World Golfer - Golfers and mass transit don't get along very well. We're often leaving for the course with little time to spare, so taking the 20-minute bus ride to the course five minutes away by car is seldom a favored option.

Hauling our clubs on buses or trains isn't a walk in the park either. I remember whenever I would take the train to golf courses in the Czech Republic, I couldn't stand on the platform for three minutes before some Czechs would curiously inspect my golf bag like monkeys circling a monolith.

Which is why it's good to see that Disney World offers free taxi rides to and from each of it's three golf facilities for guests staying at a Disney property. Anyone who has been to Disney World knows it's more of a small town than a resort, so getting to a course can take 10-20 minutes depending on where you are.

It's a service that probably doesn't have to be free, but it's a great touch and saves guests some coin. TravelGolf.com's Chris Baldwin recently teed off on all the nickel-and-diming high-end resorts can get away with, so it's nice to see Disney go easy on golfers. At other destinations like Las Vegas, getting to some of the golf courses can cost $40 or more each way. After three or four rounds, it adds up to a pretty hefty transportation bill.

All four of the championship courses have recently installed new TifEagle Bermuda greens that were silky smooth this week. Each of the four designs are totally different from one another (stay tuned for full course reviews of each).

Show times are today and Jan. 26 at 10:30 a.m. and 3 and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday and Jan. 27 at 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.; Jan. 23 and 24 at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 to $70.

The Chicago teen had no idea a few years later she would join Belle, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella on the ice.

Chin and 38 other skaters, along with a slew of costumes and props, come to Phoenix Wednesday, Jan. 23, for the Disney on Ice presentation of Princess Wishes, which runs through Jan. 27.

The cast, made up of 21 female and 18 male skaters, helps tell the story of seven Disney princesses - Ariel, Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine and Mulan.

Ariel wants to experience life on land. Cinderella has hopes of going to the ball. Jasmine wishes to see a world outside the palace.

Chin plays several characters in Princess Wishes - a starfish in Ariel's world under the sea, a waltzing guest at Cinderella's ball, and a piece of cutlery in Beast's castle.

"You feel kind of silly in rehearsal, but once you get the costume on and you're on the ice with the lights and the crowd and the music, it's really easy to get into character," she said.

The 18-year-old started skating when she was 3 following a preschool trip to a local ice rink. "My mom asked me if I wanted to keep doing it and I said yes," Chin said.

She grew up watching Disney movies. Aladdin was her favorite. "You never think as a child you're going to be part of something like that some day," she said.

Chin finished high school in June. She decided to put off college for a few years and join a traveling show.

Performance director Gig Siruno said that because the story lines in the show are familiar with Disney fans, they use the not-so-traditional setting and special effects to make the performance exciting.

Among the most elaborate props are the 42-foot-long, 10,000 pound Pixie Hollow, the home of Disney fairies such as Tinker Bell; and Cinderella's 14-foot-long carriage, adorned with 1,600 LED lights, floating 25 feet above the ice.

Building the set takes 14 crewmembers and just as many hours.

"To be able to transform our set from the streets of Agrabah, to under the sea, to the ball look is great. . . . All those different layers with skating and great music that the audience loves to sing with lends itself to being a great show."

The show also allows for audience participation, like in the Mulan scene where audience members get to learn part of the choreography.

In an opening letter to shareholders, Disney President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger says the Celebration-based cruise line has "not only delivered impressive returns, but it has become an important brand builder for us."

A little further on in the section devoted to Disney's Parks and Resorts division, the cruise line earns even more lavish praise. "One of the best examples of how consumers look to Disney as a trusted source of quality travel and leisure offerings is Disney Cruise Line," the report reads.

Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort proves it.

One of the two Disney hotels that opened with the park in 1971 (the Polynesian Resort was the other), the A-frame Contemporary is aiming to be fabulous at 40 and further. An ongoing facelift has erased its garish '60s room decor and is adding 21st-century atmosphere and attractions.

"Every space will be touched," Kevin Myers, vice president of resort operations for Disney World, says of the work expected to continue into 2009. (Room updates are complete.)

