News / Walt Disney Studios Park

Ah, we’ve all mistaken an “une” for a “deux”, haven’t we? Putting an abrupt end to the hunt for a second imminent new Walt Disney Studios Park attraction, Disneyland Paris has confirmed directly to Mouetto, admin of Disney Central Plaza, that the comment was purely a journalistic error on the part of Le Figaro, which incorrectly transcribed its interview with Philippe Gas.

The article by Mathilde Visseyrias, which remains unchanged online, cites the Euro Disney group CEO as announcing that €150 million in credit agreed by lenders would be used “pour construire deux nouvelles attractions”. One likely explanation for the error could be that Mr Gas actually said a more vague corporate line of “de nouvelles attractions”, simply “new attractions”.

As Mouetto also points out, this isn’t the only error from this Figaro journalist regarding Disneyland Paris. A separate article also published on Tuesday states Philippe Gas as having been CEO since 1998, rather than 2008. Ironically, Visseyrias headlined the original interview as “Disneyland Paris ‘has learned from its mistakes'”.

So, yes… Happy birthday, Walt Disney Studios Park! While this confirmation couldn’t be timed worse, let’s try not to be too disappointed about an extra attraction which was never there to begin with. Ratatouille is still very much “on” for 2014, bringing with it the equally welcome trio of a full-size restaurant, toilets and possibly a new shop. And with the €150 million cited — which thanks to earlier announcements, we can confirm isn’t a mistake — that means one huge pot of cash to make Rémy’s world-exclusive ride something even Brad Bird calls “really cool”.

And those suggestions we shared for where the park could find a second new attraction: don’t forget those. They might just require a little more patience. It’s frustrating, because this extra-attraction-that-never-was could have been a great opportunity to tick one off the list early, improving at the same time as expanding the Studios. Investments such as Toy Story Playland have bulked up the attraction (and visitor) count but failed to add up to a more consistent, cohesive park. It largely remains a collection of top quality Disney attractions without the strong Disney glue between them. Merely sticking extra pieces on, however big-budget, won’t solve the overall production problems.

VIA Mouetto (Disney Central Plaza)

Happy birthday, Walt Disney Studios Park! The second park at Disneyland Paris has celebrated its 10th anniversary today in a characteristically somewhat muted day of special events. That wasn’t going to stop the Disneyland Paris Ambassadors giving it their all, though. Following their stint as Frontiersmen for the rededication of the Molly Brown and gentlemen of the royal court for the inauguration of the Princess Pavilion, Osvaldo del Mistero and Régis Alart raided the costuming workshop once again with an eye on Hollywood glitz.

The result looks superb for such an intimate event: dancers, singers, boom mics and rolling cameras — not to mention Osvaldo, Régis and Mickey Mouse all looking like they’ve just stepped out of the Oscar-winning best picture The Artist. A special clapperboard has been decorated with “Walt Disney Studios 10 ans” — the “10” made out out of a celluloid film reel. It’s a welcome throwback to the kind of Hollywood-that-never-was glamour which the still sorely-missed CinéFolies streetsmosphere shows in this same Disney Studio 1 used to provide.

Inside, the park’s Cast Members are wearing special badges to mark the occasion. From a paltry 10 attractions at opening on 16th March 2002, the park has grown to count 17 attractions within its studio lots, six of which are entirely unique to the park. After a lacklustre opening which forced the resort into a second financial restructuring, the first seeds of change were only sown in 2007 with the Toon Studio Placemaking project and two new attractions, Crush’s Coaster and Cars Quatre Roues Rallye.

Though additions such as Stitch Live! and Playhouse Disney Live on Stage! have sought to revitalise initially unpopular areas, the park has failed to see the implementation of any kind of wider improvement programme. Piecemeal, self-contained developments such as the colourful Toy Story Playland have continued to create pockets of Disney quality while other areas remain unappealing and lacking. The cold, windswept asphalt of Backlot has seen barely a single change since 2002, besides the half-hearted redecoration of Disney Blockbuster Café.

Nevertheless with its very first dark ride finally on the way in 2014, in the form of the world-exclusive and by all accounts state-of-the-art Ratatouille Kitchen Calamity! (rumoured working title), the whispers of further change continue to echo around these fictional soundstages. By the end of this decade, as it’s twentieth birthday nears, the second park might just be nearing a more complete park…

In the meantime, the park’s Cast Members gathered for a souvenir photo.

Dix ans — c’est dans la boîte!

VIA Ambassadeur Disneyland Paris, Disney Central Plaza (Facebook), @InsideDLParis (Twitter)

We’ve known about the plans for a Ratatouille dark ride since as long ago as 2008, but what about the writer and director of the Pixar film himself, Brad Bird? The answer is yes: and he’s very excited.

Most recently credited for a turn to live action with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Brad still finds the time to reply to messages from his 25,000 followers on Twitter. One of today’s replies saw him pick up a question from @CreativeAlan, who shared the photo above and asked: “Are you excited about the Ratatouille dark ride currently under construction in Paris?”

Bird’s reply? Simply: “Very. It’s going to be really cool.”

