhouse Disney, seen in a daily programming block on Disney Channel U.S. and on ten Playhouse Disney channels around the world, encourages preschoolers to imagine and learn through original series, short-form and acquired programming that includes song, movement and entertainment. Guided by an established curriculum, Playhouse Disney supports multiple areas of child development: physical, emotional, social and cognitive; thinking and creative skills, as well as moral and ethical development through carefully constructed themes, storylines and endearing characters. Walt Disney Records is part of the Disney Music Group, the recorded music and music publishing arm of the Walt Disney Company. Juice Box Heroes Track List:
1. Imagination Mover’s Theme
2. Clean My Room
3. Seven Days a Week
4. Mover Music
5. I Want My Mommy
6. Please and Thank You
7. Farm
8. First Day of School
9. What’s In the Fridge?
10. The Medicine Song
11. Big
12. My Favorite Snack
13. Shakable You
14. Can You Do It?
15. Numbers In a Bag
16. Calling All Movers
17. We’ve Got Each Other
Ghost Track (not printed in packaging): Warehouse Mouse

Visitors to the newly updated Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot might experience the ride and miss the show. Or they might experience the 26-year-old ride with a few new updates and spins, and catch the bevy of interactive games in the post-show area. And still, they might neither notice nor care about the real significance of the deal behind them, a pact that ties Walt Disney World and the global technology company Siemens AG with the kind of multifaceted partnership that illustrates how Disney World sells itself not just as a theme park but also as a marketing venue for all sorts of companies.
Siemens is a German company that generated about 68.6 billion euros (about $102 billion in today’s U.S. currency) in sales last year making medical-device, power-grid, information-communication, transportation and automation and control systems, and has more than 6,000 employees in Florida, including those at the company’s power headquarters on Alafaya Trail. Though the company makes almost nothing that the average Disney World visitor might want to buy, Siemens’ $100 million, 12-year agreement with Disney World in 2005 gives it naming sponsorship of Epcot’s most iconic structure and ride, along with various other business arrangements. Under a new sign reading, “Spaceship Earth Presented by Siemens,” the ride and its post-show gauntlet of games have been rolled out one a time, in soft openings during the past few weeks. Grand-opening festivities for everything are set for next Tuesday. “We felt we needed to have a brand that was well-known in the United States, both for our business-to-business customers and for the same reasons you would brand anything for a consumer, to give them the sense that you are familiar,” said Jack Bergen, Siemens’ corporate senior vice president for corporate affairs and marketing. It’s one reason that Epcot in particular was designed to be a showcase of corporate sponsors. Siemens replaces AT&T in sponsoring Spaceship Earth. Other major sponsors at Epcot include General Motors and Nestle. Smaller partnerships recently were announced with Waste Management and a nonprofit coalition of several companies including State Farm insurance. Disney also is not afraid to package deals that include product placements in movies or TV shows, or arrangements with other Disney properties, said Lawrence Aldridge, senior vice president for corporate alliances at the Walt Disney Company. Siemens had considered other brand-identification options, such as buying naming rights to a stadium or a bowl game. “The big challenge of the marketplace now is the clutter that is out there, with naming rights and all, you’re seeing it everywhere now,” Aldridge said. “Employers are looking for more ways to connect with customers.”Still, Disney remains highly sensitive about its image and therefore cautious about picking marketing partners, or deciding how it will allow them to operate, he added. “One thing we’re not going to do is ruin the magic,” Aldridge insisted. “We’re not talking about NASCAR here. You’re not going to see stickers down Main Street or anything.” On the Spaceship Earth ride, visitors might notice just a few new show scenes, lighting, costumes and set decorations and a new narrator, Academy Award-winning actress Judi Dench. The ride vehicle includes an interactive feature that quizzes visitors on such things as their hometown. Once they get off the ride, visitors encounter Siemens’ real show, which begins as they enter a high-ceilinged parlor and watch as their pictures (taken on the ride) appear on a large globe in the center, then slide over the globe to their hometowns, where they shrink into pinpoints of light that tally who came from where on any given day.
The post show also features several areas of educational high-tech games highlighting some of Siemens’ technologies, including Inner Vision for medical technologies; Power City, for energy distribution; and Super Driver for transportation. Along the way, visitors also encounter a few displays showing off some of Siemens’ other programs, including its “Generation 21″ science-education awards. Disney planners were impressed enough with the games that they took the unusual step of opening entrances directly into the post-show area, so that visitors can skip the ride and get right into the techno-games, if they prefer.
“I believe that with this ride we see the beginning of the post show as an attraction,” said Jim MacPhee, Disney World vice president for Epcot. “It’s pretty phenomenal.”
Spaceship Earth also provides Siemens with a large VIP lounge that the company outfitted with more of its technologies, to show off to customers or to reward top employees 365 days a year. Long term, the ride and the post-show represent a small portion of the commitments Disney and Siemens have made to one another. The two intend to work together to adapt and develop Siemens’ power, communications, transportation, waste-management and other technologies to Disney World’s in running a business with 60,000 employees, 22 resort hotels and more than 100,000 daily visitors.
“We could use this platform, that would be a living showcase of how we can make a city work or a place like Disney work,” Bergen said.

