Staff Photographer MintCrocodile is back with a look at the latest happenings around the Disneyland Resort:

A these 2 lines new?

New sign for the Art of Disney at the exit of Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years

The Dream banners are back

Monorail Red is finally taking guests

Speaking of stuff that finally happened… SPACE MOUNTAIN IS CLEAN!

This is where the tree in New Orleans Square that fell was a couple of days ago

Looks like Single Rider is now operating over at Toy Story Midway Mania

You can find more of Mint’s pictures from his latest visit to the Disneyland Resort here!

Our latest DLNT Vidcast is a montage of the Indiana Jones Summer of Hidden Mysteries. Included are the Secret of the Stone Tiger show & Random Acts of Indy, all based to the Indiana Jones Adventure soundtrack.

Check WDWNTube for videos of both the Secret of the Stone Tiger & Random Acts of Indy!

 

 DLNT Vidcast 7 - Indiana Jones Summer of Hidden Mysteries [3:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (188)

From the OC Register:

Disney’s Monorail Red (or Mark VII) will open to the public this evening as part of a “soft opening.”

Disney Spokeswoman Betsy Sanchez said this afternoon that the new monorail train will be open on and off again throughout the weekend.

The Mark VII line of trains (three in all) will slowly replace the current monorail trains. The red monorail is the first to roll-out and the blue train arrived a few weeks ago. No word yet on when the orange train will arrive at the park.

CHECK BACK tonight for an update and photo slide show of the new trains in action.

The public launch of the new red train with blue glass windows was expected to be in late February. But, testing and adjusting the monorail to work perfectly has pushed the opening back again and again.

The biggest change to the monorail trains is in the look: The first electric cars have blue glass and red stripes that change color in the sunlight. The next two cars will be blue with purple glass and orange with blue glass.

Bench seats will face the windows, allowing visitors a full view of the parks, Downtown Disney and the Disneyland Hotel. The capacity and speed will remain the same.

The Monorail started in 1959 as part of Disneyland’s first expansion and the track was extended to the Disneyland Hotel in 1961 to a length of two and a half miles.

For three years, Disney Imagineers have been working on the train upgrades.

Last night I was watching Toy Story 2, & during the Woody’s Roundup TV show part of the movie, I noticed something I had seen before in Toy Story Midway Mania:

In case you didn’t realize, those are the virtual prizes that you can win in Toy Story Midway Mania

Just an interesting tidbit I thought I’d share with y’all!

From Laughing Place:

Disneyland have approached Rick Caruso of Caruso Affiliated - the developers of the Grove at Farmer’s Market and Americana at Brand in Glendale about developing a new esplanade between Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure Park that will also bring the WET Design-conceived fountains from Americana to the Disneyland Resort.

Here’s a little bit more from Screamscape, this time on some Disneyland Park rumors:

2008 - It’s A Small World Rehab - Rumor - (7/3/08) According to Screamscape sources Disneyland is moving ahead with a scaled back plan to renovate Small World by adding in a few Disney character figures into the mix in appropriate scenes. If it’s anything like the new Hong Kong version, I’m sure the changes will be welcomed by the time opens and nothing to worry about.

Late 2009 or Early 2010 - Star Tours 2 - Semi-Confirmed - (7/3/08) The latest buzz on Star Tours 2 is that the project is now looking at a Fall 2009 opening date due to some project delays, but it’s still very possible for it to slip back to early 2010.

From Screamscape:

Late 2010 or Early 2011 - Voyage of the Little Mermaid - Confirmed - (7/3/08) According to the latest rumors Little Mermaid may have been pushed up a bit to either open in mid to late 2010 now. Meanwhile full construction on The Little Mermaid ride is now expected to begin sometime this fall if all goes well.

If all this goes according to plan, they’ll most likely transfer Golden Dreams over to Golden Screams for one last time this Halloween, & then begin construction on Voyage of the Little Mermaid.