Two drawing cards from the beginning – the monorail trains that hiss through the hotel's soaring atrium and the Contemporary's primo location just two minutes by train or five minutes by footpath from the Magic Kingdom – will be unchanged. Also ticketed to infinity and beyond is the Mary Blair ceramic mural of pueblo children that leaps 90 feet from the Concourse floor to the atrium ceiling.

Giuliani made an appearance at Walt Disney World and continues to hope an emphasis on the Sunshine State will help breathe new life into his campaign.

State police from across the nation are there, and while not every law enforcement group is endorsing Giuliani, the National Troopers Coalition did, primarily because representatives said they remembered him as a leader in the moments after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

"We'll give you the support you need here at home, so that you can fulfill your role as first preventers so that we can prevent attacks, give you and your colleagues in other areas of law enforcement and emergency response to support your need, so we can respond to the emergency effectively, that's the kind of change we should be talking about," Giuliani said.

The Burbank, Calif., entertainment and media company said Nicolai joins Disney after seven years with Atari Inc. (ATAR), the U.S. division of Infogrames Entertainment S.A., where he was senior vice president, product development and chief technology officer.

"Disney Store has created products with black and white spots and a vibrant red to reflect the appropriate Dalmatian motif," said Amy Hauk, Senior Vice President and General Merchandising Manager, Disney Store. "Our line of exclusive Dalmatian-themed products offers something for everyone, from infants to adults and even the family pet."

"Disney Store's 101 Dalmatians merchandise is celebrating the wonderful moments of the film," says Ivy Ross, chief creative officer for Disney Store. "We've captured the heart-warming scenes from the film not just in our products, but in our packaging as well. Guests will find Dalmatian table top items, toys to inspire play patterns, unique collectibles and more."

When pre-ordered at Disney Store locations nationwide, the 101 Dalmatians Platinum Edition 2-Disc DVD (SRP $19.98) comes with a set of four lithographs -- a special gift with purchase while supplies last. Guests can also walk away with Disney Store's exclusive 101 Dalmatians lunch box for an additional $5, normally SRP $16.50, when bought at the same time as the DVD.

So Many Puppies, So Little Time -- Toys, Apparel, Home Goods and More:

Kids can pretend to take care of their own puppies with the imagination-inspiring Vet Kit playset (SRP $19.50), including a carrying case, stethoscope, mallet, tongue depressor, eye/ear scope, doggie snacks and vitamins. Share boundless adventures and boisterous fun with plush look-a-likes of Pongo, Perdita, or a collection of their puppies staring in awe at their TV hero, Thunderbolt (starting at SRP $9.50).

Baby girls can dress in an adorable red bodysuit (SRP $9.50) paired with a denim skirt splashed with puppies (SRP $16.50) and a plush fur Dalmatian-print cropped jacket (SRP $24.50) that would make Cruella de Vil envious. For baby boys, a denim jacket (SRP $19.50), tees (starting at SRP $9.50) and denim jeans (SRP $19.50) offer playful clothes options. An infant plush costume, modeled after the film's hero Lucky, (SRP $29.50) will inspire boundless hours of fun as kids pretend to be this famous puppy listening for his rescuers' "Twilight Bark."

Give your bedroom a Dalmatian face lift with a twin comforter set (SRP $69.50) that includes twin sheets, a pillowcase and a decorative bone-shaped pillow, a dog house-shaped wooden toy box (SRP $89.50) or a faux fur covered frame (SRP $19.50) with sculpted resin Dalmatians and paw wall decor (SRP $19.50).

Dog owners with a fixation with fur will also love Disney Store's line of Dalmatian-print dog products. Dog collars (starting at SRP $9.50) in red or spotted varieties, tags (SRP $5.50), water/food bowls (SRP $19.50) and a treat jar (SRP $29.50) give dogs something to bark about as well.

To find out more about the evolution of the major Disney division, which now spans games from High School Musical to Turok, Gamasutra recently sat down with Disney Interactive's general manager Graham Hopper to discuss this and a host of other issues.

I want to talk about how things are going with Disney. For a while, it was Buena Vista Games, and your business was more focused on licensing. There was publishing, but it was definitely a different model. Now you've acquired Propaganda and other studios, and are interested in bulking up. How has that been going? First of all, what was the motive behind moving into that space, toward being a more full-featured publisher?

