The Disney Blog - Tokyo Disneyland Update: Entertainment Cast Can Go Home plus 2 more

Tokyo Disneyland Update: Entertainment Cast Can Go Home
New Werther’s Original Candy Commercial again highlights Epcot
Disney Worker dies after injuries from accident at Primeval Whirl in Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Tokyo Disneyland Update: Entertainment Cast Can Go Home

Posted: 15 Mar 2011 06:11 AM PDT

As I fell asleep last night, word from Japan was that the nuclear power plant had experienced further problems with possibility of a larger leak of radiation. To make it worse, winds were shifting driving any radio active particles in the air back toward land. This morning I awoke to news that radiation levels in Tokyo were 10 times higher than normal, which is still a ‘safe’ level but not good obviously, and the situation at the nuclear plant was now ‘catastrophic’. That’s definitely not good.

The Tokyo Disneyland entertainment cast members I’ve been following online were concerned and with good cause. Some to the point of panic ready to break their contracts and buy a $2500 air ticket on their own.

So I’m happy to hear that Disney and OLC management has stepped up to the plate and offered to send any international cast member back home, if they want, with the promise that their job would be available when the situation returns to normal. OLC is even picking up the cost of air travel. Very nice to see them step up to the plate like that. But so far Disney Cast Members have been nothing but professional and amazing, so it was almost expected that they would do this now.

Tokyo Disneyland is contributing in a different way to relief efforts. Water from pools and ponds around the town has been claimed for use as shower and toilet water (but not for drinking please). That now includes water from Tokyo DisneySea’s Mediterranean bay area (and I assume hotel pools, although this article doesn’t mention that).

Below the jump is a video taken from the monorail that shows the condition of the parks.

At minute 4:14 you can see how bad the liquefaction was in the Tokyo DisneySea parking lot. Otherwise, not a lot of visible damage other than some exterior building cracking, which is not unusual in an earth quake.

If you know how busy those parks are on any given day, it’s very bizarre to see it so empty like that. Let’s hope everyone recovers safely and quickly from this emergency.

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Tokyo Disneyland Update: Entertainment Cast Can Go Home
The Disney Blog - Disney News and Information -- by fans, for fans

New Werther’s Original Candy Commercial again highlights Epcot

Posted: 14 Mar 2011 05:22 PM PDT

As I have previously covered here and here, apparently one of the privileges of being and EPCOT corporate sponsor is that you get to use pavilion as a set for your commercials. In this case Werther’s Originals, which recently opened the Karmel-Kuche store in the Germany Pavilion has added yet another commercial featuring a store front that purports to be in a small German village, but is actually in EPCOT.

I’m still looking for a video capture of the commercial, but in the meantime, here’s a screenshot:

Look familiar?

What other companies who could use another country pavilion in EPCOT for their commercials should Disney try to partner with?

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New Werther’s Original Candy Commercial again highlights Epcot
The Disney Blog - Disney News and Information -- by fans, for fans

Disney Worker dies after injuries from accident at Primeval Whirl in Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Posted: 14 Mar 2011 10:26 AM PDT

The Primeval Whirl roller coaster at Disney’s Animal Kingdom added another chapter to its troubled history after a worker injured Sunday while doing repair work on the attraction died today. That worker, identified as 52-year old Russell Roscoe of Webster, FL, died in the hospital this morning. Roscoe’s family and co-workers at Disney are in the thoughts of everyone at The Disney Blog.

So far few details about the accident are known. The ride was closed for rehabilitation and the accident was not witnessed by guests in the park.

This is the second tragic death in 4 years associated with Primeval Whirl.

In November 2007 a ride operator was working the load platform when she was hit by one of the roller coaster vehicles and pushed to the ground below. The cast member was hit while she was in an area Disney had designated as unsafe, but there were insufficient barriers to entry or other warnings. Following that death, Disney modified Primeval Whirl’s loading and unloading area and installed sensors to designed to prevent another occurrence.

More details on this sad news as they come in today.

(via Orlando Sentinel)

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Disney Worker dies after injuries from accident at Primeval Whirl in Disney’s Animal Kingdom
The Disney Blog - Disney News and Information -- by fans, for fans