Sam
TS Member
"A cultural Chernobyl, one could not say it better. One that will contaminate millions of children (and their parents), castrate their imaginations, paw their dreams with greenish hands. Green, like the color of the dollar." - Jaen Cau.
Sam's review of Disneyland® Resort Paris™.
People were always quite surprised when I revealed that I hadn't been to Disneyland® Resort Paris. I've been to two far-flung Disney resorts (and unlike with Merlin, I have no hesitation in referring to them as resorts), Anaheim and Orlando, but not the one closest to home, just at the end of the street, relatively speaking. But with all the great theme parks in Europe - Europa-Park, Phantasialand, Efteling etc. - the competition was simply too much for the homegrown Disney to pique my interest until it conveniently turned up on the Junket schedule.
It being ten years since I went to Orlando, and five years since I went to Anaheim, I thought it was time to give Disney another spin. I was 13 when I visited Florida so don't really remember it was well, but Anaheim is still vivid in my mind. The best Disney park, it has an ineffable, frustratingly elusive quality about it that gives it a character and magic that outstrips its Floridian counterpart. As a friend put it, "it has a very weird, specific and sincere 'original' feel." Not forgetting that it also has the firepower in terms of the attractions - goddamn does that place have some attractions. I'm talking Splash, Space and Chunder, the Matterhorn, the Indy dark ride and top-notch Pirates and Mansion, all condensed into a tiny park that somehow feels like magic concentrated and intensified.
I wasn't under any illusion that the park would be as good as the US parks - I'd been pre-warned, but I was interested to see how it differed, this being my first Disney park not directly owned by the company themselves (as it is in Tokyo). Unfortunately, and this is almost impossible to avoid, my first experience of DLP was Disney Village - known colloquially as 'Ney Vilage', a byword for the dilapidation and general shoddiness that has plagued this second-fiddle Downtown Disney for many years according to regular Disney-watchers.
Nalds
The success of Anaheim's eating, drinking and shopping district is almost accidental, the chronic lack of space at the resort necessitating the streets of their Downtown Disney to be narrow. This creates a tightly-packed urgency to proceedings, with the thin walkways constantly packed with liveliness - teaming crowds, drinkers, socialisers, entertainment and people dining al fresco.
Anaheim from Google Images.
DLP's Ney Village by contrast is a wide, wind-swept plain - a tumbleweed rolling through the vast deserted thoroughfares wouldn't look out of place. With a few jarring exceptions (Earl of Sandwich and the new World of Disney store) the architecture is incredibly tired and dated, a mish-mash of different half-baked ideas over the last twenty years that have been draped over a set of buildings that are probably quite poor build-quality underneath all the tat. Some seem to be some sort of sick joke, Disney laughing in the faces of those who have paid extortionate sums to be here. King Ludwig's Castle, say. Is it meant to look like cheap, plastic crap? Is this some sort of ironic, winking joke?
Nalds.
I only eat in one restaurant - Annette's - before taking refuge in McDonalds for the remaining two days. In the former, I paid through the nose for what was an extremely average burger and chips - I'd go as far as to say that I've never felt so ripped off in a theme park. It was no better than the offerings at Maccies, but about three times the price. It just dripped of pure cynicism and disdain for the customer. It's not like this eatery was an incredible 'experience' either that would justify being robbed for the food - the interior was pretty worn, which at least to its credit matches almost everywhere else in the 'Village'. If this is meant to be a quintessential American diner, it's one from the 60s after all the teddyboys have moved on to something better. Still, it was nice to get a low out of the way first. The next day, Disneyland Park™ itself.
De la terre à la lune
Credit where credit's due: the entrance to Disneyland Park™ is, almost without question, the most spectacular in the world. Whoever's idea it was to station a grand American hotel over the entrance and have day-guests neatly admitted in a vast complex below is a genius. Whoever worked out how much they could get away with charging for staying in that hotel is a genius too, but that is another matter. Fair play to Disney.