Graham Hopper: As you correctly pointed out, we've been in the business since 1994, as a PC publisher. We had never really stepped into console publishing, and licensing was quite a big part of our business. We went through an evaluation of our business about four or five years ago when I came on board, to decide what we wanted to do.

At the top, we had to make a decision to either stay as a licensor and give our content to other people, or make a decision to get into this in a more significant way. We made the decision to get into it in a more significant way, because we think the gaming industry is moving in a direction that plays to our strengths as a company, in terms of storytelling, character creation, franchise creation, and ongoing franchise management.

We also think that our brand has not been properly developed in the game space, and as the more we got into it, the more we realized that there is more and more room for us to reach consumers, particularly male consumers -- boys and men -- that the Disney brand doesn't otherwise reach, except through video games.

From a company strategic perspective, it's a sector we still needed to be in. From a business perspective, it's a growing piece of media and standard business, and it makes sense for us to be in. And in terms of unexploited opportunity, it's also a big opportunity for us. In all of those there, it really felt like it was the right time for us to... you could probably argue that we could've done it before, but I think studios were jumping to this too soon, back in the mid-'90s, when they could see the potential, but weren't ready for it.

This time we've done it. I think we've gone into it at the right time, and I think we've gone into it in the right way. Most of the people in our organization are from out of the games industry. They know how to make games. It's not about just good visuals. It's also about great gameplay.

A lot of the companies that jumped in in the '90s jumped right back out again, and then they got back in again.

GH: Right. Again, I think our strategy is the right one, because it's starting with the right people and the right creative processes. We've been at this for a period of time. It's only now that some of the features that we've been working on are starting to come out. Our first efforts have been on handheld platforms, where up until... I haven't checked the latest numbers... but up until the end of September, we were the number two DS publisher in North America.

We hope our brand will be number two on handhelds for quite some time. It's really for us been... it's taking our success we've had on handheld, where we've been at it the longest, and have the shortest cycles, and now it's time to translate that to console. That's going to be where you'll see much more of us in the next few years.

As you rightfully point out, Turok is certainly different from Disney. Actually, this is coming out under the Touchstone label, right?

GH: Correct.

Can you talk about the decision to move into using the Touchstone brand for games?

GH: The Walt Disney Company has become a multi-brand company over the years. We have ESPN, we have Touchstone Movies, we have Walt Disney Pictures, and we have Miramax. Each of these labels, if you like, have their own sort of focus. The vast majority of what we're doing is Disney-branded content, because that's where we see the biggest sorts of opportunities for us, and the biggest market opportunity in expanding gaming to reaching to more players that are going to be playing today.

The Touchstone aspect for us is a terrifically small piece of our world, but an important one, because it's putting us at the cutting edge of game development, which is Pixar tools and technology-strong. We are taking a cinematic approach. It's not just about "bang bang bang." It's about really trying to tell a story, and creating immersive environments.

As a company, we're about building franchises, and sustaining franchises over the long haul. When we looked at Turok, which was a beaten-down franchise, it had a lot of success over the years, but then had some disappointing creative behind it. We felt that we could bring our creative and our storytelling and great play to it, and we could reinvigorate the franchise, like we've done for many others before. So that plays to our company's strength as well.

Did you have any reservations about the fact that, with Turok, the license is owned by another company? Did that fit in with your strategy? Did you like it because it had been a great franchise? What was the appeal there?

GH: Typically, unlike most other game publishers, we own almost everything that we do. So yeah, it is an anomaly for us to be working with what is, for us, a licensed property. But we felt that this was a game franchise that needed to be reinvented, and we thought we could do a great job of it, in terms of bringing the full cinematic, immersive experience. That's why we picked it out.

It's not symptomatic that we're going to be taking lots of licenses from other people. It's just really an opportunistic move, and we felt this was a great business opportunity for us, and we wanted to show gamers what we could do.

Speaking of moving away from licensing out Disney's core properties to other publishers to work with... is that a blanket policy? Is that something that's going to phase in over a course of years as the contracts expire, or are you not really discussing that?

GH: The key thing for us is being flexible. We never said that we wanted to move away from licensing, and we don't intend to. Great examples of licensed games that we make that we would love to continue to make those licensed games.

