Happy New Year!

I’ll type this quietly just in case your cabeza is still a little tender from New Year’s Eve festivities. There’s still five days left until the Three Kings come and take down my Christmas decorations, and let’s hope Noe doesn’t cut the little plastic Baby Jesus in the Rosca de Reyes in half like he did that one year.

We did finally make it to see COCO, and Noe cried his face off. Since I knew that I was expected to cry, I did not. But it was a great movie with even greater music, but Maui Mallard will remain the greatest work Michael Giacchino has ever done, and I will fight you over that. Ah heck, I have that music in my head now. I really want a box set of Disney video game music…don’t you?

There’s a New A Wrinkle in Time Trailer and More!

Plus new “motion posters” (short videos) available on the movie’s Facebook Page.

I’m really looking forward to this film. I hope it lives up to my vivid memories of the book.

Rose Bowl Teams Make Their Annual Visit!

, Fab News:  Let’s Get This New Year Started
ROSE BOWL TEAMS VISIT DISNEYLAND RESORT (December 27, 2017) Ð No. 2 Oklahoma Sooners and No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs made their first official appearances of the Rose Bowl Game week on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, with a special ceremony at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, Calif. Players and coaches from both teams are pictured with Groot, Gamora and Star-Lord at the Guardians of the Galaxy Ð Mission: BREAKOUT! attraction. The teams will play in the 104th Rose Bowl game on Monday, January 1, 2018. (Joshua Sudock/Disneyland Resort)

Some of them are almost as tall as Groot, and they make Star-Lord look positively teensy!

The Void Opens January 5 in Downtown Disney

I’ll have more of this in detail this Friday in Star Wars News if I can manage to get it up, but a good pal of mine works at the one on the other side and a few other friends have done it and said it is very cool. Can’t wait to give it a try myself. That looks like K-2S0. Is it? My friend ain’t tellin’. Man, your company signs a contract with Lucasfilm and all of a sudden your Chap-stik gets replaced with Super-glue. I can respect that.

, Fab News:  Let’s Get This New Year Started
The Void

Be A Good Research Subject

If you visited a MiceChat Sunday meet-up in the last few months, you likely met William McCarthy. He is a Ph.D. student in Australia who has been studying Disney fans. (His research website is Playful Sociality, where you can discover more about the project.) He needs your help. I’ll let him explain:

G’day, MiceChatters! I’m a PhD candidate in the Department of Media at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and my dissertation topic looks at Disneyland as a place of online and in-person sociality over the past 25 years. Online sociality includes bulletin boards, Usenet newsgroups, web-based discussion boards, and social media platforms about Disneyland. In-person sociality includes meets, events and just being at the park. The past two months I was at Disneyland (and Disney California Adventure) on a regular basis conducting in-depth interviews with a broad range of major social media content creators, event organizers, web discussion board owners, and Facebook group administrators. While their perspective has been invaluable, I also need input from Disneyland enthusiasts throughout Southern California. Therefore, I crafted a survey to determine how SoCal Disneyland fans have used online platforms for discussion, information and socializing, and their extent of in-person participation for social meets and events in the park.

To take the survey you must have visited Disneyland and be at least 18 years old. You must also be a Southern California resident for most of the year. Therefore, a full-time resident student at a university or college in SoCal could take the survey even if his or her home is in Northern California or another state. The survey is scoped to SoCal residents due to the research’s focus on guests proximate to the park. While I know, and have met, guests from NorCal, Arizona and Nevada who visit monthly, or even more frequently, by concentrating on SoCal residents within somewhat reasonable driving distance (barring traffic) to the park, the project can stay manageable and focused. The PhD dissertation is limited to only 80,000 words (about 140 pages), thus an inclusion of all Disneyland guests in the project would easily surpass the word limit. I also considered a comparison with Orlando’s Walt Disney World parks or an international Disney park, but that would likewise be untenable with the word limit. On a positive note, this concentrated focus on SoCal should only encourage future research into all these other areas of potential research interest. Considering the size, longevity, and impact of Disney media, consumer products, and parks, there has been surprisingly little published research done on Disney and Disneyland fans around the world. Hopefully this project opens up this rich subject for others to delve into deeply.

The survey is anonymous. It neither asks for your name or email address, nor do I record your IP address. Time to completion is approximately 15-20 minutes. Respondents, thus far, have commented that the survey is straightforward and enjoyable. Please click the link below to go to the

survey Link HERE 

Your contribution to the project and human knowledge is highly appreciated, thank you very much!

Let’s help him out folks!

We Need More Juice! 

