The Disneyland Resort Paris saw another set of changes among its “official partners” in the past weeks. One partner has been replaced and two new partners have been added.

The replaced partner is Unilever – however, it was replaced by “Miko” (aka the “Heart Brand” ice crem), which is an Unilever brand. While new in the listing of “official partners” Miko already presented The icre Cream Company (on Main Street, U.S.A.) as well as Fantasia Gelati for several years. Interestingly Ben & Jerry’s is not listed as an official partner despite being an Unilever brand and continueing to present The Gibson’s Girl Ice Cream Parlour as well as its own kiosk at the shores of the Lake Disney in the Disney Village.

The first new “official partner” of the resort is Gibson the world famous guitar company. So far Gibson is not identified as presenting any shop, attraction, entertainment or anything else. However, according to first reports coming in the guitars on display in the Rock’n'Rollercoaster queue- and pre-show area have been replaced with Gibson modells. Interestingly Gibson in the US has teamed up with Universal Studios and House of Blues Concerts to rename the Universal Amphitheatre to “The Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Citywalk”.
The second new sponsor is the French banking institute “Crédit Mutuel” which is now the “Official Banking Partner of Disneyland Paris”. While at this time the bank is not actively represented in the resort it plans to co-brand its youth bank accounts in France as “Disney”. Also the bank will be entitled to offer ongoing advantages at the resort, e.g. special family resort package offers. Further down in the future the bank will be enabled by the partnership agreement to launch a range of financial services for cast members at DLRP and eventually “propose innovative payment alternatives to the resort visitors“. In relation to the latter statement it is worth noting, that VISA (which replaced American Express as the official credit card of the resort) is already for a longer period not listed as an official partner anymore.

Find the full list of current “official partners” as officially communicated by the resort below the cut:

(more…)