A great example of that is Kingdom Hearts. It's a great collaboration between Square and ourselves. Disney characters are in there, and Final Fantasy characters are in there. It's the kind of collaboration that works, and where we see other opportunities like that, we will do them.

We've got a relationship with THQ, and things with Konami. It's not an aberration for us to be licensing. They stay part of our portfolio. But a big piece of the focus is that we didn't feel that purely following a license would give us the right kind of investment focus on quality, and building our brand in games where we thought we had the potential to do.

Our moving to those handheld games... when that started, people were laughing at us because they thought it was stupid, they didn't think there was a business opportunity there. I can't tell you how many senior executives in the game business told me, "That doesn't make any sense. Girls don't play games." What I think we're doing is we're bringing girls into gaming at an early age, and giving them a great experience, and they'll move on to play other things at the time, too. I think it's ultimately good for the industry.

THQ had some not-great financial recently, and a lot of the analysts are saying, "We've got to watch out, because their Pixar deal runs out in a couple of years." People are theorizing that it's going to be pulled back in. Obviously I have a feeling that you don't want to comment on that, but it's a situation that people are taking notice of, and they're wondering where the future goes with the licensing versus internal development.

GH: It's a long-term relationship with THQ, and that will continue. We work well together, and we like having them as a licensing partner for us. We have been growing a lot. We have a lot more growing to do. We can't do everything ourselves as a company. We create more content than we can actually develop for ourselves. For us, the possibility of being both a publisher and a licensor gives us, in my mind, the best of both worlds.

Certainly I think, not that you've suggested this, but I think that Kingdom Hearts is a fantastic example of Square Enix doing something with your characters that you couldn't do yourself. You couldn't replicate that, because it's got Square Enix's stamp all over it, but it still retains the Disney just as strongly. Obviously it would be, without my theorizing on the relationship, would be a great thing to continue in that vein.

GH: Yeah. I think it would be a sad day for gamers if there were to be no more Kingdom Hearts. We love the franchise, and Square Enix loves it, so we want to see it continue, and they have more games coming out.

Yeah. There were three at TGS, so there's definitely going to be more Kingdom Hearts.

GH: There's a lot of life left there. There's a lot of stories to tell.

I can't remember the DS game's title. It's so awesomely horrible. What is it... 365 days over two...? No, 358 days over two -- which is the subtitle. It's so incomprehensible, it's so great. Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days.

GH: What I can tell you is, trust Nomura-san. He always delivers --

He delivered about half of the Square Enix Party, their big event in Japan last year. He delivered literally half of the games on show, I think were his responsibilities.

GH: He's a tremendous talent.

And as I understand it, he's a complete workaholic, so it's kind of a win-win for Square and him, because he doesn't have any interest in doing anything else anyway.

GH: Having been to dinner with Nomura-san at 11 PM at night in Tokyo is... we're jetlagged, so it works well for us.

That's nice. So getting back to your business, as you fleshed out from a licensor to a publisher, you started a more full-featured publisher. You started acquiring studios. Obviously Propaganda is that, and there are some other examples. Can you talk about that process, how you made those decisions and what acquisitions you made?

GH: Well, for us, up to pretty recently, our studios are our lifeblood. Our company's built in creativity in everything we do. Whenever we've strayed away from focusing on creativity, even to make money, it's never been a good end story for us. It's very clear in games, like everything else, creativity will drive what we do. The creativity from our internal studios is of vital importance.

So what we're doing is we're going out and trying to acquire studios that have a focus, and culturally fit with what we're trying to do, and focus on quality. It probably would be very easy for us to substantially increase the output of titles that we're putting out, whether it be through publishing or licensing, but that's not what we want to do.

We'd rather have fewer, really good titles out there. There are enough bad titles being made in the industry. We don't need to add to it. We want to add to the stock of great titles. Our internal studios are keen to that. So whether it be Propaganda, Avalanche, Fall Line, which is our Wii and DS-focused studio, or whether it be Black Rock, which is our racing game studio, or...

Which was Climax UK, right?

GH: Yeah, it was Climax Racing. Or whether there's Warren Spector's Junction Point. Each one of these are highly creative studios with a particular focus on what they're doing.

