2013: A year of pure Disney magic.

It's over, 2013 has left us and we are now in a brand new year. But wow, what a year it was. It was the year that Disneyland Paris told us that they were building a ride, they even named it. It was a year where exceptional events just happened, and as one event ended, an even more magical one began. There wasn't even time to ponder what would happen next.
So, let's take a look back at those past 12 months.

The year began in a reasonably quiet way, February saw the introduction of the Aristocats to the Disneyland Paris character line up with a spectacular unveiling on February 14th in a special cavalcade that ran twice in the day (Rain cancelled one of the scheduled three showings). This was followed by a weekend of character couples in Disneyland Park - but that was not all. That weekend also saw the inaugural LNB (Ligue national du basket) Leaders Cup take place in the Disney Events Arena in Disney Village, the contest which involved a number of the top French basketball teams competing in a series of knock out matches involved a few Disney touches, each match was covered live on French Sport channel Sport+ which was also shown in the Sports Bar, and saw a special celebration seeing Disney Village open until 2am in the morning. This event was hugely popular and 2014 sees a new round of matches taking place.

The end of March 2013 saw the launch of the 20th Anniversary extended celebrations, this involved a fashion show, Light'Ear launch and two new scenes added to Disney Dreams! (The Lion King and Brave replacing The Jungle Book and Mary Poppins). The ears looked beautiful when every member of the audience was wearing them, but the public would need to wait until June in order to try them out for themselves.

Then came along April which was another quiet month. May saw the Disney Dreamers Everywhere event, a series of private meet and greets were held for a special group of guests in all the Disney parks across the world - a special event indeed.  Despite the main attractions being invite only, regular day guests could meet the rare characters during the day at their special photo location. Characters in Disneyland Paris included Clara Cluck, Darkwing Duck and more.

Not too much happened in June other than the Toad Hall restaurant re-opening after a period of refurbishment, the restaurant was immensely improved. The end of the month saw the closure of Hollywood pictures in order to make way for the LEGO store. 

July saw Parcorama publish a blog about the deteriorating state of Disneyland Paris and launched a petition to Bob Iger to improve the state of things at our beloved Parisian resort. The petition reached the required number of signatures and was sent to the Walt Disney Company in Burbank amongst a high level of media attention across Europe. We also began to learn more about the Halloween festival and Christmas.

In August we learnt that the special Disney Dreams of Christmas would be a show in its own right, and would take elements from the new Disney Animation Studios film Frozen. We learnt that we'd be getting a new Christmas tree, and a new lighting ceremony that wouldn't involve characters.

September was perhaps the biggest month of the year for Disneyland Paris in 2013. The 20th Anniversary reached its conclusion, and Disneyland Paris held a What's New, What's Next event in which hotel refurbishments and new merchandising was introduced to a assembled mix of the Disneyland Paris fan websites and blogs. Ratatouille: L'Avenure Totalement Toquée de Rémy was unveiled as the Ratatouille attraction name, as well as a piece of artwork unveiled.

In October, the Halloween season was launched in Disneyland Paris which involved a new cavalcade, some new decorations and new character opportunities, this was widely regarded as a huge success for the resort. The new Disneyland Paris website was launched, which offered a cleaner design, new features and a mobile version of the site.

November was the launch of the most extensive Christmas celebrations to date, decorations from the previous year were extended and new decorations added. A beautiful new Christmas tree was unveiled with a fantastic lighting ceremony which could be viewed as a 360 degree spectacle. The big finish was a new version of Disney Dreams! named Disney Dreams of Christmas featuring Olaf, Frozen, Toy Story and many classic tales.

And that's it for Disneyland Paris 2013, it was a wonderful year, more news than action but this coming year will see many new features heading to our resort - and I for one can't wait.

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Paris je t'aime - August 2013 Pin Releases

Are we really at the end of yet another month? Hot off the heels of the Pin Trading Event which took place last weekend at the Hotel Santa Fe where some of the pins we'll be seeing this winter got revealed, the following day Pin traders got more good news with the 'pre-release' of the August 2013 poster! And it's a Paris-heavy month once again...

Photo:Virginie Canneviere

N.b. I will update the poster once Disneyland Paris posts their official version.

The first thing to note is that this month is quite a 'pin-lite' month, unless you love Paris. Once again the headlines for this poster will be stolen by the Paris pins, of which there are 6. I actually quite like these new Paris visuals, but I'm rather unsure why additional Mickey/Minnie Eiffel Tower pins are needed after last months releases. The love pin I'm sure will sell well with Disneyland Paris attracting a large amount of couples. The spinner pin is quite nice, it's very much in the style of the spinner pins we see each year with the year visual printed on it, and yet another Duffy pin. I really like Duffy's Parisian outfit (I wonder if we will be seeing this retail in the parks, as the Sulley outfit did). The releases on August 3rd are rounded off by two Lone Ranger pins, the sheriffs badge is quite nice (but perhaps too similar to the Mickey Sheriff pin released in May) and a limited edition pin which will probably not sell too well if Frankenwenie and Tron Legacy film release pins are anything to judge it by.
Saturday the 17th August sees the conclusion (or so we think...) of the Princess locket series with Snow White. The previews of this series last year only showed 8 pins, this was shown again last weekend so let's assume this series has now finished. The final pin of the month is the Pinocchio good luck/bad luck pin. This series looks really nice and a collection I would really like to add to my personal collection.