Global family entertainment leader Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) have forged a new strategic partnership, both organisations announced today. Effective immediately, Disney becomes a PATA Premier Partner, gaining exclusive access to a range of co-operative opportunities including market intelligence, business development and co-branded events and products. Disney joins a select group of PATA Premier Partners such as Visa International, Amadeus, CNN International, TIME and Fortune. PATA President&CEO, Mr Peter de Jong, said he was delighted to welcome such an iconic and powerful brand as Disney into the PATA community. “It really is a dream come true,” he said. “We have worked closely with Hong Kong Disneyland since its launch in September 2005, and now through this key partnership we will have the opportunity to connect with all of Disney’s parks and resort destinations around the world.” Disney Destinations Senior Vice President, Sales&Distribution Marketing for the Asia Pacific Region Ms Claire Bilby, said PATA was a natural partner for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as the company continues to promote its Hong Kong Disneyland resort destination and its Disney Parks brand throughout the dynamic Asia Pacific region. “It is an exciting partnership for us, as our parks and resorts are poised to benefit from the huge growth in travel to, from and within the Asia Pacific region,” she said. “Our new alliance with PATA ensures that we can strengthen our connections with industry and government leaders throughout the region.” Mr de Jong explained that PATA Premier Partnership is restricted to global or regional brands that are clear leaders in their domain and have a strong vested interest in Asia Pacific travel and tourism.“Disney perfectly fits our criteria and brings enormous strength to our coterie of Premier Partners. We look forward to developing some exciting bilateral and multi-lateral programmes with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and our other partners and members,” he said.

Disney will proceed with a third installment of its hit dance franchise “Step Up,” tentatively titled “Step Up 3-D.” Pic will become the latest 3-D live-action film from the Mouse House, with “Step Up 2 the Streets” director Jon Chu in talks to reprise. Offspring Entertainment partners Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot, who have reupped at Disney for three years, will develop the film; the pair produced the first two “Step Up” pics. Deal extension, which keeps them on the lot through 2011, comes after “Step Up 2 the Streets” turned in a surprisingly strong $28.7 million over the five-day Presidents Day weekend. The picture, co-financed by Disney and Summit Entertainment, cost $20 million to make. Offspring, which was formed at Disney by siblings Shankman and Gibgot, previously produced the Sandra Bullock starrer “Premonition” and just wrapped the Burr Steers-directed “Seventeen” at New Line; that film starred Shankman’s “Hairspray” lead Zac Efron. This week, Shankman began directing the Adam Sandler starrer “Bedtime Stories” for Disney. Among the projects that Offspring is developing at Disney are “Undateable,” a comedy scripted by Jack Angelo and Sam Brown (with Fuse Entertainment also producing); “Monday, Monday,” a Flint Wainess-scripted comedy that is a teenage “Groundhog Day”; “Wish,” a live-action “Aladdin” scripted by Bill Kelly (”Enchanted”); a Jason Filardi-scripted “Topper” remake that Offspring will produce with Mandeville, with Steve Martin starring; and a Don Scott-scripted remake of “All of Me” that has Queen Latifah attached to star.

ABC network will start streaming fresh episodes of hits including “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost” at the click of a remote, starting with Cox Communications’ 6 million cable TV customers. OK, not all of them — they’ll need a digital cable set-top box to enjoy VOD — so that cuts the number to 3.1 million.This is a definite step up from earlier not-so-bold steps into network VOD, such as CBS (NYSE: CBS) and General Electrics’ (NYSE: GE) NBC expecting us to pay a buck for the privilege to get shows through Comcast’s (Nasdaq: CMCSA) VOD. ABC has been testing the waters in select markets where it owned the local broadcast station, also through Comcast. The Cox deal will spread VOD goodness across the country, no matter who owns what broadcasting partner. In fact, it gets even better. The stations will control some of the advertising shown, giving them some incentive to actually market the new delivery option. In tests, 93% of the subjects didn’t mind the commercial breaks; they’ll be a lot shorter than what’s on regular broadcast TV anyhow.