Once we're through the turnstiles, it is a familiar scene, with the Main Street USA. station ahead of us, Main Street itself beyond that, and the castle on the horizon. This is a classic Disney formula, always works well, and I'm glad they didn't try to mess around or update it, as they are doing in Shanghai. Main Street itself was faultless and immaculate, and easily matches up to the American Main Streets, if not betters them with the arcades down either side. The attention to detail paid in the architectural recreations of the Town Hall and the Transportation Co. in bringing to life a turn-of-the-century American style always takes my breath away. I'm glad they didn't try to 'de-Americanise' it or 'make it relevant to a European audience' because it is what it is, and it's a delight.
Every cornice, eave, portico and pediment is perfect. From Google Images.
The park ebbs and flows, with some areas that are ho-hum (Fantasyland) and some moments of genuine, jaw-to-the-floor beauty, such as the staggering view of Big Thunder Mesa from the porch of Phantom Manor. But sadly, again, the prevailing theme from the vile Village is continued, with almost every area looking slightly worn in some way, except Main Street, which is infallible. This is a shame because, if kept in good repair, and regularly refurbished and refreshed, I have no doubt that it would be the most beautiful 'Magic Kingdom' in the world.
Entering the park for the first time late at night with the aim of a few cheeky rides before Dreams, Pirates was my first ride at DLP, and set the tone pretty well for what was to come. It's OK. Very good, in fact. Yes, it knocks Drayton and Europa's efforts into a cocked hat. But it was just 'very good'. It didn't blow me away as I hoped, having been told that it's the best of the four Pirates worldwide. It isn't as good as California's, but it should be - it's a lot bigger. It probably isn't because, again, it hasn't been constantly kept updated, refreshed, improved. It does feel 90s, despite being a very impressive ride. Although it doesn't have that x-factor, it is just on the tip of it, and it has the potential. Dare I say it, maybe the addition of the Jonny Depp animatronic could push it over into the 'wow' category.
Paris vs. Orlando
Phantom Manor, now dear dear me. This was another ride I had high hopes for, having been told that it's like a more arty version of the Haunted Mansion, which pushed my pretentious buttons. But the ride irritated me from the start, as it breaks Walt's rule for the Haunted Mansion: "We'll take care of the outside and let the ghosts take care of the inside." And Walt's fears for a dilapidated Mansion in his pristine park have come to pass in Paris: the dilapidated façade looks distinctly out of place. If it had been a beautiful, scrubbed-up little country house on top of that hill, it'd look a lot more intriguing, and crucially be more sinister too.
The ride itself unfortunately follows suit: it just doesn't really work very well. The scenes are clearly meant to be arty and a bit avant-garde, but what that means in reality is that they're mostly a bit empty, with large gaps both in scenes and between them. Don't ask me to cover the 'outside wild west' bit as I have no idea what that is there for. It's like an A-Level art project - very good as a technical and artistic achievement, and surely destined to win awards for its innovative use of this-and-that, but is it actually fun? No. The blunt truth is that it's a bit boring. They forgot to make it enjoyable. The Floridian and Californian Mansions succeed because they're a rollicking good time, a cheerful tour of an old house packed to the rafters with mischievous spirits and ghoulies. It may not go on display at the Tate Modern but they're bright, cheery and fun. The Parisian 'Manor' is a missed opportunity.
Onto Big Thunder, which wasn't the next ride of the day, but I'll cover it next as it makes geographical sense. I have no doubt that Big Thunder, when viewed operating from almost anywhere on the mainland, is the most beautiful ride in the world. If only that elegance and fluidity of movement was carried forward onto the actual coaster. The queue is a bit hellish, with a stuffy cattlepen distracting from the impressive station architecture. Apparently this ride is a throughput beast, but its hard to tell amid the Fastpass station and the constant breakdowns. The trains are wide - wider than Colorado Adventure - but comfortable.
