5 Kingdoms

Where and How each and every Disney characters or Franchise are imagineered and exploited all around the 5 Kingdoms ?

Just a new modest section of 5 Kingdoms. Alice shall cut the ribbon.

The original Mad Tea Party cups...

Alice is present in all 5 Kingdoms through its world famous attraction. No matter which kingdom you stop by, guests are gonna spin under the charming theme of Alice in Wonderland, but some Kingdoms offer more than a few cups of Alice ! Actually 3 of them have something special from Walt Disney’s Classic Alice in Wonderland.

Since 1958 in the only Kingdom already opened that year, Alice welcomes guests to a unique dark ride located in Fantasyland. You climb on a 2 rows Caterpillar which before and after scrolling through Wonderland goes out of the building to give its riders a great view of Fantasyland. This darklighted masterpiece simply named ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is unique to its Kingdom and encounters quiet a success in Anaheim.

Facade of Alice in Wonderland ride.

Entrance to the Banquet

For long, across the pacific ocean the first Asian Kingdom only had its Mad Tea Party to enjoy, but since 1998, the Tokyo Disneyland got itself a treat. A treat for kids and adults in the form of an authentic Disney buffeteria. Imagineers decided to add a restaurant to Fantasyland and chose the always fresh Alice theme to dress it. Queen of Heart’s Banquet Hall facade works as one of the primary backdrop of the land toward which hungry guest rushes in for the Kingdoms’ only Alice’s culinary experience.

The Big hearted shaped edge welcomes you as in you were entering the maze. Instead you find yourselves seated in Queen of Heart’s castle !

On eside of the building presents the maze. By flickr user frikitiki

Tokyo's Queen of Hearts Banquet's interior.

This works as a great alice decor but another park, the ever “lucky” one got even better on its openning day.

In Disneyland Paris, Alice got a real labyrinth, a unique outdoor Walkthrough attraction whose climax (if you can find it) is the Queen of Heart’s very own Castle replicate. Once you’ve passed this other Heart shaped vegetal entrance you’ll find the maze is filled with Alice references and located right across the Cups by which you can have a tea or pastries in a recreated snack vendor version of the March Hare House.

Disneyland Paris' Alice's Curious Labyrinth by Flickr user joelforeman

Across the entrance of Alice’s Curious Labyrinth stands a March Hare refreshments, faithful replicate this Alice In Wonderland original character. March Hare Refreshments serves beverages and sweets.

Needless to say in those 3 Alice enriched Kingdoms, those attractions/restaurants themed locations assembles into some Alice minilands that work perfectly with the them of Fantasyland in which they are all encompassed.

Hong Kong and Orlando didn’t get any extra bits of Alice, they left stranded with Mad Hatter Tea Cup for one and Mad Tea Party for the other. But Alice is not only in attractions, shops and restaurants. She always gets her own float in any major Disney Parade, and is out and about in every parks quiet often. Actually no matter which Kingdom you visit, you hve a fare chance of meeting her in person bouncing around her own little Wonderland.

Have not grabbed your Homepark badge yet ? Do it now !

[UPDATE] NEW SITE IS ON !

(if everything alright, you should already be on it)

Thanks to numerous self-teaching blogs, I was able to smoothly move the entire content of the blog into a graphically and technically enhanced 5 Kingdoms. This will ease the writing and formating of the articles as well as give the site a unique graphical entity.

All you have to do is bookmark the new URL http://www.5kingdomsblog.com and use it for your next visit.

And to seal this transition, my next article will fully benefit from new features made avalaible by this well thought move. Come back on the new 5 Kingdoms soon for “3 Haunted Mansion and 1 Phantom Manor”.

That’s it, sorry for the techy bother !

Enjoy the new Kingdoms !

It’s been officialy announced by DLRP Management, the same service provided by Walt Disney World through Google Earth 3D will be available for Disneyland Paris starting martch 28th.

This is wonderful news for all those who couldn’t visit the European restort already. Parks, hotels and transportation, everything will be modelised and tagged just like for it’s floridian bigger sister.

Thanks to this detailed 3D services, Disney fans around to world can either explore or reminisce ! I can’t wait for them to reach the other 3 resorts !

Get ready to discover or rediscover this unique Kingdom on March 28th 2009 !

-(UPDATE)-

Still nothing on Google Earth. Is Disneyland Paris waiting for Mickey’s Magical Party campaign to kick in so the 3D Google Earth incrementation can help publicize it ? Who knows ?

We’ll just have to wait for an official announcement then…

The week-end before Christmas, Disneyland Paris, in an unprecedented move had to pull out the SOLD OUT sign three days in advance, warnning its upcoming guests that only visitors with a dated ticket would be allowed in. The rest either better cancel their trip, or settle for the resort’s second gate : Walt Disney Studios.

These are the 5 estimation of the maximum capacity of the 5 Magic Kingdoms.

• Disneyland Park: 49,000
• Magic Kingdom Park: 90,000
• Tokyo Disneyland Park: 90,000
• Parc Disneyland: 85,000

Hong Kong Disneyland Park: 35,000

Every 5 Kingdoms are different in superficy and crowd capacity. It is merely impossible to calculate the real crowd capacity of the parks, so this article only list the numbers at which point, park management will shut the valvle and not let anyone else in.

Those figures were hard to come by as most sources differ.

• For Disneyland my sources are from the most recent article of Al Lutz .
  
• For the Magic Kingdom, it’s from the various reports of this holiday shut down where attendances were said to be between 83,000 to 100,000. I’m therefor guessing that the 100,000 figure always given is a bit overestimated.
  
• Tokyo’s numbers are only a guess, but the park holds very large areas capable to hold many without congestion. So it has to be equivalent to Florida’s Magic Kingdom
  
• For le Parc Disneyland, it’s a well known number that’s frequently reached and always spoken out by castmembers on those particular days.
  
• Hong Kong is from an article from CHINAdaily.com dating back from 2005 where park management refused to lower their max number of 30,000 despite guest complaints. I believe due to various expansion since opening, this  number must be closer to 35,000 now.

Of course the trees have always been planned to tag along once the Christmas Season openned. For more than 50 years Disneyland always got itself a live tree in the center of Town Square until this very season when it switched to a very real feeling fake tree.
For decades already every other Kingdoms have used fake trees for their ease of transport and permanent good look.

As for their location, Town Square is the ideal spot. Some parks like Disneyland Paris and the Magic Kingdom in Florida have tried to move it closer to the castle recently but they all came back where they belong, right behind Paris’ gazebo and other’s flagpole. It welcomes the guests with a special Christmas wow that later step aside once you start walking up Main Street.

Only Anaheim and Hong Kong share a very similar tree, other than that, all other Kingdoms build their very own tree.
Disneyland and Hong Kong  decoration hold classical baubles and garlands much like Disneyland Paris whose beautiful snowflakes illuminates among nutcrackers toys and other christmas glitters.
Tokyo also displays a very glamorous dressing with red lights and pearl garlands linked together to massive golden stars.
Walt Disney World on the other hand picked a warmer craftier set with big gingerbread men, popcorn garlands and wax dripping candles.