WDW Daily News

“World of Color − Winter Dreams,” the holiday version of the after-dark spectacular, adds humor, inspirational music and merriment to Holidays at the Disneyland Resort. Presented on Paradise Bay in Disney California Adventure Park, the show features advanced technology and classic Disney animation, plus characters and music from the Walt Disney Pictures animated blockbuster “Frozen.”

Musical Wonderland 

• “World of Color-Winter Dreams” unfolds in seven sequences, each one a dreamlike adventure:

1. Wonder – Season’s Greetings: Guests join sisters Anna and Elsa from “Frozen,” as they play in a magical world created by Elsa’s powers of snow and ice.
2. Snow – A Winter Wonderland: Elsa creates Olaf the snowman, who takes guests on a breathtaking winter sleigh ride, encountering Bambi, Thumper, Beauty and the Beast, and other classic Disney characters.
3. Enchantment – The Toy Story Nutcracker: This familiar ballet is danced in some delightful, offbeat renditions by favorite “Toy Story” characters.
4. Glow – A Season of Light: Holidays from around the world are celebrated with a magical pop-up holiday card, touching moments with Disney characters and a sky filled with luminaria from “Tangled.”
5. Spirit – Olaf’s Sing-Along: Comical snowman Olaf returns to invite everyone to join in singing holiday classics, starting with “Jingle Bells.”
6. Olaf’s Wish – In Summer: Olaf has always loved the idea of a warm summer. He innocently imagines himself enjoying the sunshine “In Summer,” before melting into two more favorite “Frozen” musical moments, “Love Is an Open Door” and “Let It Go.”
7. Finale – Merry & Bright Holiday Lights: A dazzling display of lights blazes to life for a colorful finale around the lagoon, as Olaf makes one final appearance – along with a visit from a surprising Santa!

• “World of Color – Winter Dreams” features more than a dozen songs, including familiar holiday tunes such as “Jingle Bells,” “Feliz Navidad” and “The Dreidel Song” along with two new songs from “Frozen” – “Love is an Open Door” and “Do You Want To Build a Snowman?”

Technology

• Programming for the “Winter Dreams” show took three months.

• Visual projections are created with an ultra high-definition image playback system with more than four times the resolution of the original “World of Color” system.

• There are more than 17 million pixels in the “World of Color – Winter Dreams” screen. A high definition television image uses roughly 2 million pixels.

• Since 2012, guests have become part of the magic of “World of Color,” and other nighttime spectaculars at Disney Parks, thanks to the innovative interactive technology found in special Disney ear hats. Along with these ears, new “Made With Magic” merchandise items now allow guests to “glow with the show” and interact with experiences at Disney Parks around the world. New this year at the resort are a Minnie Bow Head Band and a magical Sorcerer Mickey wand.

• Each night before “World of Color – Winter Dreams,” guests may log on to play the Fun Wheel Challenge on their mobile devices. In this fun, interactive game, park guests compete against each other to match the color patterns and the winner gets to control the lights on Mickey’s Fun Wheel.

• For the dazzling finale of “World of Color – Winter Dreams,” 700 high-power, color, LED strobe lights were installed along the side of the California Screamin’ roller coaster. Each light has four individual control channels.

• Six snowflake generators within the viewing area produce giant snowflakes in six different shapes.

• Ten mirror balls, installed on the speaker and lighting towers, produce dazzling sparkle effects for the show.

• All of the technological effects added for “Winter Dreams” enhance the existing “World of Color” “stage: a platform composed of nearly 1 acre of engineered superstructure. It’s longer than a football field and capable of settling on three levels – one for the performance, one under the water surface and one for maintenance. There are nearly 1,200 powerful and programmable fountains and a vast underwater grid with more than 18,000 points of control. Each fountain has multiple points of control for lighting, color intensity, water angle and height.

‘World of Color’ Evolution

• Since its premiere on June 11, 2010, “World of Color” has been performed more than 2,600 times and been viewed by more than 11 million guests at Disney California Adventure.

• The show’s flexibility has made it possible to add and subtract special sequences since its 2010 debut, incluiding a July 4 Independence Day pre-show, a New Year’s Eve pre-show and scenes focusing on the films “TRON: LEGACY,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and “Brave.”

• From 2011 to 2012, “World of Color” featured a special holiday season pre-show with characters from Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Prep & Landing.”

