Shanghaî Disneyland Update

Here is a new Shanghaî Disneyland update and i have to say that it's pretty hard to have any infos about SDL as WDI is quite well keeping the secret on this park. That said, i have some new ones that are quite interesting. The first one is not necessarily a good news as from what i've been told it seems that the first stage of SDL might be a downsized plan of what was originally envisioned. If that is true it could explain why there is so much space available in the park for "future expansion" as we saw last month in my previous article. You must remind that Disney is not alone to invest in the SDL project and that a joint-venture with the chinese was created. If it happened that the chinese didn't agreed to put the amount of money that Disney has expected this downsized plan might be real and due to insufficient capital. However, and although my source is as always a reliable one, please take this info as a not-totally-confirmed news until i'll be able to double-check it.

Let's have a look now at what rides we can expect in the park. Laughing Place has posted some weeks ago a list of the SDL expected rides which is quite accurate, but not totally as we will see.

So, in Fantasyland according to LP the rides would be:

-Storybook Castle
-Castle Boat Ride
-Dumbo
-Carousel
-Tea Cups
-Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
-Peter Pan's Flight
-Winnie The Pooh ride

LP is right on most of them except that the tea cups ride would be replaced by the Winnie the Pooh Hunny Pot Spins. Talking about Pooh, the SDL Pooh dark ride will be the same than in HKDL and not unfortunately the Tokyo Disneyland version. Fantasyland seems to be the most completed land and my source also mentioned a Alice in Wonderland garden/maze and that the Carousel will be themed with a Fantasia theme, which by the way is a good idea.

Let's have a look now at Adventureland. According to LP the rides should be:

-Lost World River Rapids

Pirates Cove:
-Pirates of the Caribbean Water Ride
-Pirate Stunt Show

Laughing Place is right on all of them and i've been confirmed that there will be indeed a POTC stunt show, may be partly inspired from the one previously envisioned for DLP WDS and which was never built. The Dinosaurs "Lost World River Rapids" ride will be indeed a raft ride with AA Dinos but there will be also in Adventureland, and on another theme, a walk through attraction. It might be one called "Sunken Treasure" that i've been told about but so far the mystery of what would be precisely this "Sunken Treasure" still remains a WDI secret.

About the POTC ride i thought that WDI would put at SDL the concept which has been developed for HKDL but in fact it might not be the case. More strangely, i've been told that SDL might not have many audio-animatronics at its opening, and even in POTC there might be less AA than in other POTC versions. Apparently WDI will also use projections effects. I can agree with you that all this remains not perfectly clear but Shanghaî Disneyland is a big puzzle that will take the next three years to be completed and the parts of the puzzle are coming one by one, little by little ...

Let's move to Tomorrowland rides now. According to LP SDL Tomorrowland should have:

-TRON Indoor Rollercoaster
-Astro Orbitor / Rockets Ride

I can't confirm the Astro-Orbitor but the TRON motor bike coaster seems to be definitely a "go". A Stitch encounter is also envisioned and it should be the same one than we can find at HKDL and Paris WDS.

Apparently Tomorrowland will also have a Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride but from what i've heard it will be a different version than the interactive dark ride we know and it'll be changed into a ride with projections rather than animatronics or 2D animated decor. Could WDI recycle the Toy Story Mania technology in a ride dedicated to the universe of Buzz Lightyear? I'm afraid we'll have to wait a little bit to know exactly the truth!

Picture: copyright Disney

Cracking the Shanghaî Disneyland Case

Sam Wilson is a huge Imagineering fan and a faithful Disney and more reader since i've started the site. Recently he has created his own site and yesterday he did a great article about Shanghaî Disneyland.

For the reasons we know WDI don't disclose any infos about SDL rides - mostly because Disney want to avoid SDL ideas to be stolen by other chinese theme parks - but this lack of infos didn't stopped Sam Wilson to try to crack the Shanghai Disneyland case. So, after analyzing all the infos available on different sites like Screamscape or Blue Sky Disney as well as official renderings or the SDL model displayed at D23 he did this very first Shanghaî Disneyland map that you can see below - click on it to see it in larger size.



You will read in Sam article how he did to create this map. Is he right? He probably is for some of the rides and may be not on others but that's not the problem as SDL won't open before three or four years and some of WDI choices might change. Also, in his article Sam is saying that SDL Tomorrowland might have a People Mover. It would be a good idea and we'll see if it will be the case or not but recently i've found this picture shot during an Imagineering presentation at the last D23 Expo. This rendering was apparently done for a new People Mover ride at Disneyland Anaheim, so there is no relation with SDL. Still, it's an interesting artwork as if you have a closer look to it you'll see that this new People Mover had a totally new ride system. In fact you can see that riders are sit on a platform attached to a robotic arm which obviously have the ability to move in all directions while also moving all around Tomorrowland.



