An Orlando Sentinel article predicts a record holiday season for Disney.  In addition to the Christmas programming, the park is promising several new shows and attractions, making it a very Nemo Christmas, for sure:

In addition to outlining its annual Christmas season entertainment and offerings, including some expansions, Disney introduced Epcot's new ride, The Seas with Nemo & Friends, and Disney's Animal Kingdom's new show, Finding Nemo — The Musical, to media Tuesday.

Disney also is slowly bringing another show online, the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor Comedy Club with occasional performances between now and its official premiere in January.

For those having a Disney Christmas, the new attractions (spanning three of the four theme parks) will certainly be crowd pleasers:

• "The Seas with Nemo & Friends," a whimsical and visually stunning attraction for guests of all ages, bows at Walt Disney World Resort in fall 2006, anchoring the newly renamed and re-launched The Seas with Nemo & Friends pavilion in Epcot. Picking up where the motion picture "Finding Nemo" left off, the ride-through attraction in a colorful coral reef setting features technology that magically enables the stars of the motion picture to swim amid the marine life in a 5.7-million-gallon saltwater environment — one of the largest such aquariums in the world.

  Guests aboard "clamobiles" first meet Mr. Ray and his class on a field trip and soon learn that Nemo has wandered off. The journey in search of Nemo includes familiar characters such as Dory, Bruce, Marlin, Squirt and Crush. These deep-sea friends inhabit a variety of vibrant vignettes, including the actual aquarium containing more than 65 species of marine life. In the musical finale, Nemo is happily reunited with his father and friends.

  The Future World pavilion The Seas with Nemo & Friends is an imaginative mix of fantasy with real sea life and interactive experiences such as the breakthrough "Turtle Talk With Crush."

• "Finding Nemo-The Musical," premiering at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort in late 2006, brings the undersea world of the film "Finding Nemo" to life in a whole new way: as an all-new Broadway-caliber musical stage show featuring original songs by Tony Award-winning "Avenue Q" co-composer-creator Robert Lopez and a cappella musical "Along the Way" co-creator Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

  The show will immerse guests of all ages in the story of Marlin and Nemo, an overprotective clownfish father and his curious son, through a dazzling production that combines puppets, dancers, aerialists and animated backdrops.

  The theme park's newly enclosed Theater in the Wild will become a magical undersea environment through innovative lighting, sound, special effects and the theatrical puppetry of Michael Curry, who co-designed the richly detailed character puppets seen in the Broadway version of Disney's "The Lion King." Principal characters such as Marlin, Nemo and Dory will be represented by live performers operating larger-than-life puppets. Peripheral characters will be realized by a diverse array of puppetry styles, including rod, Bunraku and shadow.

  Produced by Disney Creative Entertainment, the 30-minute show represents the first time Disney has taken a non-musical animated feature and transformed it into an original musical production. "Finding Nemo-The Musical" will be staged several times daily.

   

• "Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor Comedy Club," opening in mid to late January in Magic Kingdom, is an immersive and interactive attraction in which guests can laugh, joke, match wits and laugh some more with comedian wannabes recruited by Mike Wazowski, the one-eyed hero from Disney•Pixar's "Monsters, Inc." Guests can even text-message jokes on their cell phones for possible use in the show.

  Mike, realizing laughter is many times more powerful than screams as a power source, has opened the comedy club to collect laughs that will generate power for the future. The fun reigns at a 400-seat theater in Tomorrowland.

• "Dream Along with Mickey," which premiered Oct. 1 in Magic Kingdom, is a live stage show about a dream-inspired party to which Mickey Mouse and the gang have invited almost everyone. Theme park guests are invited to gather near the Cinderella Castle stage and join in the fun that takes place several times daily. And many favorite Disney character friends join the party as the dreams of "happily ever after" and "adventurous exploits" come alive on stage amid music and dancing.

  But there's a party-crasher — Maleficent, the evil fairy from Sleeping Beauty. She drops by with the intention of turning all the dreams into nightmares. Collectively, however, all the party guests prove that believing in your dreams is stronger than Maleficent's sorcery … and the 20-minute show has a dream-fulfilling, happy ending.

 For more details about Orlando Christmas events, including Theme Park New Year's Eve events, Orlando Shopping, a calendar of events, and Christmas at Disney, visit ChristmasInOrlando.com.