Disneyland Paris 2014: 'Ratatouille' dark ride

Just to make things slightly more depressing, here is a reminder of what Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland is like:



Even from the POV you can tell it's just amazing. Some of those effects!

Pretty much every review has said how the ride is pretty good and doesn't translate well into poor quality YouTube videos.

Ratatouille cost $150 million.
Grizzy Mountain and Mystic Manor cost $500 million between them.

Bit of a difference in budget, especially considering how France building laws are stricter (which is why Tower of Terror cost more in Paris)

I've seen both $150 and €150 million mentioned for Ratatouille so I'm not sure which it actually was. Regardless it is still a massive budget! As I've said it looks a good ride when taken in isolation and it obviously rides better than the POV suggests due to the 3D etc. yet it just was not what most were expecting. I really was expecting some really big rooms/sets that you'd be travelling around, maybe with things falling on you. The reliance on screens is saddening for something like this.

I agree with Rob.

As an isolated attraction, sure Ratatouille looks great.

But no matter how out of touch we might have been with our expectations, really - was anybody here genuinely expecting a ride based almost entirely around screens?

Where are the animatronics? The amazing sets that Disney are capable of?

That is what I am most saddened by.

There may not be much theming, but what there is.... Is huggeee!

Ratatouille: The Adventure Construction Footage -…:

I think for me one of the biggest annoyances with this ride is that it has a trackless transit system, yet barely seems to use it.

Take a look at Pooh (One of Disney's other trackless systems) and it has those wonderful dance scenes, where it throws a few vehicles into a large room, and makes them all dart around, constantly moving in and out of each other. Occasionally a vehicle will peel away and travel into a little side scene, allowing for story progression. This is the sort of thing I was personally expecting from it, and there are certainly many points in the film I think could have lent themselves to this.

Another one of the big benefits of trackless is that you can bring new levels of theming interaction into play, thanks to the freedom the vehicles have. I imagined perhaps some scene where the riders are traveling down a straight path, maybe darting from one safe spot to another in the kitchen, but suddenly, without warning the giant wheels on a trolley appear and roll out in front of you, prompting a swift and speedy manoeuvre around them. Again though there seems to be no such moments as I can see.

Here though aside from a couple of moments I get the feeling that they could have just used a custom tracked solution and saved some money to pipe into other areas of the ride. It seems to miss so many potential moments, favouring instead some film scenes taken from different angles.

I don't doubt that there was always going to be screens involved, but being a Disney dark ride, and with the choice of film, and not to mention the massive build up there's been over several years, I think it fails to deliver. Had this opened all those years ago when the rumours first surfaced it would probably have been far better received. But especially now the likes of Mystic Manor are out there expectations on this have been higher than ever, and for me as a Disney ride it has failed to meet them.

It seems perfectly pleasant, which is with the odd exception what Paris always does "perfectly pleasant".

It's just a shame every other Disney park pulls off "flipping awesome" relatively regularly. Paris big rides are on par with the rest of the Disney estates "medium" attractions. The only true e-ticket it's ever built since a space Mountain is ToT.

It's not bad, and compared to most parks it's high quality but a part of me will always despair that my local Disney park struggles with achieving "flipping awesome".

I will likely enjoy Rat, it's hardly trash! but I long for more

InsideDLP reporting that Ratatouille and Plàce de Remy are soft opening from today.

Also it's the last day of the 'Stars and Cars' parade today in WDS. It will be replaced by a cutdown 'meet and greet' version.

Hmmmm....interesting. Just found a Ratatoille Review on TPR, that totally states what was we assumed here from looking at the POV. It`s seems to be just moving from one screen to the other, then standing there while seeing the floor an the other cars cleary. Good 4 D Effects but the ride doesn`t seem to be what people expected for the cost of this. BUT the area seems to be VERY beautiful...including the new restaurant

Nice pictures from InsideDLP today of some updates at Santa Fe hotel:



They've added some nice theming elements there!

So I have now been able to ride Ratatouille. I wasn't overly impressed after watching inital POVs but it is fair to say that POVs do not do it justice at all, you miss out on so much.

First of all, there is a lot more theming throughout the ride than I thought. This was pleasing, although it is mostly static theming. It does really help link the various scenes together though. As you can tell from the POV, all of the main scenes are screen based, but POVs do not show just how massive these screens are, rather impressive. The 3D naturally adds a lot, as does the movement of the ride vehicles which is very effective. There are also some nice smell effects in various parts of the ride.

The ride system is brilliant and very clever. The movements around the rooms are so graceful and smooth, and the tilting of the vehicles is near perfect. At times it really does feel like you are moving when you're not.

I certainly enjoyed Ratatouille more than I was expecting, it is a very good ride exerpience. Is it world class? Probably not quite but it's not far off. If somewhere like Towers got anything half as good we would all be singing huge praises.

Then there is the exterior theming and new plaza. Needless to say this is stunning. The detail on the buildings is sublime and so typically Disney. The whole area has a lovely feel to it. We did not get to eat in the new restaurant but it also looks wonderfully themed. It looks like there is meant to be a shop that is not yet open, and the new toilets are the best theme park toilets I've ever used!

All in all a good and much needed addition to Walt Disney Studios Park.

I agree with Rob! It was a great ride and POVs really don't do it justice, I wish I had done it more than once to take everything in, but I was only there for one day and it had long queues all day. The 3D works very well with in the ride.

I would love a dark ride like that anywhere in the UK.

The only thing that let the ride down was the really slow throughput it had, the queue moves fairly slowly, and we discovered why once we got in the ride station. There are six cars (rats) that get filled at once, however three of them are main queue and three are fast track. Unlike other rides where they merge fast track in the queue, on this ride they get straight to the station.

If anyone goes and there is a long main queue and fastrack queue (which does happen), use single rider. With the cars being two rows of three there are always lots of single rider spots available. Single rider was practically walk on, and it's not the type of ride where you need to be sitting with people you know as you are focussing on the ride experience and the story.

djtruefitt said:

I agree with Rob! It was a great ride and POVs really don't do it justice, I wish I had done it more than once to take everything in, but I was only there for one day and it had long queues all day. The 3D works very well with in the ride.

I would love a dark ride like that anywhere in the UK.

The only thing that let the ride down was the really slow throughput it had, the queue moves fairly slowly, and we discovered why once we got in the ride station. There are six cars (rats) that get filled at once, however three of them are main queue and three are fast track. Unlike other rides where they merge fast track in the queue, on this ride they get straight to the station.

Click to expand...

Working 50/50 fastpass and standby isn't too bad as long as they aren't despatching empty when the fastpass queue is empty (if the FastPass machines are set to right numbers this should be fine). Some attractions (at WDW) work on 80% fastpass to only 20% standby....

I was thinking that was quite bad until I remembered theirs is a free system of convenience rather than a money grabbing social experiment.

Seems a fairly reasonable way to run it - and is probably less frustrating for the main queue too.

With FP+ at WDW the rides merge points run 100% Fastpass and 0% main queue whenever there is anybody from FP at merge. Obviously as soon as nobody is at the merge point the main queue filters through but it can become very frustrating on busy rides like Toy Story Mania.

This seems like a fair split

Positive news from DLP for once!

Looopings reports that a renovated Chaparral Stage near Big Thunder will re-open next year for a major new Frozen show.

Great news! Disneyland Parc needs a good daytime show to complement the sublime Dreams evening show.

Good. Entertainment in terms of shows is poor at present.

A huge update on future DLP plans on Disney & More including Midway Mania, a new coaster for Studios and two new hotels.

Can't get the link to paste but it's a must-read.