I think the Junction Point acquisition was a surprise, and from Warren's comments when that happened, he was like, "Everyone's like, 'why Disney?'" I think there's probably skepticism that remains, but at the same time, I think everyone's excited to see what will happen.

GH: Don't forget, Warren has been privy to what it was what we're doing on the inside, so he knows. He's seen more than perhaps what most people on the outside have seen, so the question that people might have asked about why he would make this step is crystal-clear to him.

From our perspective, to have greater talents like Warren on board and part of our creative system is absolutely essential. It's not that different, if you think about it, to what happened at Pixar over the years. Pixar has grown on finding great and talented directors to work with John Lasseter.

Like Brad Bird.

GH: Exactly. Brad's a great example of that. For us, having great creatives actually feed each other, we get better work, better results, and better creativity. And that's really what we're trying to do. So we are, first and foremost... this is a product-led renaissance, and that product is credited to great people and great contents that gamers love so.

It sounds pretty simple when you put it that way. I think part of the problem... well, not the problem, but the perception is that it's sort of like a syllogism. Like, "Kids' games are crappy, and Disney makes kids' games, thus Disney will be crappy as a publisher." You know what I mean. It isn't necessarily true, but that's probably the conclusion that people are reaching, to an extent. And also Disney doesn't fit the Deus Ex, hardboiled, incredibly complex, mature image... stuff like that is probably what people were thinking.

GH: You know, Christian, you look at the broad spectrum, yet a lot of people are trying to produce games that appeal to, say, the 18 to 34 or 18 to 40 age group, if you like -- of hardcore titles. That's one segment. But there's a whole other part of this business that we appeal to, too.

I talked to a lot of people, particularly people that have kids, about what they're looking for, and why aren't these people looking for games that they can play with their kids. And they were gamers. I don't know how many gamers you've talked to that have stopped gaming because they got married and had kids, and it just didn't fit into their lives anymore the way it used to.

I think for us, to create great content that appeals to a broad audience, it's not just about selling to kids. We want something that grown-ups will want to play with their kids, and that gamers will play. I think Kingdom Hearts is a great example of what they can do. There are plenty of single guys in their 20s who love Kingdom Hearts. There are plenty of families that have played it, and kids that have played it, and that's the kind of model we're looking for.

Not everything we do is going to be designed to appeal to everyone, so when we create a game like... we just had a [Disney] Princess Wii title. When we create something like that, we're bringing young girls into the world of the Wii, and into gaming for the first time ever. When we saw what we could do with the controller, think of it as a magic wand moving through a world. It creates magic and excitement and joy for kids. Would a core gamer want to play it? No. But if it was designed for a core gamer, no kid would be able to access it.

We try to focus our product to specific segments, and make sure that we are appealing to them. People will see some games and say, "These are not right for me." They shouldn't assume they are of bad quality. In fact, I think they are high quality to the audience they are intended. They are designed with accessibility and ease-of-use to a specific audience. When you play Turok, that's done as a brand new game for us, but that is a hardcore-type game. We know that we're designing for the right audience.

Oh yeah, definitely. But I mean, at the same time, a lot of kids' games -- and this is something that's been a big topic with the resurgence of Nintendo with the Wii and the DS, is how do you compete with Nintendo? That's been a big topic of discussion. It comes up all the time. Ubisoft has come out and said, "We'll compete with Nintendo by making our games as good as Nintendo's." And everyone's like, "That's a bold statement!" A lot of publishers brought half-baked games on the Wii and thought they would sell, just because the Wii's popular, and then some people end up retreating from that. My point is that not all kids' games are created equally.

GH: They're not. One of the things we have a strong, vested interest in is the whole notion of licensed games based on movies or Disney properties or so on. The games are not generally as good as they could be, so everybody gets lumped in the same box. But because we own so much of our own content, we have a strong, vested interest in changing that, and we are trying to change it.

I think sometimes it's regrettable that there are some segments of the gaming press that don't recognize when a game is trying to be different. It's easy to say, "This is for kids. It's not fun," or whatever. But I'm hoping that there is going to be recognition that games are designed for different audiences, and should be viewed and rated and judged appropriately.