The beauty. From DLP's website.
Unfortunately, and as much as I like being a contrarian, I will have to concur with almost all riders before me: Big Thunder is a big blunder. Again, maybe like Phantom Manor, while putting every painstaking effort into making it beautiful, the Imagineers forgot to actually make it exciting. Unlike Colorado (its inevitable comparison in Europe) with its swoops, plunges and moments of out-of-control wildness, Big Blunder simply meanders amiably around the circuit, deftly side-stepping any moments of potential excitement just before they threaten to occur. Colorado feels fluid, and organic in its layout. Big Blunder feels like it's been designed on Rollercoaster Tycoon. Forward-forward-forward-shallow incline-back to flat-forward-180 turn-forward-small drop-forward-turn. etc. Unfortunately, the ride's indisputable highlight - the genuinely intense dive back under the lake - is also its swansong, and the incline back into the station area should be called 'disappointment hill'. The ride is such a tease - like Avalanche at PBB, just as it gets going and promises something great, it stops.
Splash Mountain was next, an--oh wait. Then we tried Indiana Jones Adven--hang on. The Jungle Cruise offere--ahh. Nope, with the Indy coaster down for an expensive Botox treatment, that's pretty much it for this side of the park. There's a lot of nice landscaping between Big Blunder and Pirates, but it seems to come at the expense of any actual hardware. It feels like the management at DLP almost have a deep hostility to and mistrust of rides. Onto Fantasyland.
Unfortunately, walking round Fantasyland inevitably leads the mind wandering to Orlando, where Pimp-My-Fantasyland is just in the process of being completed. This isn't really fair as Anaheim's Fantasyland is still old-school. It's a massive area at Paris, but somehow doesn't seem to use the space very well, mostly being windswept plazas for people to hurry through. However, this Tiananmen Square of a land has a secret: it holds the core of the park's charm.
I won't go into too much detail as they're not really aimed at me, but the three little dark rides - Pinocchio, Peter Pan and Snow White - are a delight. They're exactly what Disney used to do before they considered anything except €200m+ epics to be beneath them. They're reasonably low-budget, mid-level little dark rides, and they work a treat. Each - though Peter Pan is the highlight - is a wonderful little diversion through the story of the respective fairytales, using old-fashioned but well-crafted physical effects to achieve simple storytelling aims. Disney should build more of this - top-quality filler between your Tower of Terrors and your Ratatouilles.
There is apparently a little boat ride and children's powered coaster round here, but I didn't bother due to long queues and my general apathy. Small World. The less said the better. It's boring in Orlando, boring in Anaheim, boring here and probably boring in Tokyo and Hong Kong too. Nobody really feels enthusiastic about this ride, yet inexplicably its the only one that always appears on the line-up at every new Disney park. Not Splash, or the Matterhorn, but this tedium. Who cares?
Tomorrowland - sorry, Discoveryland - is the final area of the park, and as usual, it contains three of the big hitters. The Jules Verne vibe is nice, but as in the rest of the park, suffers from omission. I get the impression that if they hadn't been consistently in debt during the 90s, they would have added more buildings in this style, and made the area feel more comprehensive. In Anaheim and Orlando, constant development has led to the Tomorrowland boulevard becoming a terrace, with all the gaps filled in with new attractions. It feels like a charmingly dated street of the future, and it has an atmosphere of hustle and bustle. Not so here, where the area feels less like a city street and more like a village, with the low-lying buildings scattered about and isolated from their peers.
Star Tours is frame-for-frame identical to how it was in America (when I visited, anyway), and is still a wonderfully designed and executed attraction. Disney and Star Wars joining forces had the potential for epic pomposity and accusations of taking-themselves-too-seriously, which the light-hearted and funny approach to the ride quickly dispels. I hope this isn't lost in the new multi-squillion dollar version. This ride is the opposite of Phantom Manor - not going to win the Turner Prize as a great piece of art, but it's overwhelmingly fun and daft. Diving into the trenches on the Death Star? Why not! Animatronic C3PO in the queueline? Hell yeah!