So there we have it. And that photo above, which comes from the excellent ParisCastMember blog, is the latest look at construction progress as seen from Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop.

Trees have been cleared, the old Pearl Harbor hangar removed and the roof over the former Studio Tram Tour route alongside the costuming building torn down. A large rectangle where the bulk of the future showbuilding will sit in 2014 has been levelled and covered with what appears to be loose stone, to be compacted, forming the start of the building’s foundations. The large concrete-walled “soundstage” of Crush’s Coaster looked similar at the same point in its early construction.

In the distance, we can also see the redirected route of the tram tour, which has now reopened, lined by darker green construction walls. The earlier route, nearer the camera, will apparently be used for construction vehicles to access the site without disrupting normal park operations.

PHOTO ParisCastMember (Twitter), VIA @CreativeAlan

April is a busy month for Disneyland Paris, but it’s also outside of the main summer high season. For years that has meant, no matter how busy the parks, you’d see no fireworks and certainly stay no later than 10pm — 8 or 9pm on weekdays. The Extended Hours announced for the 20th Anniversary — primarily to make sure Disney Dreams! can be performed under darkness — promised to change that and revolutionise the annual calendar of the resort. Well, here we go.

Park opening hours for the first half of April 2012 have now been published (check them here), giving us our first look at exactly what “Extended Hours” mean. The first two weekends of April now see Disneyland Park open until 10.30pm, giving up to an hour and a half more time than the same period last year (check our archived hours here). On the weekend of the 14th and 15th, that extends further to the magical 11pm; the first 11pm closing time in April for almost two decades. Meanwhile weekdays see a solid 9.30pm closing time, again an increase of up to an hour and a half on last year.

It’s important to note that these Extended Hours are really just regular park opening hours… extended. Merely a way to promote the longer hours required to see darkness fall over Sleeping Beauty Castle — and all those Disney Dreams! effects come to life. The unconnected Extra Magic Hours, which are available in the morning, continue for Disney Hotel guests and Annual Passport Dream holders.

These new hours not only add a great deal more value to park tickets (and particularly resort hotel stays), they herald the moment where Disneyland Paris is ready to grow up, to start acting like a real Disney park. Previously weighted far too heavily towards the two summer months of July and August, the resort’s old calendar saw pretty much the entire rest of the year besides Christmas relegated to “off season”. If you wanted the “full Disney experience” of later hours, darkness falling over Main Street and nighttime entertainment, you had to wait until summer — and stump up the prices to match. Now, that full Disney experience will be available every day and every night of the year.

• Flashback: See the very first Euro Disneyland opening times from 1992 here!

With a workforce of over 14,500 employed at the resort and even more certified Cast Members beyond, it’s no wonder this new design for Disneyland Paris’ 20th Anniversary name tags has quickly done the rounds online. Every single member of the “cast” will soon be switching their Magical Moments Festival name tag for this new 2012 design, neatly fitting the hemisphere of the 20th logo into its standard lapel design. It’s just one of endless pieces of miscellanea which will be taking on a special look for the upcoming birthday year, just as we saw for the 15th Anniversary.

For fans (including those on the Disney payroll!), these all create perfect “souvenirs” to chart the changing styles and aspirations of the resort across the years. On our sister site Euro Souvenirland, you can already find examples of the 5th Anniversary name tags from 1997 and the millennium name tags from 2000. There are numerous more variations to be found that we’d love to put into a “name tag timeline”, but we need your help! If you can provide photographs or scans of old name tags in your collection, send them over to contributions@eurosouvenirland.com!

PHOTO Jean-Louis Gold VIA Dlrp Express (Facebook)

Disneyland Paris saw overall revenue growth of just 1% in the first quarter of its 2012 financial year, from 1st October to 31st December 2011. The results, published this morning by operating group Euro Disney S.C.A., make for unremarkable if somewhat reassuring reading given the economic climate. Resort revenues, for Theme Parks, Disney Village and Hotels, actually rose a good 4% in the quarter, brought down for the total figure only by lower real estate revenue compared to 2011. Park attendance itself grew a surprising 5%, due to higher numbers visiting from France itself, perhaps taking advantage of the mild late Autumn for last minute trips, with total Theme Park revenues up 7%.

Philippe Gas, CEO, comments that “improved attendance and guest spending are encouraging, especially in light of the challenging economic environment.”

However, average spending per guest in the parks was up by only 1% and average spending per room at Disney Hotels up only 2%. Total Disney Village and Hotel revenues grew by just 1% and room occupancy at Disney Hotels actually fell by 1.1 percentage points. It seems that, despite continued success in getting guests through the park gates, the resort still struggles at turning these numbers into anything more than negligible increases in revenue, probably driven more by price increases than additional purchases. It has to be said that, for a visitor, the resort’s casual dining fare remains largely out of date and uninspiring, while the merchandise range simply fails to engage for many demographics. At a time when a guest will consider and reconsider every additional purchase on top of their ticket, the resort certainly isn’t doing badly, but it is failing to make many consequential gains.

