August 16, 2010
9:20 PM
Disney Everywhere
Disney has been quite liberal in permitting 'fans' to launch websites and other projects that make use of Disney's trademarks and other intellectual property. But the anonymous Bahamian owner of DisneysPark.com took it a bit too far and now Disney has filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum to force transfer of the domain into Disney's custody.
If you visit DisneysPark.com, you'll be redirected to a shell site called BestThemeParks.org run by someone whose business model relies upon unsuspecting visitors to click one of the many links on the site. That click would earn the owner a few pennies. Get enough clicks, you've got a good living.
Disney reasonably claims that DisneysPark.com is so close to DisneyParks.com, which it has owned since 1999, as to create confusion in the marketplace. Look for Disney to win this one.
What about other sites that incorporate 'Disney' into their name? For instance, DisneyDad. Or DisneyFoodBlog. Or, um, DisneyDispatch. Before I launched DisneyDispatch, I asked a former colleague who practices intellectual property law whether Disney could claim my site violates its trademark. The answer, as is the case with most answers to legal questions, was unsatisfactorily nuanced: yeah, maybe, but probably they won't bother.
See you tomorrow!
MORE: Domain News
By now everyone knows that the Italian pavillion in Epcot has a new restaurant: Via Napoli, specializing in that arguably American invention, pizza.
The pizza is pricy. With tax, a large will set you back around thirty bucks, but Via Napoli breaks the glass ceiling of Disney pizza and delivers a superior product, easily the best in the parks and equal to some of the best here in northeastern Pennsylvania, known for having nearly as many pizza shops in its small towns as churches and bars.
In Part 1 of a two-part article for the Examiner, Barbara Nefer shared some fantastic pictures of Via Napoli, including a few shots of the ribbon-cutting (which I covered in the inaugural edition of the Disney Dispatch on August 12). But fuhgedduboutdat: it's Part 2 that has the food porn.
Among the sultry shots: a pizza in the shape of Mickey's head with what looks like two slices of squash for his eyes. (I could be wrong about the squash.) That pizza is an offer I can't refuse.
MORE: Examiner (Barbara Nefer)
Last Friday the AAA published its top 10 list of family friendly resorts.
Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge finished second on the list. The Lodge already boasts a AAA Three Diamond rating, and now this further accolade confirms what Lodge guests have always known.
Disney is no stranger to the AAA Diamond. Six of its resorts were awarded Four Diamond ratings in 2010: Grand Floridian, Polynesian, Contemporary, Yacht Club, Beach Club, and the BoardWalk Inn. The Grand Floridian has been a Four Diamond resort for the past 21 years!
It'll be interesting to see next year whether the Animal Kingdom Lodge picks up a fourth Diamond.
MORE: AAA Travel View (Laurie Peterson)
11:03 AM
Disney Everywhere
JB Conway, a police officer who writes poetry on the side, published a book in 2002 called Crime Scene Lyrics. Several years later, in 2006, he visited Disney World with his children for the first time.
His muse took notice. Instead of more crime scene lyrics, JB now writes haiku to express his feelings about Disney, and he does it daily.
Mouse of Zen, features a new Disney haiku every time you load the home page. For example:
things are looking up
splashed with anticipation
from a mountain chill
JB plans to compile his Disney haiku into a book entitled (what else?) Mouse of Zen.
MORE: Mouse of Zen (JB Conway)
AJ Wolfe of the Disney Food Blog took a break during last April's 5 Stars to Mickey Bars event and had dinner at the BoardWalk's Flying Fish Cafe.
For her review, AJ took some close-up shots of the whimsical Flying Fish decor, including the golden fish dangling overhead beneath their parachutes. (Disney was smart to use Flying Fish, not Parachuting Fish, as the name of this restaurant.) The food pictures, always superb, left my monitor moist as I licked deliriously the Black and Blue Dark Berry Tart.
(Apologies for that unsettling mental image.)
After you read AJ's review, check out the current menu for the Flying Fish Cafe on Disney's dining site. I've never found it difficult to get reservations here, even at the last minute, though if you want to book the Cafe's sporadic Dine with an Imagineer event, I wouldn't wait quite so long to do it.
DisneyFoodBlog has gotten hullabaloo here before, most recently in the August 13 edition for It's August - Let's Think About Christmas!.
MORE: Disney Food Blog (AJ)
A Disney World hook, according to AllEar's columnist Mike Scopa, is a specific sensation (sight, sound, taste, even smell) that reminds you of Disney World. I have several of them: the burning timbers in Epcot's Spaceship Earth, for instance, or the cheap green tiki vase that I bought on my first visit to the Polynesian in 1975. These hooks are powerful and persistent. Unless the house has caught fire, I can almost smell those timbers now.
Mike has his own hooks (which he revealed in an earlier blog post on AllEars) and now he gives his readers a forum to share theirs.
Reader Linda Cosby and I have a hook in common: the smell of the lobby in the Polynesian. I can't describe it, and I haven't caught that scent anywhere else, but it hasn't changed in over three decades. It's similar to - but different than - the chlorine fragrance in the water rides, another of my 'nose hooks'.
I'm sure you have hooks of your own (and you're probably thinking of them right now).
You can read more from the prolific Mike Scopa on AllEars, where he writes the popular blog View from Scopa Towers, and you can occasionally hear his dulcet tones on the WDW Today podcast.
MORE: AllEars (Mike Scopa)
Disney English is a phenomenal effort to teach children in China how to speak English using Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Disney has 14 of these centers in China, mostly in Shanghai, with many more planned, according to Disney English Senior Vice-President Andrew Sugerman in an interview today with Wang Zhuoqiong of China Daily.
There's no shortage of for-profit English language teaching centers in China. The market is huge and expanding: many Chinese families are eager for their children to learn English (as opposed to American families not eager for their children to learn Mandarin) and Disney clearly hopes to leap-frog the entrenched competition by leveraging the global appeal of its characters.
Who wouldn't want to learn English from Mickey Mouse? (Donald Duck is another story.)
Disney plans to open its next theme park in Shanghai. What better way to expose potential park guests to its characters than through programs like Disney English.
Not only is Disney doing good - it's being smart.
MORE: China Daily (Wang Zhuoqiong)
As Len Testa of TouringPlans predicted, Disney announced today a pair of Disney World vacation package promotions distinguished by the most magical word of all: FREE.
The first is a free dining plan with purchase of a non-discounted 4-day/5-night room and ticket package for selected dates between October 1, 2010 and September 29, 2011. Book by December 20 with code NL7.
The second is a free $500 gift card with purchase of a non-discounted 4-day/5-night Magic Your Way Package for selected dates between October 3, 2010 and February 16, 2011. Book by November 21 with code ZH9.
A third promotion - 25% or more off room rates - is running concurrently with the gift card promotion, though you can't combine them. Book by November 21 with code AK9.
For full details, visit the Disney site. (And read about it on every blog in the Disney universe starting in about ... now.)
MORE: Disney
