Results tagged “shanghaidisneyland”

Woah Mickey, now that Shanghai Disneyland finally seems to have gotten all its papers in order, it seems like everyone can’t stop gabbering on about it (for instance, has anyone else noticed that Shanghai Daily has kind of turned into Shanghai Disneyland Daily today). Except, we suppose, us. Hey, give us a break, we’ve been covering this roller coaster ride of a deal for so long that it being greenlighted has actually left us a little flabbergasted. And so, since we’re at a loss for words, we’ll let other people talk about what they think about the soon-to-be erected (well, at least by 2014) Sleeping Beauty castle in Pudong.

After years of back and forth, it looks like Shanghai Disneyland has been given the go-ahead. According to news sources, the Shanghai Municipal Government Informatin offices announced the deal's approval early this morning. While details still have to be worked out between the mouse and the ministries, it seems like a pretty set deal.

Seemingly apropos of nothing, Li Bincheng, a leading tourism official in Shanghai, told people that China can sustain three Disney theme parks if it wanted to. "China has a population of 1.4 billion or 1.5 billion. It will not be a problem even if there are three Disneylands here," he said in response to a question about competition between Hong Kong Disneyland and the on again-off again Shanghai park. He then went on to add that if the Shanghai park ever actually came to be, it'd probably be ten times larger than its Hong Kong counterpart. But no worries, because Guangdong and Guangxi residents will probably still go to the much much smaller Hong Kong Disneyland since they live closer. Hmmm, that sure is a lot of talk for something that hasn't even won approval from the higher ups in Beijing yet. Source: SCMP

• Yes, we told you about it before, but we wanted to remind you: Cherie Blair, wife of former-British PM Tony Blair, will be visiting Shanghai to talk about important things on August 16. The seminar will be from 3:30pm to 5:30pm and the wine salon will be from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. 380RMB pre-order and 480RMB at the door. [Urbanatomy]
• Blogger Jenn Wong has some great pictures up of the Nike Human Race, which happened over the weekend. Over 10,000 people participated. [Our Way to Fall]
• Shanghaiist contributor Rebekah Pothaar checked out the Dali exhibit, making sure to pose hilariously next to as many Dali masterpieces as she could. [Chinatravel.net]

• Woah! Is the Shanghai Disneyland idea back on? A Disney news site reports that Bob Weis, Exec VP of Walt Disney Imagineering may have been hired as the creative lead for the "in-development" Shanghai Disneyland Resort. [AWN]
• An exhibition about Cartoon Games is starting on the 4th at the Shanghai Exhibition Center (that building across the street from the Portman). We're curious and entry's only 50RMB! [Xinmin]
• Oh no, signs the recession still isn't completely over! Rental prices for high-grade offices here continue to plunge. [China Briefing]

With all that whining and wheezing earlier this year, you would've thought we'd reached a resolution by now. But even though Disney is pulling resources out of Hong Kong, it still hasn't committed fully to putting them into Shanghai - and it's hard to tell who's fault it is.

According to China Daily, the Walt Disney Company and Shanghai's municipal government have finally signed a project proposal to build a Disneyland theme park on the Chinese mainland. Assuming the newspaper hasn't jumped the gun, this would put a stopper on the will they won't they drama that's shadowed the deal since it was a glint in Mickey Mouse's eye.