The other thing to this is that some people who sometimes people feel that games that aren't suited for core gamers are somehow diminishing the industry. I don't think that's the case. And I think the gaming industry has a long way to go in terms of growth and appealing to more people. I don't see a situation where core gamers are being left in the dust, with no games being made for them, because kids or families are being addressed.

That's become a bit of a debate with the success of the Wii, because you look at the new audience, who bought it expecting Wii Sports, and then core gamers respond, "Well, is Nintendo going to abandon us, the fans it's had for years?" Obviously that's not the case, and I feel that Super Mario Galaxy is an obvious example of how Nintendo's not abandoning its audience. But it is definitely a debate.

The market is growing in different ways, and I think that Disney is probably better suited to capitalize on some of the ways it's growing to the younger audience, and the older-than-core audience, and the more casual audience, almost more than you would expect the company to be able to capitalize on the audience that would buy Turok, actually, in a certain sense.

GH: I think you'll be surprised. I think you'll be surprised over the next few years when you see the content coming out. Certainly, a lot of what we do is going to appeal to, in essence, audiences new to gaming. I love games, and I love playing games, and I would like everybody in the world to play games.

I think playing games is like TV was, and like radio and like movies. There's not a person on this planet, when they saw it for the first time, saw a moving image on a screen and said, "I don't want to watch that," or heard a radio and said, "I don't want any piece of that." It's a universal desire, in my opinion, and I think what we're doing and what Nintendo's doing, is a great job of is expanding the experience to more people.

It doesn't diminish, and it doesn't take away from the core gamers' wants. I just think it's a broadening of the entertainment landscape in games that we're happy to be a part of, and I think we will look at these games that the core gamers will like. I'm obviously talking about things here that have not been announced, but I think over the next six to eight months, you'll start to see some things come out of us as we start to show you what the titles are. I think perhaps it will make people sit back and say, "Hmm. Maybe not everything they do is right for me, but they are games that I want to play."

If Turok is a glimpse of what could be, on one hand... obviously, this isn't a one-off. I would assume, whether or not the Turok franchise sticks around, you're not just saying, "This is our one time making an M-rated action game, and the rest of the time it's going to be Disney Princess." I think that no one would infer that, probably.

GH: Right. You look at any piece of our business. You look at our movie studio, and we produce movies that are for younger kids, and movies that are for families, and art house movies, if you like, and we produce Jerry Bruckheimer, big blow-em-ups, spectacular summer movies. We do all of those things, and we do them all well. Again, they've each had their own focus, and they're not just a mish-mash of things. They are designed to appeal to different audiences to delight and entertain them, and we're going to do the exact same thing in games. We'll probably just need a little more time for people to see it through.

Right. Getting back to the Touchstone brand question -- Touchstone is a mainstream film brand that's now being pulled over to games to launch Turok. So I'm sort of extrapolating... is there a chance we'll ever see a Miramax game? Like, something a little bit more edgy, or more mature and artsy, do you think?

GH: It's possible. We don't want to maintain a bunch of different labels. I think it's potentially confusing for consumers. Whether it might be Miramax in feel, it may not be labeled as Miramax. It may just go out under Touchstone. Frankly, I think it's more fun to do really interesting things within certain guidelines, also within the Disney brand, as long as it sticks to the Disney brand essence. We know we should be doing some really good stuff there, too.

We're not trying to set out to manage lots of different labels. We simply want to create great games, and then we need an avenue to publish them. And then if a great game like Turok comes along and doesn't fit the Disney brand, we want to be able to do it anyway, and we have Touchstone to do it.

Do you see a lot of limitations on what kind of games you guys could be making?

And to kick-start the campaign, the company has pledged £1 million as an initial donation.

Robert Iger, president and chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Company, presented the cheque to Dr Jane Collins, chief executive of the world famous children's hospital.

They were joined by Mickey and Minnie Mouse, who hosted an art class for the young patients.

A dedicated appeal website, www.gosh.org/disney has been set up, and the first 50 people to sign up and donate will receive a limited edition Peter Pan lithograph from the Walt Disney Studios in California.

