News / Press Events

What’s the best thing to do in Paris during Summer? Why, visit the beach of course! That’s Paris Plages, now an annual Summer tradition as familiar as being stuck in a sweaty Métro carriage with someone blasting accordion music over a cassette player. For one month, stretches of the River Seine in the heart of the city are transformed into artificial beaches for everyone to enjoy, with sporting events, sun loungers and more. This year, even Disneyland Paris has got involved, bringing along a mighty bucket and spade to build a giant sand sculpture of Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant! The unique “sand castle” was inaugurated with a special ceremony starring Mickey and Minnie Mouse themselves, dressed in colourful Hawaiian designs, to the music of the old Lilo & Stitch Catch the Wave Party show.

The 16-foot sculpture, which took 300 hours to build using 60 tons of natural sand, will be on display until 21st August. You’ll find it right at the heart of Paris Plages, next to the Pont Notre-Dame just off Voie Georges Pompidou and only a short walk from Châtelet-les-Halles station, which is on the RER A line from Disneyland (Marne-la-Vallée/Chessy) itself.

This is our second giant sand castle of the year, after the one at the huge Sand Sculpture Festival at Blankenberge in Belgium. Both sand-related events have made it onto the Disney Parks Blog, which we gladly notice has recently started to share more news from Paris. In their article about the superior Blankenberge event, they linked to a fantastic online virtual tour set up by the organisers, which lets you explore the entire exhibition of Disney sand sculptures without ever leaving your house. Which, considering the “Summer” weather a lot of us have had so far, is very welcome indeed.

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It’s almost a month since Earl of Sandwich grabbed a slice of the fast food action in Disney Village, bringing an ample selection of freshly-prepared hot sandwiches to the banks of Lake Disney. The restaurant, the chain’s first in mainland Europe, was officially inaugurated back on Wednesday, 15th June with Euro Disney CEO Philippe Gas, Planet Hollywood founder Robert Earl (second from right) and the 11th Earl of Sandwich himself, John Montagu (third from right). A predictably oversized ribbon and scissors were brought out for the occasion.

So far the restaurant already appears to be earning a loyal following of European fans, with many positive remarks for service, taste and the design of the new building. One negative, though is for the price of drinks: with a 500ml bottle of Coca-Cola at €3.50 they’ve managed to make the €2.60 normally charged by Disney seem like a steal (although a 400ml cup is available for €2.50). For a family, it soon makes a reasonably-priced sandwich into a rather expensive fast food meal.

You can find the full Earl of Sandwich menu on our Restaurant Menus pages, which has also seen the menu for the nearby New York Style Sandwiches updated. In response to the new competition, this small Disney-owned eatery has changed its focus away from hot paninis to pizza and pasta.

What are your first impressions of the Earl? Got a favourite sandwich from the 16 on offer yet?

It’s official: the Molly Brown riverboat will return to the Rivers of the Far West as planned this Friday, with a special re-dedication ceremony even planned to mark the occasion. Having been practically rebuilt during an extensive year-long restoration, the unique side-wheel riverboat will be re-dedicated by Disneyland Paris ambassadors Régis Alart and Osvaldo del Mistero at 11am this Friday, 25th March. The public event will take place at Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing in Frontierland, so be sure to drop by if you’re visiting the resort and witness a little piece of Disneyland Paris history.

As noted in the comments following our article last week, the riverboat has actually lost her “Queen of River” title during the restoration, with the side wheels now displaying the slightly more generic nomenclature: “Western River Line”. It remains to be seen what other smaller changes may have taken place. DLRP Today will be reporting back from the rebuilt vessel’s maiden cruise and might even tweet a few live updates on Friday — so follow us on Twitter, if you’re not already!

Moteurs… Action! Stunt Show Spectacular will be welcoming a new cameo star from a certain automobile-based Pixar film this year, and he just made his grand entrance. At the Euro Disney SCA annual general meeting last Friday, the Cars-Moteurs tie-in was presented on the big screen and followed by Lightning McQueen himself then driving right out into the auditorium, Hotel New York’s convention centre, as seen in the video above. The Disney Magical Moments Festival preview show also featured some of the cast of new Central Plaza show Mickey’s Magical Celebration and gave us those finite dates for The Tarzan Encounter‘s heralded return.

