This corner of the park jumps on Saturday nights with fantastic swing bands and talented dancers. But the rest of the week? Unfortunately, this spot is empty — in a park that has little room for expansion, the Plaza Gardens represents a rare opportunity to accommodate an attraction that will entice crowds from the busy walkways.

The Carnation Plaza Gardens as we know it will close at the end of this month: April 30. When the construction walls come down again in Winter 2013, the ramparts of Sleeping Beauty Castle will have expanded to encompass Fantasy Faire, moving the Disney princesses from the isolation of the rear of the park to the center. Royal Princess Hall will feature meet-and-greets, Tangled Tower will be the site of the Royal Ribbon Festival, a dancing celebration; and the Plaza Gardens Stage will remain — rethemed as the Fantasy Faire Theatre. Swing bands will still entertain on Saturday evenings, albeit in strangely medieval surroundings.

It’s the latest move in a carefully choreographed chess game, creating more expansion opportunities within the small park, each one freeing up more space — removing photos from Annual Passes eliminated the need for a processing office, opening up the Plaza Pavilion for a bakery, which opened up room at Carnation Cafe for indoor seating; Fantasy Faire will open up a huge space at the Fantasyland Theatre. Speculation now runs rampant on what opportunities this creates for that part of the park: a new stage show? Or a completely new area for expansion of Frontierland or Fantasyland?

Each of these moves has its detractors. And while some of their points are quite valid, when one looks at the totality of the changes taking place in both Disneyland and California Adventure, the final product seems to exceed expectations. Are we entering a new high point in Disneyland’s history? We can only hold our breath and have faith.

To celebrate, we’ve released a small update that enables some big plans. First and foremost, the new version 3.0.8 requires Apple’s new iOS 5. If you are still using iOS 4, now is the time to update your iPhone, iPad or iPod to the latest system. Moving to iOS 5 lets us streamline and speed up the app significantly and prepare for new features that we’re developing in the Addict Labs.

We’ve filled in the last few graphical gaps in our previous version and Mouseaddict now contains 100% of your daily allowance of Retina goodness. (We’ve had the maximum government-allowed Retina goodness for iPhone for a while, but now the luscious new screen on iPad gets a whole new level of lickability.) In fact, you’ll find Mouseaddict in Apple’s list of “Great Apps for the New iPad!”

Mouseaddict is now multitasking-friendly, so when you leave the app to check your email or make a call, it’ll bring you back to where you were instead of starting at the home screen again. But then again, why would you ever want to leave the app?

And to celebrate the start of our third year, we have a whole new fireworks show for you! They’re beautiful and Retina-enabled. Tap anywhere in the sky, and the fireworks will launch from the ground under the spot you choose. There’s no high winds to cancel the show in Mouseaddict, but watch out – the Santa Anas can pull those fireworks off course…

Have fun and stay tuned for a great Year Three!

Alice Davis is well known for her costume design work and has styled some of the most beloved characters at Disney Parks. She first designed costumes for the Walt Disney Studios during the production of “Sleeping Beauty.” It was common for animators to use live-action footage as reference – it helped them to see how the actors, fabrics, hair and other elements moved. And you Disney history fans may remember that it was her former art instructor (and future husband), Marc Davis, who recruited her to make the dress that would be worn by the actress portraying Briar Rose in the reference footage.

She continued to design costumes for the Walt Disney Studios until 1963, when she undertook a costuming project that would go on to become one of the most famous theme park attractions in the world. Along with fellow Disney Legend Mary Blair, Alice supervised the creation of more than 150 costumes for “it’s a small world,” helping to bring to life the iconic dolls who would sing the unforgettable theme song.

Two years later, she translated her husband’s drawings for the Pirates of the Caribbean into designs and patterns for all the costumes that would be seen in the new attraction.
In addition to the extraordinary work seen by thousands of Disney Parks guests through the years, Alice’s influence at Walt Disney Imagineering extended to the development of manufacturing, quality control and refurbishment standards for the three-dimensional characters created by Walt Disney Imagineering. [Disney Parks Blog]

Alice Davis’ window will be unveiled at Disneyland on May 10, 2012.

Castle Wallpaper (Retina)

Castle Wallpaper (Regular)

Mansion Wallpaper (Retina)

Mansion Wallpaper (Regular)

To save these wallpapers on your iPad, tap the button for the wallpaper you want. When the image loads, hold your finger down on it and choose “Save Image.” This will save the wallpaper to your camera roll. You can then set your wallpaper using the Settings app.

The latest version of Mouseaddict is compatible with the new iPad, including Retina graphics. An update will be released shortly that will take even more advantage of the improved display.

Take a look at Loren’s photo collection on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/

• We’ve optimized the app for iOS 5, bringing up to a 200% speed increase in app performance and up to 300% in networking! If you’re not using iOS 5, now’s the time to update – not just for the speed, but because this is the last version that will work in iOS version 4.
• The Addictometer has been improved with more levels of accuracy and we tweaked the icons with brighter colors to make them easier to see at a quick glance. And with the recent record crowds, we added a subtle indicator it might be a little busy when the gauge maxes out. Beware of broken glass.
• Tapping a category icon in a location detail page now shows a “tooltip” identifying the category.
• We’ve added the ability to make Special Notices tappable if more information is available. If you see a “tap here” in the Special Notices, it’ll lead to more information.
• The app settings have been moved to the device Settings app. There’s a new setting that lets you completely reset Mouseaddict in case you have problems. You’ll probably never use this, but its nice to have, right?

Finally, if you’re anything like us you got all twitchy when Apple announced the new iPad, and you spent a few hours desperately trying to order one. When that shiny new object of lust appears on your doorstep next Friday, Mouseaddict will be ready for it: version 3.0.7 will display high-resolution Retina images already, and our next version will include even more support for the new display in the iPad.

To update, tap “App Store” on your device, then tap the “Updates” tab at the lower right of your screen. Or, just click here.