What do I do when get too busy with everyday life to keep up with my blog? Catch up with one of my News Roundup posts, of course! It’s been a hectic few weeks for me, but fortunately (or unfortunately?), Toy Story news was light anyway. Finally, though, I have several exciting things to pass along to my fellow fans…
This week, Walt Disney World has been hosting an “Awaken Summer” event to promote the new offerings coming to the parks this summer and beyond. Toy Story Land was among the coming attractions presented, and Imagineer Kathy Mangum took the stage to share a few more little snippets of information about the project.
With the closure of Lights Motors Action and the Streets of America at Disney’s Hollywood Studios yesterday, it was no surprise to wake up this morning to find photos of construction walls on Twitter. At first, I was excited to see that the concept art for Toy Story Land was finally posted…
It seems like all the recent Disney Parks construction news has been about Star Wars Land, but for this fangirl, all I really want to know is how Toy Story Land is progressing. And it appears that work is finally about to begin in earnest on the toys’ new home at Disney’s Hollywood Studios! It’s only been seven months since the new addition was announced at the 2015 D23 Expo, but the long wait for actual ground-breaking may soon be over – at last, in the past several weeks, there has been some activity in the backstage areas of the park.
Once again, I’ve fallen behind on blog updates due to a Walt Disney World trip! We just got home from Florida yesterday, so I’m finally catching up on compiling what’s been going on in the world of Toy Story since my previous post.
I started writing about our recent Walt Disney World trip in my previous post, and continuing on with that theme, let’s talk a little about Toy Story Land – or what will eventually be Toy Story Land – at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
I’ve shared before what we know about Toy Story Land to date, and nothing really has been added or changed since then. I had high hopes that there would be some walled-off construction zones when we were at the park this past November, but alas, there was nothing of the sort. Realistically, I knew that the busy holiday season – transitioning into the very popular Marathon Weekend – wasn’t an ideal time to begin a major project, like building an entire new land. Nevertheless, I thought we might see a few tiny signs of progress made since our prior visit in June.
Rumors aren’t as rampant for Toy Story Land as they are for Toy Story 4, but even so, I thought it would be useful to have a recap of what we know all in one place. Toy Story Land has been a dream of mine for some time – ever since I learned that such lands existed both at Disney Studios Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland, I often thought how great it would be to have one in the United States, but figured the chances were pretty slim. That was before I heard of John Lasseter’s visit – with other Disney executives – to Disney’s Hollywood Studios last fall, when we missed being in the park at the same time as him by only a week (I was not amused by my unlucky timing). The most important detail, though, was the location where he was spotted – right by Toy Story Mania, and also in the area of the Backlot Tour, which was slated to close within a few days. The buzz was that new Pixar content was coming – and thus my obsession with Toy Story Land began.
I can recall clearly when Toy Story 4 was announced last November. It was a glorious night. I was driving home from work when I got a message from a fangirl friend that, this time, the reports of a new movie were true. It was all I could do to make it safely to my house, so that I could find an article confirming it – never mind our takeout dinner getting cold as I sat in my car, searching and texting. Some things are more important…
Toy Story Fangirl 