This new car is a full-size, drivable replica of Lightning McQueen, the “rookie race car” in the 2006 Pixar film which conveniently sees its sequel, Cars 2, released this Summer. Similar cars have been featured at Disney California Adventure and Disney’s Hollywood Studios parks since the original film’s release, whilst Walt Disney Studios Park has had a static model at Cars Quatre Roues Rallye since 2007. The role awaiting Lightning (known in France as “Flash” McQueen) in the Backlot stunt show so far isn’t clear. It’s likely he won’t replace the main “hero” car and will instead make more of a cameo appearance — but does that mean he will replace the show’s existing cameo, 1960s motor star Herbie?

VIA mouetto (YouTube)

Yes, it was probably pitched something like that.

But first, a nice compilation from behind-the-scenes at yesterday’s press events, as a Disneyland Paris video camera follows the press around the new shows and events to give a feeling of these busy press days in the parks:

Now that’s got you warmed up, onto the main show!

Titled “The New Gen Show”, the opening ceremony and dedication of the New Generation Festival has all the usual ingredients of these one-off Disney grand opening spectaculars — a ridiculously large cast, jazzy projections and an “interesting” mélange of music.

On the one hand we have Buzz Lightyear reliving his French disco days, on the other Nemo coaxing Dory (right?) into the arena in something out of an arty theatrical show. All wrapped up with music from… Pixar Play Parade at Disney’s California Adventure.

Yes, it’s an eclectic, enormous and show-stopping opening ceremony for the year ahead. Might they have actually outdone all past efforts? Perhaps — in numbers and scale — even the opening of the resort itself!

It’s a shame, of course, that these kind of lavish events are reserved only for “VIPs” who probably couldn’t give a hoot about seeing a show like this. We have to wonder how much of the footage and how many of the images shot this weekend will really make an impact, or be featured in the media. It’s a tradition now that Disneyland Paris puts on one show for the visitors and one superficial blow-out to look good for the cameras. It’s something for the archives, for them to pull out and say “remember 2010?”.

Although given that they used the stunt arena this year, which has 3000 seats, this would have been a good chance to say, give away a few extra tickets in a prize draw to Annual Passport Dream holders… if only to see the show, to spread word of mouth, and not to enjoy the free food.

Videos © Disney

Stick with this page as we bring you live(-ish) rolling updates from the New Generation Festival press launch earlier this evening, sharing all the photos as they’re published.

• Adrian Brody, real famous person! (2:26am)

Among the usual glut of French “celebrities” who largely mean nothing to us, could be found Adrian Brody — actual Oscar-winning Hollywood actor, from The Pianist and Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

Got to love the embarassing photo set-ups Disneyland Paris provide for their VIPs.

• French Celebrities (2:38am)

Although, as you can see, many of them are only too happy to oblige:

Audrey Marnay and Liya Kebede

Fabian Galthie

Bruno Solo

Prince Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia

The photo from the Monsters Inc. photo location there confirms the recent work was just a simple refurbishment, and the Mike Wazowski figure is still in place — not yet to be ousted by his real, walking equivalent now appearing in Disney Showtime Spectacular over at Disneyland Park.

British girl pop group The Saturdays were also at the resort today.

• Disney Showtime Spectacular premieres (2:50am)

We mentioned that today’s weather hadn’t been too kind to the first performance of Disney Showtime Spectacular. It’s the Disneyland Paris press event curse — blow all your money on a big show, invite thousands of questionably important people… and then that thick Marne-la-Vallée cloud rolls over.

Here are photos from the press performance earlier today:

Luckily it remained dry, if not providing the best weather for this new show to shine.

• The New Gen Show – first official photos! (3:02am)

And here we go, this is what we’ve been waiting for. Details have been sketchy about what to expect from tonight’s events, but with the stage set as the Moteurs… Action! stunt arena over at Walt Disney Studios Park — and not Central Plaza as the past two launches (15th and MMP), it promised something quite different and certainly very grand, given the arena floorspace…

And of course, they didn’t disappoint. An enormous cast, a laser and projections show and the Disney All Stars Express park-hopping to join the cars of Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars:

The full wide shot at show-level:

Stars jump for joy as resort icons are projected onto the Mediterranean sets of Moteurs Action:

Artsy arrivals by illuminated balloons? Why not:

A full-on smooch between Tiana and Naveen? Ooo err:

And that final wide angle from the top of the Stunt Arena seating again:

At least, with 3000 stadium seats, the VIPs wouldn’t have had to crane their necks for once.

