Disney held two princess related marathons on March 6 and 7, 2010, and Orlando Attractions Magazine subscriber Don Gworek ran along to bring you these two videos. While the races were designed for women, more than 400 men participated on behalf of the princesses in their lives.

The Princess and the Frog Royal Family 5K was held on Saturday at Epcot. It was a fun-filled event the whole family could participate in. Starting backstage, the race ran through all 11 countries in World Showcase, then through Future World, out the entrance, then back into Epcot and ending backstage.

The Princess Half Marathon was held on Sunday. The race started just outside of the Epcot parking lot. Runners then proceeded up World Drive towards the Magic Kingdom. Upon entering the Magic Kingdom, participants passed through Tomorrowland, Cinderella Castle and Frontierland. Participants then proceed down World Drive to make their return to Epcot. The course took participants through Future World and past Spaceship Earth on their way to the finish.

In a tight race, Gina Aalgaard Kelly bested more than 13,000 runners from around the world in the half marathon. Kelly (Lisbon, N.D.), 33, and second place finisher Heather Schulz of Orlando, overtook Nicole Falvo, of Grand Blanc, Mich., who led most of the race, as the women entered Epcot. Kelly crossed the finish line in 1:23:58 and Schulz, 35, came in with a time of 1:24:21. Falvo, 35, crossed only four seconds later (1:24:25) to finish third. In the Masters Division, Mary Pardi (Falmouth, Maine.), 40, won in a time of 1:25:10. Tricia Brookover-Brau from Palm Harbor, Fla. crossed at 1:27:51 to claim second place.

More than 18,000 runners, including 13,000 for the half marathon, were registered for the three-day event aimed at women’s health and wellness, making it one of the largest women-specific endurance events in the country and nearly twice as many runners as last year’s event.

Disney’s Royal Family Kids’ Races and the Fit for a Princess Expo were also held during the weekend.

In addition to the Main Street Electrical Parade returning, new effects for Tower of Terror and new fireworks show we previously told you about as park of Walt Disney World’s Summer Nightastic, some more events were announced.

A Rock N’ Glow Dance Party will be held in the courtyard of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Sizzling summer sounds will be spun by DJs.

More high-energy music presented by DJs will get guests’ toes a-tapping during a Magic Kingdom street party. (Pictured above is a street party float at Disneyland last summer for their Summer Nightastic celebration.)

Summer Nightastic begins at Walt Disney World on June 6 and continues through Aug. 14, 2010.

Here’s a video of the original Summer Nightastic announcement:

The city of Swindon, England was officially honored yesterday at Walt Disney World when a plaque marking the twinning of the Wiltshire town with the popular Florida resort was unveiled at the Magic Kingdom.

The twinning ceremony was attended by Cllr David Wren, the mayor of Swindon; Angellica Bell, television presenter and competition judge; Duncan Wardle, VP Creative for Walt Disney World; and Rebecca Warren and her family. Rebecca is the creator of the winning Swindon nomination. You can read more about the contest in a story from the Orlando Sentinel Here.

A plaque marking the twinning can be seen in the UK pavilion at Epcot throughout 2010.

The “Main Street Electrical Parade” will light up the streets of the Magic Kingdom and will headline new after-dark excitement at Walt Disney World. “After the sun goes down, our Walt Disney World parks will light up the night with ‘Summer Nightastic!’, ” announced Meg Crofton, president of Walt Disney World Resort, at a media event Wednesday.

Although there will be summer celebrations all around the resort, three main events highlight Summer Nightastic!:

Main Street Electrical Parade
Disney’s “Main Street Electrical Parade” will return to the Magic Kingdom. Direct from the Disneyland Resort in California, and marking its first engagement in Florida since 2001, the fan favorite parade will be led by Tinker Bell waving from the basket of a magical balloon aboard a new float. Pinocchio and Snow White also join the parade aboard bright new floats. The parade’s beloved music and floats will feature more electrifying audio, plus new lighting technologies that create a pixie-dust effect on all the floats.

New effects for Tower of Terror
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror welcomes “drop-ins” this summer with new glow-in-the-dark lighting effects and the addition of a new drop sequence created especially for Summer Nightastic!.

New fireworks show
The Magic Kingdom will treat guests to a special summer fireworks spectacular. The night sky will explode in vivid colors and brilliant visual effects as whimsical music fills the air. The fireworks show, which hasn’t been named yet, is a brand new, never before seen show.

This summer will also mark the return of the Sounds Like Summer concert series at Epcot and Disney’s Animal Kingdom will have extended evening hours several times a week.

Summer Nightastic will start in early June. No ending date has been decided on yet.
(Update: Disney’s Summer Nightastic will begin June 6 and end on Aug. 14.)

Photos by Marcus D’Amelio
Video by Jimmy Strater

The Magic Kingdom Philharmonic Band came marching down Main Street, U.S.A., this morning behind New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees. He was riding in a pewter convertible with Mickey Mouse, waving to cheering fans. But he’d earned the ride – and the adulation – Sunday night by marching the Saints to a 31-17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV in Miami.

Celebrating Super Bowl heroes in “I’m Going to Disney…” commercials and rides down Main Street, U.S.A., at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort has been a grand tradition since 1987 and Super Bowl XXI. But this one was unique, involving a team and a city overcoming so much adversity that its fan base goes by the nickname “Who Dat Nation.”

As confetti cannons sprinkled Brees with multi-colored paper, it symbolically showered away 42 seasons of “wait till next year.” The waiting had ended at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, thanks in a big way to a torrent of pinpoint passes by Brees, who earned the Super Bowl MVP honor with a 32-completion, 288-yard, two-touchdown, no-interception performance.