What was probably envision here was to use the Kuka robot arm technology, the one that Universal used in the Harry Potter land E-Ticket ride. Universal succeeded to have an exclusivity on the use of the Kuka robot arm technology in theme park rides for the next ten years, but if i remember it well they only have this exclusivity for the U.S. Which means that Disney might be free to use this People Mover / Kuka arm idea for other theme parks, and why not at Shanghaî Disneyland? To be honest i don't think they will use it at SDL as they probably wouldn't have shown the artwork at D23 if they were planning to include this ride at Shanghaî Disneyland.

Now, to come back to SDL and Sam's map i suppose that you're interested to learn how Sam did it and how he put all the infos together to create this great map, so it's time to jump to Sam Wilson's article on his site to learn more about Shanghaî Disneyland secrets! It's right HERE.

Picture: copyright Disney

Map: copyright Sam Wilson

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Shanghaî Disneyland : The Surprise behind the Christmas Tree

Bob Weis, the WDI Imagineer who has supervised the huge placemaking of Disney's California Adventure and who is now at the head of Shanghaî Disneyland creative development - has posted on his blog on December 8 the above picture in a post called "Shanghai Christmas Tree at Site Office".

Well, we're happy to learn that SDL Imagineers are ready to celebrate Christmas but as you can guess it's not the christmas tree in this image that drew my attention. It's what is behind it. Of course Bob took great care that what is on the wall of the SDL office can't be seen in details and the image was posted in very small size and low resolution. But let's have a look anyway to see if we can learn more from this image when we make it bigger.



Right behind the tree are displayed pictures and what is it written above them? : "Government Works". And indeed it is pictures of the works on SDL site. As we know currently they're preparing the ground and nothing is built so there is nothing of big interest for us in these pictures. BUT, what do we see right in the middle? That's right, a Shanghaî Disneyland map! And it would be difficult to have a better source as the picture was shot at SDL site, and, thanks to the christmas tree, we know that it was shot very recently, probably a week ago. It will be difficult if not impossible to have a map more up to date. The only problem is that the map, partly hidden by the tree, shows only 60% of the park in addition to the lake and the land around it, and that it is a low resolution image, as i've said. Now, let's blow up the image and give it even more pixels to try to see better.



The pictures above and below might look the same than the other one above but in fact they're bigger so click on them to see them in bigger size. On the one below i've put numbers to help you to locate what is what. Number 6 is the park entrance, 7 is the castle, 8 is Adventureland, 9 is Fantasyland and 10 is Tomorrowland. Now, Tomorrowland and part of Fantasyland are hidden by the christmas tree but not the rest of the park. Although it's impossible to guess any attraction there is some interesting elements, specially the parts which are in light green color. If you look for instance at the numbers 1, 2 and 3 they show lands located in the back of Fantasyland or Adventureland and it seems that these parts are not expected to be built - at least right now. It doesn't necessarily mean that nothing will be built there on opening day, but so far it seems that they keep these pieces of lands for a future SDL expansion. Same for the land number 4 at the south of Adventureland although this one might be for the SDL Hotel. And we can see the vegetation limits between these lands and what is sure to be built. Also interesting are the three lands number 5 located around the lake. Will they build new hotels there? Might be, it would be a good location for future hotels.



What this map seems to confirm is what part of the park we can expect being built on opening day and what will not. It's logical that they keep land for future expansion as they always do but at first sight and if there is no changes in the future Adventureland looks smaller than expected and may be Fantasyland too. However we must be cautious as we don't know the exact proportions of the park and the lands might be bigger than we think when we look at this map. Anyway, i sincerely hope that Disney will have learn from HKDL and that Shanghaî Disneyland will not be too small when it will open in 2016. For those of you who would like to compare this recent map with the official rendering released last April, here it is below in its high-res version.



And if we have a look back at the SDL model which was presented at D23 Expo last August, it seems that this map reflects what the model was showing - if i can say, as WDI took great care that the model precisely shows almost nothing in details!



Anyway, this was one more piece added to SDL mystery, and we might have to wait a bit more before Disney release new official infos about the park.

Picture: copyright Bob Weis, Disney, and Andy Castro