Changes continue at Epcot’s INNOVENTIONS pavilions with Walt Disney World opening a new corporate-sponsored interactive technology display that strips away the myth of the “garbage fairy” and announcing another that will help people to prepare for severe weather. The “garbage fairy” myth is exposed through a new hands-on exhibit, in the east INNOVENTIONS pavilion, called “Don’t Waste It,” sponsored by Waste Management.
The weather technology area will be called “StormStruck: The Tale of Two Homes,” developed by Disney and FLASH, a non-profit group formed by several for-profit companies. Scheduled to open late this summer, the area will give visitors feel for severe weather such as a hurricane. After they experience “the storm,” they’ll have an opportunity to learn about cutting edge research relating to weather and the latest recommendation for protecting homes.
FLASH stands for the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes Inc., and includes Bermuda-based catastrophic reinsurance company RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd., its U.S. affiliate for catastrophic weather modeling, WeatherPredict Consulting Inc., the construction supply company Simpson Strong-Tie and State Farm insurance.
Waste Management’s Don’t Waste It opened last week, providing visitors with educational games that help them understand what happens to garbage and how they might reduce their “personal trash profiles.”
“I think we all believe a ‘garbage fairy’ makes the trash magically disappear,” said Eric Goodman of Walt Disney Imagineering, who headed the creative team that developed Don’t Waste It. “We assume the trash we see isn’t our garbage; that it’s everyone else’s garbage. As I began to meet the people of Waste Management, the second half of the trash story began to become much clearer.”

The Walt Disney Co. has won approval to begin selling time shares in a 15-story tower the company is erecting next to its famed Contemporary Resort, a $110 million addition that Disney has named “The Kingdom Tower.”
Disney has for months refused to divulge its plans for the hard-to-miss, half-built tower that is rising just outside the gates of the Magic Kingdom — despite rampant speculation among Disney fans that it is destined for time shares.
A spokeswoman for the company’s time-share division, Disney Vacation Club, would not discuss the project in detail again Monday.
“We don’t have anything to announce today,” spokeswoman Diane Hancock said.
But in new filings with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Disney formally states that the Disney Vacation Club will “add a ninth component site to be known as Kingdom Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort.”
Disney says in the documents that it will sell the time shares in phases, beginning with an initial 75 units. The Kingdom Tower, which will connect to the existing Contemporary via a fifth-floor pedestrian bridge, will ultimately contain 281 units, according to the filings.
A spokesman for the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which awarded a time-share license to the Kingdom Tower project earlier this month, said Disney has now been cleared to start selling units at any time.
“They can begin,” department spokesman Sam Farkas said.
Disney appears in no rush. The company says in the documents it doesn’t expect to finish the Kingdom Tower until the fall of 2009.
Analysts say the company can afford to be patient. The Kingdom Tower, they say, is likely to prove a huge seller, given that it will be the closest time shares Disney has built to the Magic Kingdom — the busiest theme park in the world — and the first built directly alongside Disney’s monorail.
“I’d have to imagine that’s going to be an extremely popular product,” said Jeremy Glaser, a lodging-industry analyst with Morningstar.
Some analysts think Disney is withholding a formal Contemporary announcement because it does not want to undermine time-share sales at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas or Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, both of which are still selling units. The company’s four other time-share resorts at Walt Disney World — as well as one each in Vero Beach and Hilton Head, S.C. — are sold out.
Glaser, however, said Disney’s silence “could just be some trademark Disney secrecy.”
Disney’s filings with the state also offer more detail about the Kingdom Tower’s amenities.
A new swimming pool, for instance, will be large enough for 180 people; go as deep as 4 feet, 11 inches; and feature two hot tubs and a 104-foot-long water slide. There will be two tennis courts, two shuffleboard courts and two boccie ball courts. A barbecue pavilion will have about 490 square feet of covered area and a pair of picnic tables.
Glaser predicted that Disney will choose to market the Contemporary time shares “as more of an upscale product.” An early point-chart submitted by Disney to the state — Disney Vacation Club owners buy points from the company, which they then redeem for rooms, though they must buy through a “home resort” — shows guests will have to spend more points to rent one- and two-bedroom units at the Kingdom Tower than any of Disney’s other existing time shares.
In a further step toward cementing the new tower’s status as a time-share resort, Disney has created a new condominium association that would manage the resort once units are sold off to individual owners. State records show that the “Kingdom Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort Condominium Association” was formally incorporated Jan. 9.
The Kingdom Tower continues a wave of construction for Disney’s fast-growing Vacation Club. The company is in the midst of building its first time shares at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and has announced plans to build an 800-room resort in Hawaii in which at least half of the units will be time shares.
Disney also recently obtained approval to rebuild its little-known Treehouse Villas, a 60-unit community in a heavily forested area of Disney World.
The move has prompted speculation that those units, too, could be converted to time shares.
The widespread building boom comes even as the U.S. economy teeters on the brink of a possible recession.
But Tammie Kaufman, a professor at the University of Central Florida who teaches courses on time shares, said time shares could remain popular even during an economic slump because consumers will want to stretch their vacation money further.
“People are looking for a bargain,” Kaufman said.