Nor is the dip in hotel room occupancy disastrous, especially after a sharp (and perhaps, unsustainable) jump of 5.6 percentage points in FY2011. Yet perhaps it reflects a growing feeling amongst visitors that the Disney Hotels do not offer the best value for their money. High standard room rates have combined with aggressive discounting over several years to suggest that “the price on the label” may not necessarily be the price they’re worth. A quick visit to any online trip planning forum will immediately bring up potential visitors merely biding their time for the next “big offer” or “flash sale” — hey, like this one! — which, while useful for propping up numbers, must surely be harming the brand value associated with Disneyland Paris. Will anyone ever want to pay full price again?

Signing off, Philippe Gas mentions only the 20th Anniversary: “In April we look forward to launching our twentieth anniversary celebrations with brand new experiences for our guests, including the Disney Dreams®! night-time show, an innovative light and color spectacular. It will also be
an opportunity to celebrate a two-decade journey with our cast members, our guests as well as our key public and private partners who have helped Disneyland Paris become Europe’s number one tourist destination.” Meanwhile the footnotes include only the same passing mention to the launch of a “multi-year expansion of the Walt Disney Studios® Park, which includes a new attraction.” So, despite construction having begun, no Ratatouille dark ride announcement yet; and all eyes on the 20th…

VIA Euro Disney S.C.A. Fiscal year 2012 – First Quarter Announcement (PDF)

Hard to believe now that, just a month ago, all was quiet on the Ratatouille dark ride construction site as Disneyland Paris awaited the necessary funding. Then, on 10th January, it came: a €150m package from The Walt Disney Company, and this long-awaited Toon Studio addition was finally go! Just 10 days later the site was cleared of all its remaining trees, and now more movement to ensure Rémy is ready to go vertical in the next few months. It’s surprising how much room you need to make for a rat.

An unsurprising move is the removal of the awning along the side of the “Imaginations” Cast Member building, caught in this series of photos by Disney Central Plaza’s Mouetto. This was where, from 2002 to early 2009, our studio trams would drive up alongside the building allowing us to get a glimpse inside at the “real working costuming studio”. Reflecting the ethos of the original park this, of course, was not a real film studio costuming workshop but that for the entertainment Cast Members of the resort itself. Now perhaps symbolically, as the park stumbles towards a redefined identity, it is falling to make way for our new Pixar hero.

Elsewhere, changes are more unexpected. Given the effort Walt Disney Imagineering went to providing a ready-and-waiting Parisian street next to Toy Story Playland, and that they had already moved the Studio Tram Tour route for that very expansion, you might be surprised that the road is in the process of moving again. While the 2009 re-route gave plenty of room for the Ratatouille showbuilding, this new road, pushed ever further back, will allow construction vehicles easier access to the site.

A mysterious stone foundation could be seen disappearing into the trees in our previous update. Now the road looks laid and almost ready to open. The attraction is scheduled to re-open as soon as this Saturday. And yet still, the Dinotopia “set” remains…

Mouetto has also shared photos of the vacant corner in front of the Costuming building, where it is expected the attraction’s associated toilets will be built. And, from the elevated viewpoint of Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop, another element of the original Tram Tour already (or, at last) taken away to Euro Souvenirland: the green Pearl Harbor aircraft hangar.

The fact that much-needed toilets could be built here without eating into the operational Costuming workshop might add meat to the rumour that the attraction’s gift shop, rumoured to go into this existing building, won’t be ready at opening. Nevertheless, all this side of the hastily-christened “Studio 4” is still to be hidden, somehow, behind a new series of Parisian façades.

Soon we’ll all be able to feel a little less guilty about visiting Paris without actually visiting Paris…

PHOTOS VIA Mouetto (Disney Central Plaza)

What’s the one thing Walt Disney Studios Park needs more than a dark ride? This: a new restaurant! While the initial planning notice for the Ratatouille dark ride only noted a project known as “Toon Studio D”, this new full-blown Marne-la-Vallée construction notice, spotted by Mouetto of Disney Central Plaza, confirms that both an attraction and a new restaurant are on their way to the park. For the Studios, this is a big deal: the park only has three true restaurants to its 17 attractions, even including the minuscule Café des Cascadeurs. This will also be the first real dining location in the whole of Toon Studio — the park’s largest land, taking up the whole of its right side.

Don’t let the French theme lead you to expect a traditional Bistro de Paris-type dining experience here, though. As we teased earlier this month, we’re more likely in fact to be dining in a giant-sized version of Rémy’s rat restaurant, perhaps on the first floor of the new showbuilding’s frontage. This would allow Imagineering to create something truly unique and fun with the theme — after all, if you want a traditional, stuffy Parisian restaurant, there are plenty just a short RER ride away.

Surprisingly, with the restaurant confirmed, there is now some doubt whether the plan for a boutique adjoining this “Kitchen Calamity” will see reality, or if it could be built as a later phase. This was rumoured to be built in the workshop of the existing Imaginations (Costuming) backstage building, bordering the construction site. Hopefully sense will prevail because, if there’s one thing the park needs more than a dark ride or a restaurant… well, you get the idea.

VIA Mouetto (Disney Central Plaza)