• The fountains in “World of Color” can send water to heights ranging from 30 feet to 200 feet. By way of comparison, Mickey’s Fun Wheel reaches a height of 150 feet, some of it below the edge of the lagoon.

When Walt Disney opened Disneyland, the original Disney theme park, on July 17, 1955, he said he hoped it would be “a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” He famously observed: “Disneyland will never be completed…as long as there is imagination left in the world.”

Since 1955, the Disneyland Resort has welcomed more than 700 million guests. It has expanded to become an approximately 500-acre, world-class, multi-day, family vacation  destination, complete with two renowned Disney theme parks, three hotels and the exciting shopping, dining and entertainment district known as Downtown Disney.

With the completion in June 2012 of the Disney California Adventure Park expansion, including Cars Land, the parks of the Disneyland Resort offer guests more classic characters, more storytelling, more attractions and more of the unique Disney heritage that gives Disney theme parks their special personality.

Disneyland Park – Upon its opening on July 17, 1955, Disneyland introduced a new concept in family entertainment and launched the theme park industry. Disneyland presented 18 major attractions on its Opening Day including the Mad Tea Party, the Jungle Cruise, Autopia and the Mark Twain Riverboat, and it featured five themed lands: Fantasyland, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Frontierland and Main Street, U.S.A. Today, Disneyland is an evolving 85-acre American institution featuring more than 60 adventures and attractions in eight themed lands, having added New Orleans Square in 1966, Critter Country (originally Bear County) in 1972 and Mickey’s Toontown in 1993. The newest stage show, “Mickey and the Magical Map,” debuted in 2013. Favorite attractions include Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Tours, “it’s a small world,” Indiana Jones Adventure and the mountain range of thrill rides: Matterhorn Bobsleds, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain.

Disney California Adventure Park – Since its opening in 2001 with such popular attractions as Soarin’ Over California, California Screamin’ and Grizzly River Run, Disney California Adventure has been bringing adventure and fun to life with Disney storytelling magic. The extremely popular Twilight Zone™Tower of Terror attraction debuted in 2004.

With the addition of Cars Land and Buena Vista Street in 2012, the park features more than 35 adventures and attractions plus distinctive entertainment and dining. Cars Land, based on the Disney•Pixar movie “Cars,” offers three attractions: Radiator Springs Racers, Luigi’s Flying Tires and Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree. Buena Vista Street creates a new entry to the park, highlighted by the Carthay Circle Restaurant and Lounge

With the completion of a multiyear expansion project in 2012, Disney California Adventure has grown from its original three themed lands – Golden State, Paradise Pier and Hollywood Pictures Backlot – to a total of eight lands including the 12-acre Cars Land and Buena Vista Street, “a bug’s land” (which opened in 2002), a renamed Hollywood Land, Condor Flats, Grizzly Peak and Pacific Wharf (all formerly parts of the Golden State area) and Paradise Pier.

The expansion of Disney California Adventure (announced in 2007) launched with the 2008 opening of Toy Story Mania!, an interactive, ride-through attraction where guests enter into a 4D carnival midway hosted by the “Toy Story” characters. In 2010, the expansion continued with the debut of “World of Color,” an award-winning, nighttime water spectacular featuring nearly 1,200 fountains that bring Disney animation to life. In 2011, Disney opened The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, a “dark ride” that transports guests “under the sea” to experience scenes and beloved songs from the Little Mermaid film.

In addition, several attractions in Disney California Adventure received new Disney themes during the park’s expansion. The Paradise Pier district now features Mickey’s Fun Wheel, Silly Symphony Swings, Goofy’s Sky School and Disney-themed Games of the Boardwalk.

Downtown Disney District -This lively, colorful, admission-free district of exciting restaurants, shops and nightclubs is centrally located between the Disneyland Resort theme parks and hotels.  The 20-acre, 300,000 square-foot avenue features approximately 50 distinct venues including AMC Theatres, Catal Restaurant, ESPN Zone, House of Blues, La Brea Bakery Café, Rainforest Café, Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen, Tortilla Jo’s, Build-a-Bear Workshop, Naples Ristorante e Pizzeria, WonderGround Gallery and, of course, the World of Disney store. The Earl of Sandwich eatery opened in fall, 2012.

Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa -1600 S. Disneyland Drive, (714) 635-2300

Featuring 948 rooms and 50 Disney Vacation Club villas, Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel is the flagship hotel of the Disneyland Resort. The design of this AAA Four-Diamond, award-winning luxury property is inspired by the turn-of-the-century California Craftsman movement. In 2009 the hotel became home to the first Disney Vacation Club units on the West Coast. It’s also the first hotel in the United States to be built inside a Disney park (Disney California Adventure).

Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel offers suites, a large convention facility, swimming pools, Mandara Spa and two restaurants: Storytellers Cafe and the award-winning Napa Rose restaurant. With approximately 35 sommeliers, including several advanced sommeliers, Napa Rose boasts the most certified wine experts under one roof anywhere in the United States.

Disneyland Hotel – 1150 West Magic Way, (714) 778-6600

Significant new enhancements at the iconic Disneyland Hotel were completed in 2012, including re-imagined guest rooms, Disney-themed suites, a new restaurant and bar – Tangaroa Terrace and Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar – and a water play area with Monorail-inspired water slides. Other distinctive restaurants at the hotel include Goofy’s Kitchen and the award-winning Steakhouse 55.  This AAA Four-Diamond hotel features 969 rooms, including specially themed Disney character suites, and one of the largest contiguous convention spaces in the Western United States with 136,000 square feet.

Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel – 1717 S. Disneyland Drive, (714) 999-0990

A casually elegant 481-room hotel themed to the colorful “day at the beach” California seaside culture of fun, Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel features the whimsical Disney’s PCH Grill restaurant, a pool deck with cabanas and water slide, and 30,000 square feet of convention and meeting space.

Disneyland Resort Facts & Firsts

• Opening Date: July 17, 1955

• 26,000 cast members, making the Disneyland Resort the largest single-site employer in Orange County

• The Matterhorn Bobsleds was the first tubular steel roller coaster in the world when it opened in 1959, and it set the standard for modern-day roller-coaster design.

• Disneyland created the first daily operating monorail in the western hemisphere.

• The nighttime water spectacular “World of Color” uses a submersible platform that’s bigger than a football field, with more than 18,000 points of control and revolutionary lighting that infuses nearly 1,200 fountains with color — making it one of the largest show systems ever built.

• More than 800 species of plants, native to 40 countries, grow at the Disneyland Resort.

• Disneyland Resort cast members help to recycle more than 31 tons of material each day.

• The landscape surrounding the Jungle Cruise has evolved into its own ecosystem since the attraction opened in 1955. The trees have created a canopy that allows species of ground plants to grow that otherwise wouldn’t in Southern California.

• Through the years, a virtual “Who’s Who” of the 20th and early 21st centuries has visited the Disneyland Resort, including U.S. presidents (dating to Harry S. Truman), numerous heads of state and countless athletes, artists, authors and celebrities.

• The Disneyland Hotel and Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa are the only AAA Four Diamond Hotels in Anaheim.

• Disney California Adventure opened in 2001. It celebrated the completion of a five-year expansion in June, 2012, with eight themed lands, including Cars Land.

• Buena Vista Street, the entry into Disney California Adventure, invites guests to step into Los Angeles of the 1920s and ’30s, where they experience the sights and sounds Walt Disney may have discovered when he stepped off the train in California in 1923.

• At nearly 300,000 square feet and 125 feet tall at its peak, The Ornament Valley Mountain Range in Cars Land is the largest rock structure in any domestic Disney theme park.

• More than 30 different languages are spoken among Disneyland Resort cast members.

• The Disneyland Resort costuming cast members maintain more than 1,200 different costumes for use in the parks and hotels.

• More than 50 certified scuba divers work on the resort Facilities team, which maintains attractions such as “World of Color,” “Fantasmic!” and Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.

The Disneyland Resort celebrates the opening of spectacular new “Frozen Fun” beginning Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015, featuring magical adventures with characters from the Walt Disney Pictures blockbuster film. Guests at Disney California Adventure Park will be able to meet Anna and Elsa in a new location, sing along with the “Frozen” soundtrack, play in the snow, meet Olaf the snowman and “chill out” at a nighttime, family dance party.

A sneak peek of many of the live experiences begins Saturday, Dec. 20, in Disney California Adventure and a new “Frozen”-themed show opens in Disneyland Park Jan. 7, 2015. “Frozen Fun” continues for a limited time at Disney California Adventure. For specific dates, along with places to see Anna and Elsa beyond “Frozen Fun,” guests may visit Disneyland.com.