All money raised in the appeal will go towards the construction of a new area in the next stage of the hospital's redevelopment, which will include a meeting space for patients, their families, visitors and staff, complete with restaurant and cafe. It will also house a unique Disney-branded interactive zone, which will be created by the hospital's design team alongside Disney's "imagineers".

Mr Iger said: "All of us at Disney hope this donation and fundraising effort helps ensure that Great Ormond Street Hospital continues to deliver the quality compassionate care for which it is rightly known."

Dr Collins added: "We are very grateful to Disney for their generosity and this initial £1 million donation. The money that Disney is aiming to raise for the hospital will be invaluable."

The hospital needs to raise £170 million over the next five years to redevelop two thirds of its site.

Over 18,000 Run Through Parks In Disney Marathon

Central Florida News - The crowds gathered early at Walt Disney World Sunday morning as thousands of runners took part in the 15th Annual Disney Marathon.

The marathon kicked off at 6 a.m. Sunday. Runners began winding their way through the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

The more than 18,000 runners in the marathon is more than twice the amount of runners when the Disney Marathon started in 1994.

Serious runners have ranked the marathon as one of the top 15 in the world.

On Saturday, he learned dreams really can come true in the Magic Kingdom.

"I have been training hard with Doug (Butler) for this," said Davis, who has been a regular in Butler's "Set Goals, Not Limits" running camps for the past year. "The race went smoothly until I developed a killer side stitch around mile eight. Doug ran with me, yelling encouragement, and between (miles) 10 and 11 I pulled it back together and got on pace."

The 30-year-old electrical engineer posted Brevard's fastest finish -- 1 hour, 21 minutes, 49 seconds -- good enough for second in the 30-34 age group and 33rd overall out of 12,283 finishers.

"This is about where I wanted to be," said Davis, whose time also beat the personal best he set in November by more than two minutes. "I feel like even better things are coming."

And, after pulling Saturday's second-fastest local time, it is obvious better things are also in store for Rockledge's Bret Butler, whose inaugural half marathon finish of 1:22:21 gave him 34th overall and third in the 14-17 division.

"I was supposed to go easy the first half of the race," said the 15-year-old junior, who is no relation to Doug Butler, but runs for him on the Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy boys cross country team. "I went out a little easy, but with all the people around me I got excited and a little bit carried away."

Some of Bret Butler's exuberance and speed might be inherent. His mother, Pam Meier, 44, turned in the fastest local female time -- 1:45:54 -- in what was also her first race at the distance.

"I couldn't believe it," said Meier, whose finish placed her in the top four percent of the field. "I got into running from watching my son's cross country, and now I love it myself."

While many felt the adrenaline of fast times or the pride of first finish lines, others relished the experience sharing the miles with good friends.

"We know we're not going to win," said Melbourne's Jim Ralph of the dozen or so with whom he regularly trains. "We've been running for several years, and it is more fun to run in a pack during the long races."

The group laughed and mingled its way to the end, with times varying from 1:50 to 1:55, still within the top 10 percent of the field.

"We broke down into groups of twos and threes and then traded back and forth," said Ralph, 50, who has been running since high school and knows lifetime personal bests may be long gone. "If it was cooler, we all could have run better, but everyone was happy.

"This will be the 18 th year (for the trip ). It's been going on without interruption for 18 years," said Larry Driver, Woodland gifted and talented teacher. "This will be my 11 th trip."

Twenty-two students from the two schools are scheduled to take the trip. Students pay for their own way, and they had to raise about $ 1, 250 each this year, Driver said.

The field trip is designed for a mixture of educational and recreational offerings. While at Disney World, students will spend their mornings participating in educational workshops and activities offered through Disney's Youth Educational Series. In the afternoons, they have time to visit the resort's recreational aspects.

The students also plan to visit Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., and Island of Adventures, an attraction at the Universal Orlando Resort.

"Yes it is unique," Driver said of the trip. "It's a great opportunity for the students in Fayetteville."

Students receive homework assignments in conjunction with the trip. They have to create "writing prompts," which Driver described as similar to essays, about their experiences.

"In all, they have to write 10," he said.

They also put together a larger project about their experiences, usually a scrapbook or journal, after returning from the trip, he said.

Driver said the event often becomes one of the students' most well-remembered experiences.