It’s been hailed as the future of mass transit and ridiculed as a big gamble on little more than an amusement park ride. Which is a pretty clever insult, considering the project in question is a magnetically levitating train that would speed tourists from Las Vegas to Disneyland.
Whether the idea ever gets off the drawing board depends on both Congress and the fate of a rival train project that appears to be picking up steam.
“What all of this shows is that there’s certainly a need for high-speed rail, an interest in high-speed rail. We’re finally getting the attention,” said Alan Wapner, a member of the Ontario City Council who also sits on the commission pushing for what would be the nation’s first maglev train. “It’s time the United States wake up and realize that we need to develop alternative technologies.”
The dueling plans are competing for a big piece of the tourism industry: Ten million Southern Californians make the 250-plus-mile drive to Las Vegas each year. The vast majority take an increasingly clogged Interstate 15 that can slow to a crawl and make the drive an ordeal of five hours or more.
For nearly two decades, the main plan in the works was the futuristic maglev train that would zip riders between Sin City and the Magic Kingdom in well under two hours, hurtling across the wide-open desert at up to 300 mph.
But a delay in federal funds needed for planning the public-private venture has suddenly given traction to a cheaper diesel-electric alternative dubbed DesertXpress.
The privately funded DesertXpress would whisk riders to Las Vegas at 125 mph from the Mojave Desert town of Victorville, some 1½ hours northeast of Los Angeles. Total travel time, including the drive to Victorville: three or four hours.
Backers of DesertXpress, among them Nevada GOP powerbroker Sig Rogich, are pouring millions into their project and courting Nevada lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a longtime supporter of maglev.
The most recent delay to afflict the Anaheim-to-Vegas maglev plan was a drafting error that blocked $45 million the project was supposed to get in Congress’ 2005 highway bill. Legislation to correct the error cleared the House last year and is awaiting passage in the Senate, where it has been tied up by unrelated issues.
If it gets the financial boost, the maglev project plans to issue bonds and seek government loans.The holdup has given Rogich time to make his case.
“I’m hoping that the Senate as a whole will look at what’s been spent to date and ask specifically what is this $45 million for,” Rogich said.
Maglev has received more than $9 million in federal money over the years, spending most of it on design plans, ridership projections and other studies. The additional $45 million would pay principally for government-required environmental reviews.
DesertXpress says its project would cost $3 billion to $5 billion - compared with $12 billion or more for maglev - and would be privately financed.
Maglev’s higher price tag comes from its technology: superswift, silent trains propelled over special tracks by electricity and magnetic forces. The technology is in commercial use only on one short route in China.
Over the past several decades, a number of maglev proposals in this country have never moved beyond the planning phase. That is just one reason many are skeptical either train will ever leave the station.
Among other reasons: Neither proposal actually brings travelers to Los Angeles. DesertXpress says extending its tracks that far south is too expensive and unnecessary.
Even a train that ran between L.A. and Vegas wouldn’t guarantee financial success. Amtrak’s Desert Wind between the two cities was canceled in 1997 because of low ridership.

HE Walt Disney Company has been eyeing off a prime piece of real estate on Sydney Harbour as it seeks to expand its global empire of theme parks and resorts.

The State Government has confirmed Disney recently held unsolicited discussions with the Department of State and Regional Development about the redevelopment of White Bay, a working port next to the Anzac Bridge.

A spokesman for the Minister for State Development, Ian Macdonald, would not elaborate on what was proposed during the discussions, saying only that they took place in the past few months and had been discontinued.

Disney, which has 11 theme parks, eight resorts and a cruise line across three continents, was one of a number of unnamed companies that have approached the Government with unsolicited proposals for the site, the spokesman said.

There were no “active concepts” at present, he said.

A spokesman for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, John Nicoletti, said his company was constantly exploring opportunities to grow. “As part of that process, we have conversations with lots of entities,” he said. “And, while Australia is an attractive market, at this time we have no plans for this region.”

He would not comment on what Disney had envisioned for the White Bay site, including whether it was for a Disneyland theme park, a Disney resort or some other venture.

The Government has established the Bays Precinct Taskforce to formulate a development strategy for White Bay, Glebe Island, Blackwattle Bay and Rozelle Bay.

Details are expected to be released when the sub-regional strategy for Sydney’s inner west goes on display this year.

The executive director of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, Patricia Forsythe, said a Disneyland at White Bay would be a wonderful opportunity for Sydney. “It is a spectacular site worthy of an iconic development,” she said.

She said a world-class arts facility would also be suitable.

The secretary of the White Bay Precinct Committee, Christina Ritchie, said locals must have a say on the site’s development. She could not comment on the Disney discussion without more detail.