Anna and Elsa will relocate Dec. 20 from their Fantasyland greeting area in Disneyland to a roomier new home, “Anna & Elsa’s Royal Welcome,” inside the Disney Animation building in Disney California Adventure Park. Additional new “Frozen” experiences in the Hollywood Land area of the park include ”For the First Time in Forever” – A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration in the newly dubbed Crown Jewel Theatre; the immersive “Olaf’s Snow Fest” featuring snow play, music, food and Olaf himself, and an after-dark offering “Freeze the Night! A Family Dance Party.”

“Frozen Fun” Sneak Peek at Disney California Adventure Park

“Anna & Elsa’s Royal Welcome” provides an elegant new location for Anna and Elsa to receive visitors in the Disney Animation building in Hollywood Land. (Note: The Anna and Elsa meeting location in Disneyland Park will close at the end of the day on Dec. 19.) The colorful and varied animation experience already on display in the attraction’s lobby will feature new scenes that pay tribute to Arendelle and the world of “Frozen.” As they did in the previous location in Fantasyland, guests will utilize the Return Time Ticket to meet the characters, avoiding long wait times by securing a reservation time to return to the Royal Welcome. Elsewhere in the Disney Animation building, guests at the Animation Academy will be asked “Do You Want to Draw a Snowman?” – offering an Olaf drawing experience with an added Marshmallow-drawing class.

“For the First Time in Forever – A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration” transforms the Muppet*Vision 3D Theatre into the welcoming Crown Jewel Theatre of Arendelle, where Anna, Elsa and Kristoff take part in a comedic retelling of their story that features popular songs from the film. Two Arendellian Historians, acting as hosts, lead the festivities, with the “Frozen” characters making memorable appearances throughout. Some of the favorite musical sequences (and lyrics) are shown on large screens to make sure everybody enjoys all the fun.

“Olaf’s Snow Fest” takes place next door to the Crown Jewel Theatre in Stage 17, which is transformed into a charming castle courtyard reminiscent of Arendelle. Music and lighting bring to life an immersive wintry environment for guests to meet and share a warm hug with Olaf. Kids of all ages will have fun in a giant play area with real snow where they are encouraged to build snow creations and zip down a snow slide. Guests who wish to observe the icy fun will have a nearby viewing area. A traveling musical duo, The Tubadors, will celebrate the tales of Arendelle in storytelling and song while, on their own stage, The Frolicking Fjords will present arrangements of Arendelle-themed tunes. Guests may enjoy a cup of hot chocolate, complete with snowman marshmallows, and decorate their own Olaf cookie, making memories that will warm their hearts.

“Freeze the Night! A Family Dance Party” invites guests to “chill out” in a family friendly setting inspired by the icy environment of “Frozen.” Created for all ages, this interactive party celebrates “all things Frozen” with exciting music, games, photo opportunities, drinks and snacks, an ice sculptor, and plenty of interactive moments, all infused with a super-cool crackle of exhilarating energy.

Winter Celebration Continues at Disneyland Park and Downtown Disney

On Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015, “Frozen Fun” celebrates its official launch with all the fun in Disney California Adventure, while a new “Frozen”-themed show opens in Disneyland at Fantasy Faire. The team of Mr. Smythe and Mr. Jones will put their unique spin on the “Frozen” story as they adapt it for the Royal Theatre. As expected, they present the tale in their own inimitable way, with a fun-filled, fast-paced retelling of the story featuring their own wacky performances in key roles, along with Anna, Elsa and the Faire Maidens.

Additionally on Jan. 7, 2015, “Mickey’s Soundsational Parade” resumes daily performances with Anna, Elsa and Olaf once again making a “pre-parade” appearance on their own special float.

Guests at Downtown Disney join the fun at “Olaf’s Frozen Ice Rink” and the Downtown Disney Winter Village, in operation now through February 22, 2015. The Downtown Disney Winter Village chalets offer a variety of food, clothing and gift items. The 50-by-90-foot “Olaf’s Frozen Ice Rink” features colorful graphics outlining the “Frozen” story and characters, with Olaf whimsically commanding the rink that bears his name. Sixty-minute skate sessions are scheduled between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. Sundays through Thursday, and 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

For more information about the Disneyland Resort, visit www.disneyland.com.