Joining Brees for his celebratory ride, along with Mickey Mouse in his football outfit, were Minnie Mouse (decked out as a cheerleader), Chip ‘n’ Dale in referee garb, and “football Goofy” plus players from a central Florida NFL Youth Football team.

Brees’ celebratory visit happened mere hours after he was featured in the 42nd “I’m Going To Disney…” commercial, a series that has featured a lineup of people from sports and beyond who have exclaimed the iconic line following milestone accomplishments.

This photo of a large model of the expanded part of Fantasyland has been appearing around the Internet this past week. It’s a bit different from the originally leaked blueprints of the redone Fantasyland at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. The Pixie Hollow area has been moved back a bit and the Dumbo ride has been moved to just before the current Barnstormer ride. The blueprint also shows a pooh meet and greet area, which isn’t clearly marked in the model.

Neither the blueprint or this photo of the model were officially released by Disney, so there’s no way to tell which is the newer design, but logic says it’s the model. The model also fits along with the officially released concept art, which can be seen in the video below.

• For more on Disney’s plans for Fantasyland, be sure to get a copy of the Winter 2010 issue of Orlando Attractions Magazine.

You can sign up at disneyparksmobile.com/textmessaging. When you register, you can enter the specific dates of your visit to receive messages during your stay or just select the option of visiting multiple times per year. If you select multiple visits per year, you’re limited to getting the text information 12 days per year.

Here are all of the current text message options and their limits:

Wait Times
Text “Wait” followed by the name of the attraction.
Up to four times per day.

Park Hours
Get the park hours of any park.
Up to four times per day.

Character Locations
Text “Meet” followed by the name of the character.
One part of their site says there’s a limit of once per day, but their FAQ lists four times per day.

Resort Information
When you sign up and indicate which resort you’re staying at, you will receive information about your resort.

By signing up, you may also receive random exclusive offers. You also indicate your favorite character. You may just get a message from that character or information about them.

There were many areas around the park behind constructions walls. The Tomorrowland Terrace was one of the places walled off. The fireworks dessert parties are not happening during this refurbishment. They’re supposed to return in early spring.

The Vinylmation figures have been so popular that they’re now offering Vinylmation T-shirts. Here are some for sale in the Space Mountain gift shop.

Some are pronouncing the new year as twenty-ten and other as two-thousand and ten. I’ve heard Disney call it two-thousand and ten in a commercial, but here they’re opting for my choice, twenty-ten.

Some of the Muppets are appearing in a cavalcade before the afternoon parade. Click Here for more photos and a video.

Some plants are covered up around Disney property, and others have been killed by the cold weather we’ve been having. Here Disney planted a sign blaming Jack Frost.

They’ve started some work at the base of Cinderella Castle. The moat will be drained as part of the refurbishment.

A crew was filming near the castle, but I didn’t recognize anyone they had onscreen. Maybe it was a family on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

A sign in Fantasyland warning that parts of the land and Toontown may have to be closed during the fireworks because of wind conditions.

Splash Mountain is closed for routine maintenance until Feb. 27. It’s just as well. It was so cold, I wouldn’t have ridden it anyway.

The Crystal Palace restaurant is also closed for refurbishment. It’ll reopen on Feb. 15. Liberty Tree Tavern is a temporary character dining location while the Palace is closed. Liberty Tree will resume being a non-character location on Feb. 15.

It’s nice they’re keeping this sign updated while the decorations are still up.

You can now see the Muppets characters Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Sweetums, along with parade dancers and special floats and vehicles daily at the Magic Kingdom. The Honorary VoluntEARS Cavalcade steps off minutes before each afternoon’s Celebrate a Dream Come True parade.

Disney hopes to inspire families to volunteer in their communities during 2010 through the “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” program that rewards volunteer service with admission for a day to a Disney theme park. Guests can go to DisneyParks.com to search for volunteer opportunities available in their area.

Our YouTube channel was a popular place in 2009. We reached more than a million views for a couple of our older videos, while others lay dormant for reasons unknown to us. Sometimes we think a video is going to be a huge hit and it flops, and sometimes we wonder why we’re bothering to record something and it turns out to be very popular. Other times a video won’t be popular for weeks and weeks, then all of the sudden the view count shoots up. But for whatever reasons, here are the top 10 viewed videos we posted in 2009. We’ll start at number 10.

Number 10

A full ride on SeaWorld’s new Manta roller coaster -- 99,000+ views

Number 9

Club Penguin Rockhopper and Blue Penguin at Walt Disney World -- 120,000+ views

Number 8

Halloween Horror Nights 19 2009 Opening Night Scare Zones -- 130,000+ views

Number 7

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow at the Disney D23 Expo -- 131,000+ views

Number 6

Epcot Flower & Garden Festival 2009 with Disney Fairies -- 132,000+ views

Number 5

David Cook Sings at Walt Disney World’s American Idol -- 135,000+ views

Number 4

Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit coaster POV from Universal Studios -- 306,000+ views

Number 3

American Idol Kris Allen sings “Heartless” at Disney World -- 388,000+ views

Number 2

Dance-Off with the Star War Stars 2009 -- Hyperspace Hoopla -- 408,000+ views

Number 1

David Cook and Carrie Underwood Duet at Walt Disney World -- 820,000+ views

As we said in our Top 10 Blog Posts of 2009 story, some videos have obviously been online longer than others, so here’s our honorable mentions:

Manta Opening SeaWorld Orlando -- Views, Interviews, & Queue -- 80,000+ views

Star Wars Weekends 2009 Parade at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on May 22, Opening Day -- 78,000+ views

Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit at Universal Studios Now Open -- 77,000+ views

Disney World Fantasyland expansion announcement & makeover concept art -- 66,000+ views

Disney Hall of Presidents update with Obama animatronic -- 60,000+ views