Welcome back to our first Disney News post for 2012. Yes we keep on repeating ourselves like a broken record that we must return back to the blog. So starting today and continuing throughout 2012 we will update the blog weekly and maybe twice a week. Here is some house cleaning news: due to having no podcast last week and this week we hope to be returning better then ever next week. The computer we use for production and everything behind the show has lost its life. We have recently ordered a new desktop computer which will enhance the show and hopefully quality and speed in production. Enough about that let’s get onto this weeks Disney Park News.

Walt Disney World Resort:

1. Presidential News: President Barack Obama was in the Magic Kingdom on Thursday Jan. 19, 2012 to talk about enhancing tourism in the United States. With this occurring on Main Street USA all guest not invited to the speech had to be rerouted behind Main Street USA and enter through Tomorrowland. This just in Tomorrowland is the new Main Street USA. The speech could be seen on Resort TV, and in the Hall of Presidents, with the use of projection on a screen and not the Obama Audio Animatronic.
2. Flower and Power Concert Series Line Up have just been announced.
   -March 9-11 Jose Feliciano
   -March 16-18 Starship Staring Mickey Thomas
   -March 23-25 Guess Who
   -March 30 – April 1 The Spinners
   -April 6-8 Chubby Checkers + Wildcats
   -April 13-15 Paul Revere + The Raiders
   -April 20-22 The Turtles Featuring Flo & Eddie
   -April 27-29 Chuck Negron
   -May 4-6 Orchestra Staring
   -May 11-13 Herman’s Hermits Starring Peter Noone
   -May 18-20 Davy Jones
3. Holidays at the Magic Kingdom and all across the Disney Parks are sadly over for 2011. The Cinderella Castle Dreamlights are now being removed, which means the crane is on sight over the next week.
4. Wolfgang Puck Express refurbishment. The outside seating area will soon be enclosed, and once its enclosed there will be huge windows so people can view into Downtown Disney and eat.
5. Katsura Grill in Japan Pavilion has recently, this past week, opened officially with a grand opening with Epcot’s VIP. Katsura Grill had a refurbishment over the past year and open back in December.
6. Walt Disney World Resort will be an excursion for those guests on the Disney Magic traveling from New York City to the Bahamas. On the journey from New York to Bahamas there will be a day stop at Port Canaveral for a trip to Walt Disney World. The Magic will offer an excursion with a private VIP tour guide, the guests will have access to the fast pass queue and transportation from Port Canaveral to Walt Disney World.
7. Art of Animation first phase has an opening date of May 31, 2012 the first phase area will be the Finding Nemo section and soon after that will be the Cars area.

Disneyland Resort

1. The Matterhorn is continuing with there refurbishment with scaffolding around the mountain and Load/Unload section being rebuilt from the bottom, up.
2. The Haunted Mansion is closed for being reverted back to the ghost host, and the removal of the holiday overlay. The Haunted Mansion should be re-opening on Jan. 24, 2012
3. Adventureland is going through refurbishment with the rerouting of the Juice Queue being removed from the Tiki Room Queue.
4. Ringwood Creek Challenge Trail is closed till February 2, 2012.
5. World of Color is having water nozzles refurbishment over the next week and should be finished by January 26, 2012.

That’s it for this weeks Walt Disney World, and Disneyland news for the week of January 22, 2012.