Did you get caught in the power outage at Disneyland on December 27th? The park had just implemented phased closures of Disneyland’s front gates due to heavy attendance when the power went out in parts of Fantasyland and ToonTown. Guests were escorted off of the impacted attractions, including the Monorail. Yikes!

Gumball Rally Is Rolling Your Way! 

 

, Fab News:  Let’s Get This New Year Started

Journey down the rabbit hole with us as the world-Famous MiceChat Gumball Rally celebrates the 50th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland. This Rally will be curious and curiouser. We can’t wait to share this amazing adventure with you.

, Fab News:  Let’s Get This New Year Started

What’s a Rally? It’s a competition to see which team can ride the most attractions at Disneyland in a single day.  It’s every bit as fun as it sounds.

Information on how the Rally is played, photos of previous events, and ticket information HERE.

Don’t be late for this very important date SIGN UP NOW HERE.

, Fab News:  Let’s Get This New Year Started

And MiceChat Anniversary weekend is the day before AND after the Gumball Rally. Dusty’s going to be a very tired Disney nerd the first weekend of February. So what will we be doing for Anniversary this February 2nd? Well, I have it on very good authority that David Koenig has something very special planned. Sunday will be a day in the park with your MicePals. Don’t miss out on the details. Get  your name on the list folks!



 

The Anaheim Hotel Transforms

Speaking of MiceChat Anniversary . . . the partner hotel for the event is The Anaheim Hotel. It’s owned by the same folks who owned the Anabella Hotel and the old Carousel Hotel. They’ve been a long time MiceChat partner and they have some exciting news to share about their major investment in the mid-century design of their hotel:

ANAHEIM, CALIF. – The Wincome Group finalizes rebranding effort on newly rated AAA-three diamond property, The Anaheim Hotel.

Beginning in October of 2016 and finalizing in December 2017, the Anaheim Hotel underwent extensive renovations to its lobby, meeting and events spaces, pool, landscaping, parking lot, exterior facade, and most importantly its 303 guest rooms. Wincome Group embraced the hotel’s heritage with a mid-century modern aesthetic, while maintaining the unique attributes and classic comforts that it has built its guest loyalty around. The rebranding initiative also included a name change, with the former Anaheim Plaza Hotel and Suites officially becoming The Anaheim Hotel in April of 2017.

The Pizza Press was also a large part of the Anaheim Hotel’s rebranding effort, partnering with the hotel to provide not only their hugely popular Pizza Press restaurant, but also a full service breakfast, in-room dining, and catering options.

The expansive renovation project aimed to not only increase the hotel’s AAA-diamond ranking, but also to provide the resort area with a new full service hotel for both leisure and convention guests. Wincome Group strived to fill to void felt by the closure of their Anabella Hotel which broke ground on its own redevelopment with the announcement of The Westin Anaheim Resort set to open in its place in 2020.

The Anaheim Hotel is proud to welcome guests to experience not only the refurbishments, but the new culture that Wincome has created here. Return guests as well as first time visitors will get to enjoy a hotel experience different from anything else currently being offered in the Anaheim Resort.

, Fab News:  Let’s Get This New Year Started

If you book a stay at The Anaheim Hotel, be sure to ask for the special MiceChat Rate. MiceChat readers get a special deal.


It’s still pretty quiet, because everyone is still hung over recovering from the holidays. Things should start to pick up again this week. So! What did Sandy Claws bring you? I got clothes and a chopper and peeler and Kylo stuff and Portmeireon stuff and a tiki shot glass and a blanket that glitters. And smelly stuff what makes me smell good. Plus, someone at Noe’s work gave us her entire Nightmare Before Christmas doll collection. Gorgeous dolls. Alice put them up all over. The landlady, if not entirely convinced of our weirdness before…

Anyway, tell me what you want me to write about next week.

I’m on Patreon, if you feel so inclined:

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Shelly Valladolid
Shelly Valladolid, aka Fab, has been writing about Disney and theme parks for about two decades. She has written for various fan and pop culture sites, Disney Magazine and OCRegister.com and participated in several books, including Passporter's Disneyland and Southern California and Disney World Dreams. She was co-founder and president of the Orlando, Florida chapter of the NFFC (now Disneyana Fan Club). She taught a class on theme park history at a Southern California University. She is creator and co-owner of Jim Hill Media, one of the creators of MousePlanet and was a consultant on MSNBC, The Motley Fool and others about Disney and various media matters. She was a Heel wrestling manager on TV and a voice artist on the radio in Honolulu, HI, where she grew up. She has a blog and a podcast with her daughter, Mission:Breakout Obsessive Alice Hill. She and her husband, MiceChat columnist Noe Valladolid, live in Southern California with Alice.