What Dreams are made of
The following are among the dreams up for grabs during The Year of a Million Dreams:
Beginning in January, a different family will be invited each day to overnight in a royal bedchamber inside the Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World or the Mickey Mouse Penthouse at Disneyland.
A winner of the Giveaway promotion will serve as grand marshal in Disney parades at each park worldwide.
Disney vacation packages, Golden Fastpass tickets and lifetime passes for all the parks will be given away.
Invitations will be offered to parties and other experiences, among them the opportunity for one family to have the Magic Kingdom all to themselves for a day.
Private passes will be distributed to meet with Disney characters.
Families will be invited to dine at Club 33, Walt Disneys private restaurant.NEW YORK -- A global marketing initiative and its related U.S.
promotion involving the awarding of a million dreams was announced
last week by Disney Parks Chairman Jay Rasulo.
Where Dreams Come True was chosen as the theme for parks
worldwide. And beginning Oct. 1, visitors to Walt Disney World and
Disneyland may find themselves the recipient of a dream prize
ranging from a golden Fastpass ticket to an overnight stay inside
Cinderellas Castle.
Rasulo said the Year of a Million Dreams campaign, which will
roll out only in the U.S. parks, will intensify the
transformational experiences that he believes occur at Disney Parks
every day.
The campaigns were unveiled at an event for travel agents and
the press that felt like a Night of a Million Announcements. Also
revealed:
The Laugh Floor Comedy Club, will open at Walt Disney Worlds
Tomorrowland in early 2007. During the show, audiences will
interact with characters from Monsters, Inc.Disneylands Space Mountain will get a new rock n roll
soundtrack and high-tech lighting effects coordinated with the
twists and turns of the roller coaster, to debut in the spring of
2007.Photographer Annie Leibovitz has joined the creative Dream Team
at Disney to shoot celebrities for a project designed to convey how
Disney Parks transport guests from the ordinary to the
extraordinary. She will also, for the first time, employ film
production as part of her work.In an exclusive interview with TravelWeekly.com,
Rasulo said the process of granting dreams was a work in progress.
We still have some months to get there, he said.
Rasulo said the campaign would employ TV, mobile phones, the
Internet and print media.
Although he did not rule out the possibility that agents and
tour operators might be among those empowered to distribute some of
the dreams, Rasulo said he had no details on any such plans.
We would like to include the people who distribute our products
where we can, he said, adding that all the various mechanisms for
awarding dreams would not roll out at once.
Rasulo said the dream theme arose from an exploration of
commonalities among guests in the countries where Disney parks
exist.
With the opening of the Hong Kong park, we were also attracting
guests from throughout China, he said, and we had our first
experience with a culture that didnt grow up with Disney. But we
found they still envisioned the park as a place where dreams come
true. That emotion, that belief, resonates all over the world, and
it was clear this would become a guiding principle.
We never knew it would be such a clear, rifle-shot response. But
we realized that if we didnt jump on this, wed really be missing an
opportunity to appeal to the hearts of our guests.
To contact editor in chief Arnie Weissmann, send e-mail
to[email protected].