Again, like Star Tours, Buzz is pretty much a like-for-like remake. It's fun, but at the end of the day, it's a shooting dark ride. There's only so good a shooting dark ride can be, especially in the cartoony style that most of them seem to opt for (this, Abenteuer Atlantis, Laser Raiders). An interactive dark ride can never be immersive, but that's fine, as long as there are those deep experiences available on park (hello, TOT). The indisputable highlight of the ride is actually in the queue, the top-notch Buzz animatronic, which is almost spectacular enough to make you drop all criticism of the park and worship at the altar of Disney right there and then. More beautiful than the movement of the greatest ballerina on any stage from here to Moscow.
Space Mountain is definitely the ride that's been tampered with the most on the long journey across the atlantic, which is a double-edge sword. It's a shame because the American version is such a classic, is suitable for families, tried-and-tested, and is an absolute laugh-riot all the way round. On the other hand, the Parisian version is a pedal-to-the-metal out-and-out thrill machine, the furthest Disney have ever gone. I prefer the American classic, just, but that's not to say that this isn't great in its own way.
Unfortunately, while track & train it's great, everything surrounding the coaster at the heart is a bit poor. The queue-line is uninspiring and unimaginative, though I'm told it used to be better. The queue does plunge deep into the mountain, but all that tension building is undone when you emerge back into an almost-outdoor station, the sunlight drifting in casually just to kill any last morsel of outer space vibe. In 'classic' SM, the stations are at the very core of the mountain, and despite merely being a few hundred feet away from daylight, they create the exciting illusion that you are deep into the heart of some advanced space-station, and the dispatching of the ride appears as some advanced scientific operation. This creates buzz and anticipation, which is absent on the Parisian 'sequel'.
Anaheim vs. Paris
The trains are the then-standard from Vekoma so rubbish, obviously. They're uncomfortable, cramped and feel like a coffin. They may have been all that the Dutch whizzkids offered at the time, but Disney can surely do better than this now. The 'canon' launch is pretty useless, given that it trims over the top so that it might as well have been a lift-hill, but is wonderfully and pointlessly dramatic. There is no clever way to put it: lining up in that canon ready to be fired into the ride is just a damn cool moment. The launch is tame, but a nice way to start proceedings with a bang.
Then it's down, down, down in what feels like a neverending spiral before the fun really begins. It's rough, yes, but it's also damn intense. It successfully achieves the thrills that Gouderix and Python don't even approach, though the flipside is the pain. Crucially, like the 'classic' SMs, the ride doesn't get worse as it goes on.
Cleverly, at two points during the layout (the MCBR and the lift-hill), it 'recharges' and delivers another burst of intensity, meaning that the thrills keep coming right from the launch to the groovy red neon-tunnel at the end. It is a ride that understands pacing, and understands that it is a thrill coaster, and doesn't compromise on that. It promises a thrill coaster, and it is a thrill coaster. But don't expect it to offer a glass-smooth ride with it.
I feel a certain degree of cognitive dissonance about this new Space Mountain. I really like it as an intense, well-themed thrill coaster on a personal level, but also paradoxically think that it's a terrible ride for the park. This is Disney. No Disney coaster should be that rough. You shouldn't have to 'learn to ride' any coaster at Disney. It looks like they were going for family-thrill but wildly missed the mark: I would feel very uncomfortable putting my kids on this. It's a ride that needs constant bracing throughout, and it needs an aware adult rider to shore themselves up against the roughness. It's a great ride, but not suitable for here. It's far too rough and far too intense to be a Disney ride.
What is to be done? In 2005, Anaheim's SM got a complete track-for-track replacement, with new trains. Maybe that is the answer here, though they would probably take the option of toning down the layout a bit as well. It's a total pipe-dream, but imagine the horribly torturous Vekoma system replaced with an identical layout of a Mack Megacoaster. To see Blue Fire's trains soaring up that cannon would be an intoxicating thrill in itself!
