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Disneyland Paris: General Discussion

It really is incredible how powerful the Disney Brand is. The last new ride at the main park was Buzz Lightyear in 2006 and before that the last new ride worth actually booking a holiday for was Space Mountain in 1995. 31 years without a new E-ticket and still consistently the most-visited park in Europe by several million guests. Number two in annual visitors is our beloved Europa Park and all but two of EP's big coasters opened after Space Mountain
 
Llama said:
It really is incredible how powerful the Disney Brand is. The last new ride at the main park was Buzz Lightyear in 2006 and before that the last new ride worth actually booking a holiday for was Space Mountain in 1995. 31 years without a new E-ticket and still consistently the most-visited park in Europe by several million guests. Number two in annual visitors is our beloved Europa Park and all but two of EP's big coasters opened after Space Mountain
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Too powerful though you might argue. Its made them complacent and lazy.

They know that the magic of the brand / characters will bring people through the gates. The numbers Paris get is not a reflection on the quality of the rides compared to other European parks but more so the parades, shows, meet and greets and all the other stuff that comes with the Disney experience.

For me Europa Park wipes the floor with DLP but it will never get 12/13m visitors in a single year
 
Benjsh said:
Too powerful though you might argue. Its made them complacent and lazy.

They know that the magic of the brand / characters will bring people through the gates. The numbers Paris get is not a reflection on the quality of the rides compared to other European parks but more so the parades, shows, meet and greets and all the other stuff that comes with the Disney experience.

For me Europa Park wipes the floor with DLP but it will never get 12/13m visitors in a single year
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It does show that you don’t need to rely on frequently building new attractions if your theme park is that good in the first place.
 
Bowser said:
It does show that you don’t need to rely on frequently building new attractions if your theme park is that good in the first place.
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Europa Park is a far superior theme park in almost every single way to DLP. The difference is it doesnt have 80 years of magical family movies that everyone knows propping up its brand. Its a completely different beast essentially.

I wouldn't describe DLP as 'that good' myself. As a theme park only when you strip away all the shows and cast members etc its got a lot of very basic and also outdated attractions. The brand is the key not the rides.
 
I would say that DLP main park is by far my favorite disney park, mainly because the theming is so good, Big thunder mountain didn't have to be in the middle of a lake but it is and it is really fun to just watch, the only bad thing is the "starwars" ride that they turned space mountain into, and the indiana jones ride
 
Benjsh said:
Europa Park is a far superior theme park in almost every single way to DLP. The difference is it doesnt have 80 years of magical family movies that everyone knows propping up its brand. Its a completely different beast essentially.

I wouldn't describe DLP as 'that good' myself. As a theme park only when you strip away all the shows and cast members etc its got a lot of very basic and also outdated attractions. The brand is the key not the rides.
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The gag being that the majority of rides in Disneyland Park don't rely on that IP at all, they're all original spaces that are much better presented and themed than Europa, having been disappointed with my recent visit to Europa. it has some excellent coasters but nothing made me want to go back anytime soon
 
I don’t think the quality of the park is how DLP (the main park at least) gets away with building nothing for years.

As @Benjsh said, I think it’s branding power. There are many high-quality parks across Europe, such as Europa Park, Phantasialand, Efteling, PortAventura et al, and these have not been able to rest on their laurels as the main Disney park in Paris has. And the main thing that Disney has in its favour over these is branding power.

The sheer power of Disney’s brand is unlike any other in the industry, and that will naturally always pull people in regardless of how much they invest into new attractions. People will always want to visit Disneyland and see Disney characters, and that remains true regardless of whether they invest or not. There are very few parks that have the kind of branding power to be able to say that, and whether you like them or not, it is quite remarkable how Disney have pulled this off.
 
From a theming and design perspective, Disneyland Paris is arguably second best park in the world, behind Tokyo DisneySea. The level of detail, depth, sightlines, and overall attraction quality is near perfect.

That said, the park does have a couple of notable weaknesses.

First, it simply doesn't have enough rides. Even adding one more major E-ticket attraction, like Indy Adventure, would make a huge difference for capacity and overall balance.

Second, most of the later “upgrades” to existing attractions haven’t been improvements:

Space Mountain
Phantom Manor
The Nautilus walkthrough
Discoveryland more broadly
Many of the parks shops and restaurants

All were very strong in their original forms, but the later changes reduced what made them unique.
 
