News / Central Plaza

Halloween 2011 Preview — Something strange has come over Disneyland Paris. As we approach the launch of Disney’s Halloween Festival this Saturday, you’ll see not a hastily-crafted static Pumpkinman in sight. Instead, the decorations are new, the pumpkins have ears and Castle Stage… has come back to life. At last this season appears to be heading in the right direction. After years trailing around misguided creations such as the Pumpkinmen, Pink Witches and Stitch, Paris — the Disney resort which pioneered the Halloween season in 1997 (before trashing it all with orange paint in 2003) — has now looked to Disneyland in California for inspiration. This year, we’re seeing brand new decorations lifted directly from the Anaheim park’s popular HalloweenTime. High quality, considerately-designed and most importantly more “Disney” in their execution as well as their style, they should go a long way to giving Disneyland Paris guests the Halloween they expect from the park.

For fans, it’s a double surprise. As well as a park plussed rather than spoilt by the season, the majority of those new decorations have so far arrived at Le Théâtre du Château, which will be coming back to life to host the new Mickey’s Halloween Treat in the Street event. Vines wrap their way around the bronze columns, pumpkins top the towers and a giant Mickey-shaped pumpkin head (similar to that on Town Square in California) is the centrepiece. The mini-show will feature the full line-up of Mickey and friends in special costumes and dialogue in both French and English. After highlighting several times this year what a wasted opportunity the stage is, it’s a delight to see it fully decorated and back in use.

Plans for Main Street, U.S.A. seem a little lower spec, with just colour-coordinated flower beds, Mickey-eared pumpkins and a spot of bunting on the concept we’ve seen, but it’s still a step up from last year’s near complete lack of Halloween decoration on the street. Hopefully now that Disneyland Paris has finally found the right path for its Halloween decorations, Main Street will gradually begin to match the warm and vibrant Harvest “Pumpkin Festival” theme seen in California (below).

Meanwhile, one old decision hangs on, for a little while longer at least: Central Plaza Stage. That behemoth will at least be hosting a big new show, titled Disney’s Maleficious Halloween Party, which amongst other surprises is said to see Snow White’s Evil Queen transform into a Witch, courtesy of the stage lifts, and Dr Facilier from The Princess and the Frog return to the park.

Rumour suggests Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade won’t feature its usual Halloween pre-parade this year, although Jack Skellington and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas will be making a return for meet ‘n’ greets, despite not being mentioned in any publicity. It remains to be seen if Halloweenland will return to Frontierland in any form. In truth, the land has felt more like a boneyard for discarded decorations rather than a proper overlay for the past few years, anyway. A cleaning out of the junk and a shot in the arm in quality is exactly what the festival needed.

• More: Disney’s Halloween Festival preview guide on DLRP Magic.com

• Next: We preview each of the three Halloween parties in detail!

PHOTO 1 @InsideDLParis (Twitter), PHOTOS 2-3 Dateline Disneyland (MiceChat)

When Disneyland Paris opened on 12th April 1992, the greenery of this luscious Disney park had been given less than five years to bed in on this previously rather barren expanse of Marne-la-Vallée. Now, after almost 20 years, it looks like it actually requires a little pruning. At least, that could be the first thought when fences went up around a block of greenery just off Central Plaza on 29th August. All the trees in this patch next to the terrace of Casey’s Corner had been marked for removal and, sure enough, just two days later a whole new vista was opened up…

Trees are frequently replanted in Disney parks when they outgrow their surroundings, to maintain the correct scale with the forced-perspective buildings around them. But is that the entire story here? Along with the foliage updates, @InsideDLParis on Twitter has been charting a number of other interesting works going on around the hub of Disneyland Park. In particular, bright yellow ramps covering up works to the floor, seen below.

What’s interesting here is that, from left to right, the work leads a trail all the way from this freshly-pruned patch across the entrances of Frontierland and Adventureland, seemingly leading all the way to the Castle moat. And today, more holes have appeared (photo) on the other side of the plaza, on the pavement nearest to Plaza Gardens Restaurant, seemingly leading into the planter behind the Central Plaza Stage’s show control booth.

We’ve marked all the works on the map below, showing the felled area in red and the trail of temporary ground works in yellow. What do you think — are plans already going into action for next year’s rumoured new nighttime spectacular?

It seems like a good moment to get up-to-date on those plans, anyway. Launching as the main event of the 20th Anniversary next April, we’re expecting a big and bold new evening show to take over this entire area. A real signature event for the park, combining water with projections, lighting effects and pyrotechnics. Possibly even live “show” elements on or around the central stage.

With noisy old-fashioned fireworks causing problems with local villages and no money for a vast Fantasmic-style arena, Disneyland Paris has always been a bit of a party pooper with its nighttime entertainment. Now, after 20 years, it looks like Disneyland Paris management at last want to give a day in their park a real grand finale. That is, after all, one of the key draws of every other Disney park.

This wouldn’t be a nighttime event that simply runs along the parade route or launches a few fizzles into the sky above Sleeping Beauty Castle. It would, for all intents and purposes, be our World of Color: Those “fountains” we saw testing are likely to actually be the same kind of huge water screens used in that Disney California Adventure show-stopper, throwing plumes of water up from the moat with projections of Disney characters. This will be something that attempts to envelop this whole area of the park in a colourful, dazzling, immersive experience. Something you can only truly see for yourself, in reality, not filmed on YouTube.

Finally, a big finale is all well and good, but not if it has to happen during daylight (remember the not-so- “illuminating” Candleabration of the 15th Anniversary?) So here’s a real show-stopping rumour: longer park opening hours, throughout the year.

Disneyland Paris has been a beauty of a Disney park for 20 years. In 2012, it will start acting like one.

PHOTOS VIA @InsideDLParis (Twitter)