The annual pin trading day, which traditionally takes place on the last Saturday of August each year, will take place on the 31st August with a Pocahontas theme. If you're in the park, the instructions are to meet in Liberty Arcade at 1am and then head over to the Pueblo trading post.

Finally, another new pin!

Picture: David Sochard (Facebook)

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Indiana Jones attraction in Adventureland, this cast member exclusive is to be released on the 30th July. I love this pin, as Indiana Jones is my favourite film series, and Mickey, my favourite character, I really need to add this one to my collection.
On sales at Boutique Jessica 1 and 2 as well as at Wild West Show, 3013 editions, one pin per cast member. Cast Member Exclusive. (We felt that as pin collectors, this one needed to be reported).

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2014 Pins revealed! (UPDATED!)

UPDATE 01/01/2014): Despite the  2014 dates, these pins have now mostly been released, for an updated 2014 pin release preview: Click Here
Here at DLP Town Square we are huge pin collectors, and knowing that a large portion of Disney Park fans are pin collectors, we felt we needed to share these new pins! At the Indiana Jones pin trading event yesterday, a few pin sneak peaks were given. Here is what to expect for the rest of 2013 and in 2014. Amongst the big news is that the hugely successful attraction pin series will continue and even extend into lanyards, as well as the 2014 Disney Parks imagery pins.

We start with this good luck / bad luck series, 4 pins will be available in this set which started in July 2013 with the Cinderella pin, it seems that this set could continue until October 2013 with one pin per month. The set is a double sided spinner set with one side depicting an element of good luck in a Disney film (such as Cinderella with the fairy godmother) and another side featuring bad luck (such as Aladdin with Jafar). My personal favourite in this set is the Aladdin pin. This really is a classy set that we love!

Next up is the big news of the event is that the wonderfully designed attraction pins are set to continue into 2014, with the addition (finally!) of an Adventureland pin in the form of Pirates of the Caribbean. We really like this pin, the imagery on these are reasonably 'grown up' and up to present there are not any especially 'adult' pins with a pirates imagery. We then move into the Walt Disney Studios park with another fantastically designed Crush's Coaster pin, the Rock'n'Roller coaster pin looks very much like the one currently on sale. Despite the fact Disneyland Paris has a lot of Tower of Terror pins currently on sale (and most of them very well designed), they have seen fit to release another pin. We are once again fans of this set and cannot wait to add these to our collection!

More princesses! If you like princesses these carriage style pins are beautiful and features the more rarer princesses of Pocahontas and Mulan. It also features the princess branding with Merida, in what is a Disneyland Paris first!

If you are enjoying the current wave of Phantom Manor merchandise, here is yet another to add to your collection. Fans of this classic Disneyland Paris attraction will be wanting to display that Ravenswood Manor wallpaper round their neck with the spooktastic pin collection!

Isn't it crazy that we are already thinking about 2014? Disney Parks across the world usually release various pieces of merchandise with the year visual, Disneyland Paris is no different. I really like the booster set here featuring the year with the various land landmarks, such as the Earful Tower, the Castle, Phantom Manor and Space Mountain. The usual lanyard, Duffy and spinner pins will be released as well. Fans of year merchandise will snap these up. I really like the 2014 visual, however the 2013 visual tops it a little bit in my opinion.

It's 20 years since that familiar 'This is Halloween' song played in our cinemas. This will be celebrated by two rather average open edition pins, however it's that limited edition 20 years pin that has really caught our attention. We love the 20 years visual on the tombstone with Jack peering round the back. Somehow we'll find a way to get this one.

The next two are a slightly lower quality, but still the visual can be seen. Frozen will be given some open edition releases to tie in with the new film.

 No prizes for guessing when this lone ranger pin will be released. Expect this on the August poster.

Overall, the Disneyland Paris pin trading team continues its form of exceptionally strong pin releases that make for great traders in the parks across the world. Tell us what you think by tweeting us @dlptownsquare or commenting below!

We found these on the Disney Central Plaza forum, and were credited to a facebook user, despite our best efforts, we could not find the images of facebook and so cannot credit the images! Please contact me (info@dlptownsquare.com) if these are your images as we would really like to credit you!

UPDATE 22/07/2013, Even more pin news! Pascal Poullain at the Disneyland Paris Pin Trading and Sales facebook group has uploaded even more future pin releases

Let's carry on with these Chef images, these seem quite a random choice for pin releases, but I actually really like them.

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Christmas in Disneyland Paris, and this years visuals look stunning. The open edition pins are Chip and Dale, which looks very nice and a Mickey and Minnie in front of a Christmas tree (not too dissimilar to last years offering). We get our usual lanyard which is a bit busier than last year, but looks nice enough. A Duffy open edition pin, and a Tinkerbell limited edition pin continue the celebration, and our usual booster pack with various characters rounds off this christmas pack.

A small summary of the Duffy pins so far, nothing we've not seen previously here, except the Halloween Duffy which I really do like.

The Disney marketing machine really is in overdrive. We've already seen Frozen and Lone Ranger pins, here is a planes pin....

...and here's a Violetta pin (a new addition to the Disney Channel family according to @plazagardens).

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