Shanghai Disneyland’s Enchanted Storybook Castle promises to be the most tricked-out structure ever built at a Disney theme park

Jim Hill

12 years ago

To honest, there’s wasn’t a whole lot of really-for-real
news that came out of today’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders of The Walt Disney
Company in Phoenix, AZ. Chairman
and chief executive officer Robert A. Iger spoke with great enthusiasm about
the slate of films the Studio would be releasing over the coming year. Iger
also told the crowd at the Orpheum Theatre about his recent trip to Walt Disney
World, where Disney’s big cheese then got to test-drive one of the MagicBands
which powers the My Disney Experience program. But beyond that, strictly from a
hard news point-of-view, Disney’s 2013 Annual Meeting of Shareholder was
something of a bust.

Mind you, after the meeting in Phoenix
officially wrapped, Disney Company PR staffers did release a photograph of a
model of Shanghai Disneyland. Which gave theme park enthusiasts a better
understanding of where various design elements & attractions will be in and
around that theme park’s Enchanted Storybook
Castle.

To be specific, it looks like the Imagineers have spent the
past year or so finessing their original site plan for that 11-acre green space
at the center of Shanghai Disneyland. Shifting the Dumbo attraction (which used
to be lots closer to this theme park retail / entrance corridor) …

… back towards the Enchanted
Storybook Castle.

Likewise, based on the success of “World of Color”
at Disney California
Adventure Park
and Disneyland Paris’ 20th anniversary nighttime spectacular, “Disney Dreams!”
…

… there are now plans in the works for Shanghai Disneyland
to have its own nightly dancing-water-and-lights show …

(Please note the jets of water that are leaping out of the
Enchanted Storybook Castle’s moat in the above concept painting. Here. I’ll
provide you with a close-up)

Now what’s kind of intriguing about this moat area in front
of Shanghai Disneyland’s Enchanted Storybook
Castle is that — during the day
…

… a boat adventure will travel through the exact same
expanse of water which houses this fountain show …

… before then taking SDL Guests back inside the Castle to
experience this attraction’s fiber-optic-and-projections filled finale.

Yeah, Shanghai Disneyland’s Enchanted
Storybook Castle
promises to be the most tricked-out structure ever built at a Disney theme park. Featuring on Opening Day the sorts of special features that the other Disney theme park castles didn’t acquire ’til decades after their respective theme parks opened. As Guests enter this genuinely impressive structure …

… they’ll have the option of going on the Once Upon a Time
Adventure, which is a walk-thru experience that takes place on multiple levels
inside of Shanghai Disneyland’s castle.

Or they can visit the first ever Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique
princess makeover experience built inside of a Disney theme park castle.

Mind you, there’ll obviously be additional tweaks made to
the Enchanted Storybook Castle before Shanghai Disneyland opens in late 2015
(Though the way I hear it, due to some construction delays, this $3 billion
theme park and resort may now wind up opening in early 2016), it does look like
it’s really going to be an impressive addition to The Walt Disney Company’s
worldwide collection of castles. Though — if I’d had my druthers — I really
wish that Iger (instead of showing us the Enchanted
Storybook Castle)
had opted instead to show us a model for that theme park’s Pirates of the
Caibbean-themed flume ride …

… which will be sending Shanghai Disneyland Guests
screaming down into an enormous outdoor lagoon located to the right of the Enchanted
Storybook Castle.

From what I’ve been told by Disney Company insiders, given
the huge number of friction pilings that have already been driven into the
ground at the Shanghai Disneyland worksite to support the “Pirates of the Caribbean”
show building, that structure is among the safest and sturdiest in Mainland China.

Anyway, that was the news (or lack thereof) from today’s
Annual Meeting of Shareholders in Phoenix,
AZ.

Your thoughts?