• The Saturdays, New Generation Props & Suitcases (29/03 16:07pm)

Tiana meets British pop group The Saturdays — or is it the other way around? — in this picture captured by Photos Magiques on yes, Saturday:

They also stumbled upon some clever oversized toy props in the hotel lobbies where press event invitees were staying, such as this ViewMaster toy:

And the suitcases of New Generation characters who were also checking in:

See more of these, plus loads more news from the past week, at their full update here.

• Princess Tiana meets Princess Tiana! (29/03 18:38pm)

Sandrine Van Handenhoven, Belgian pop star and voice of Tiana in the Flemish version of The Princess and the Frog (De Prinses en de Kikker) met the princess herself this weekend:

• More Opening Ceremony Show photos (30/03 18:45pm)

More pictures of the spectacular opening ceremony show have been published by Disneyland Paris:

— — Check back for more updates soon!

Photos © Disney.

It was a surprise outing for the couple, more used to the calm beet fields of Marne-la-Vallée, as they stepped out into the bright lights of the city to inaugurate the Christmas celebrations on the Place de la Concorde, at the heart of Paris.

For the first time in years, they appeared as guests of honour at the foot of the Champs Elysées, as children from the French Red Cross helped them launch the illumination of the giant Ferris Wheel at 17:30 and cut the ribbon for the international Christmas markets to officially open.

They also helped reveal a stunning ice sculpture of Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant as part of the Ice Magic exhibit.

Every city has a giant wheel and a Christmas market these days, but how many are just a short RER train ride away for a famous Mouse and his girlfriend?

Update 27.11.2009 — More Pictures & Video

Disneyland Paris have released more photos of the event, showing the truly stunning ice sculptures of the Eiffel Tower and Sleeping Beauty Castle:

Not only that, enjoy this fun official video of the event, from our new YouTube Channel:

We launched the DLRP Today channel on YouTube recently to share official footage and video clips from Disneyland Paris to accompany various news updates on the site. Hop over and subscribe now!

Pictures © Disney.

Press events at Disneyland Paris are usually frequented only by those famous exclusively in France, so it was a surprise to see actual real American Shannen Doherty make an appearance at the Christmas launch events on Saturday.

Judging by the amount of photos released featuring the actress, of Beverley Hills 90210 and more recently just 90210 fame, Mickey and Minnie were pleased to see someone they just about recognised, too…

Shannen was even special guest at the first Tree Lighting Ceremony on Town Square.

But it wasn’t all about the Charmed actress. Also in attendance were Virginie Ledoyen, Sliimy, Marie Gillain, Bob Sinclar, Hafsia Herzi, Frédérique Bel, Christophe Barratier, Laurence Ferrari, Claire Barsacq, Bruce Toussaint, Alessandra Sublet, Sandrine Quétier, Nikos Aliagas, Frederic Taddei, Fanny Valette and the Chef Thierry Marx.

You know, her…

And him…

And that guy…

And for the Brits reading: Former glamour model Melinda Messenger, who currently presents the frighteningly bad Live from Studio Five.

We’ll probably never find out what happened during the actual nighttime press party, such is the astonishing lack of publicity these schmooze-fests traditionally generate. However, from these pictures we can at least garner that there was a large mannequin Father Christmas locked inside a giant snowglobe.

However, costumes and characters from the park’s two parades were used in the following three pictures, which are very pretty indeed:

Note the clever covering-up of the Mickey’s Magical Party decoration on the Castle. We’re not the only ones who’ve tried to do that this year, then.

Back to the celebrities, French DJ and house music producer David Guetta has been featured amongst the Christmas photos, but apparently actually visited earlier in the week, seen here riding Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast with his wife, Cathy:

Anyway, from celebs to zelebs, we all know who the real stars are…

Very cute. That’s their Christmas card sorted!

Pictures © Disney.