JamesA said:
First, it simply doesn't have enough rides. Even adding one more major E-ticket attraction, like Indy Adventure, would make a huge difference for capacity and overall balance.
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People keep saying this and i understand the gripe but have to disagree.

The average visitor requires multiple days at the park, despite the longest park hours in Europe and excellent operations, therefore it has more than enough rides and attractions.

I think people’s views here are tainted by Merlinism™️, where parks are visited multiple times a year on subscription and regular new attractions are required to maintain interest. The vast majority of Disney customers are not doing this.

Of course having more rides is almost never a bad thing but the popularity and satisfaction at the park illustrates why it’s not a priority, especially when the adjacent second park very much needs them.
 
Disneyland Paris Park is my third favourite Disney park after the original Tokyo Disney Sea and Disneyland. For me its a great park one of the prettiest Disney Parks its just missing that headlining wow factor ride. Pretty much all of the rides at Disneyland Paris they have are the best versions of that ride Big Thunder Mountain, Its a Small World, Pirates of the Carribean and Phantom Manor. Its just missing a few staple rides and doesn't have that unique modern Dark Ride like the rest have
 
JakeDLP said:
The gag being that the majority of rides in Disneyland Park don't rely on that IP at all, they're all original spaces that are much better presented and themed than Europa, having been disappointed with my recent visit to Europa. it has some excellent coasters but nothing made me want to go back anytime soon
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I like coasters though and the DLP coasters just arent that good.
 
Benjsh said:
I like coasters though and the DLP coasters just arent that good.
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... But disney aren't about coasters, if you want coasters you go to merlin, six flags, etc. Disney is about the theming, world's and shows.

Also I think the coasters the park has are pretty good, big thunder mountain is a very fun terrain coaster, and space mountain is a good fun launched coaster, although a bit rough now and probably needs a retrack.

There are only 3 coasters but there aren't usually many coaster in a disney park (animal kingdom & epcot only has 1, Hollywood studios has 2, etc.
 
flyingguitar said:
... But disney aren't about coasters, if you want coasters you go to merlin, six flags, etc. Disney is about the theming, world's and shows.

Also I think the coasters the park has are pretty good, big thunder mountain is a very fun terrain coaster, and space mountain is a good fun launched coaster, although a bit rough now and probably needs a retrack.

There are only 3 coasters but there aren't usually many coaster in a disney park (animal kingdom & epcot only has 1, Hollywood studios has 2, etc.
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DLP has 7 coasters across both parks and only one of them is world class which is BTM.

In my opinion DLP has just 4 world class attractions in total across it's two parks. Those are:

BTM
Phantom Manor
TOT
Pirates

Some might put Ratatouille in there to make it 5 but for me it's just misses out and belongs in the category under neath.

So despite the park being better known for it's dark rides which I agree with....even they aren't all that amazing anymore. Many of them are incredibly dated actually but live on because of the immense strength of the IP more than anything. It's a Small World, Snow White, Pinocchio, Star Tours. Peter Pan etc aren't anything special by modern theme park dark ride standards.

The Brand is the the real winner for them.
 
Benjsh said:
DLP has 7 coasters across both parks and only one of them is world class which is BTM.

In my opinion DLP has just 4 world class attractions in total across it's two parks. Those are:

BTM
Phantom Manor
TOT
Pirates

Some might put Ratatouille in there to make it 5 but for me it's just misses out and belongs in the category under neath.

So despite the park being better known for it's dark rides which I agree with....even they aren't all that amazing anymore. Many of them are incredibly dated actually but live on because of the immense strength of the IP more than anything. It's a Small World, Snow White, Pinocchio, Star Tours. Peter Pan etc aren't anything special by modern theme park dark ride standards.

The Brand is the the real winner for them.
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I would say Avengers Assemble Flight Force is a fun coaster the launch is great and inversions are intense plus some of theming on the ride like Iron Man animtronic are great
 
Space Mountain is only a re-track away from being an incredible coaster. Can you imagine how good it would be if it rode like Stardust racers.
 
Tim said:
Space Mountain is only a re-track away from being an incredible coaster. Can you imagine how good it would be if it rode like Stardust racers.
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It's closing late summer next year for two years to be retracked and re-themed to a new version thematically similar to from the earth to the moon
 
Tim said:
Space Mountain is only a re-track away from being an incredible coaster. Can you imagine how good it would be if it rode like Stardust racers.
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It would require a complete re-track as well as new trains in order for it to become a special coaster again in my opinion. OTSR's just arent very good on these coasters.
 
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