In Part 2... Walt Disney Studios and my conclusions
Sam's review of Disneyland® Resort Paris™.
People were always quite surprised when I revealed that I hadn't been to Disneyland® Resort Paris. I've been to two far-flung Disney resorts (and unlike with Merlin, I have no hesitation in referring to them as resorts), Anaheim and Orlando, but not the one closest to home, just at the end of the street, relatively speaking. But with all the great theme parks in Europe - Europa-Park, Phantasialand, Efteling etc. - the competition was simply too much for the homegrown Disney to pique my interest until it conveniently turned up on the Junket schedule.
It being ten years since I went to Orlando, and five years since I went to Anaheim, I thought it was time to give Disney another spin. I was 13 when I visited Florida so don't really remember it was well, but Anaheim is still vivid in my mind. The best Disney park, it has an ineffable, frustratingly elusive quality about it that gives it a character and magic that outstrips its Floridian counterpart. As a friend put it, "it has a very weird, specific and sincere 'original' feel." Not forgetting that it also has the firepower in terms of the attractions - goddamn does that place have some attractions. I'm talking Splash, Space and Chunder, the Matterhorn, the Indy dark ride and top-notch Pirates and Mansion, all condensed into a tiny park that somehow feels like magic concentrated and intensified.
I wasn't under any illusion that the park would be as good as the US parks - I'd been pre-warned, but I was interested to see how it differed, this being my first Disney park not directly owned by the company themselves (as it is in Tokyo). Unfortunately, and this is almost impossible to avoid, my first experience of DLP was Disney Village - known colloquially as 'Ney Vilage', a byword for the dilapidation and general shoddiness that has plagued this second-fiddle Downtown Disney for many years according to regular Disney-watchers.
Nalds
The success of Anaheim's eating, drinking and shopping district is almost accidental, the chronic lack of space at the resort necessitating the streets of their Downtown Disney to be narrow. This creates a tightly-packed urgency to proceedings, with the thin walkways constantly packed with liveliness - teaming crowds, drinkers, socialisers, entertainment and people dining al fresco.
Anaheim from Google Images.
DLP's Ney Village by contrast is a wide, wind-swept plain - a tumbleweed rolling through the vast deserted thoroughfares wouldn't look out of place. With a few jarring exceptions (Earl of Sandwich and the new World of Disney store) the architecture is incredibly tired and dated, a mish-mash of different half-baked ideas over the last twenty years that have been draped over a set of buildings that are probably quite poor build-quality underneath all the tat. Some seem to be some sort of sick joke, Disney laughing in the faces of those who have paid extortionate sums to be here. King Ludwig's Castle, say. Is it meant to look like cheap, plastic crap? Is this some sort of ironic, winking joke?
Nalds.
I only eat in one restaurant - Annette's - before taking refuge in McDonalds for the remaining two days. In the former, I paid through the nose for what was an extremely average burger and chips - I'd go as far as to say that I've never felt so ripped off in a theme park. It was no better than the offerings at Maccies, but about three times the price. It just dripped of pure cynicism and disdain for the customer. It's not like this eatery was an incredible 'experience' either that would justify being robbed for the food - the interior was pretty worn, which at least to its credit matches almost everywhere else in the 'Village'. If this is meant to be a quintessential American diner, it's one from the 60s after all the teddyboys have moved on to something better. Still, it was nice to get a low out of the way first. The next day, Disneyland Park™ itself.
De la terre à la lune
Credit where credit's due: the entrance to Disneyland Park™ is, almost without question, the most spectacular in the world. Whoever's idea it was to station a grand American hotel over the entrance and have day-guests neatly admitted in a vast complex below is a genius. Whoever worked out how much they could get away with charging for staying in that hotel is a genius too, but that is another matter. Fair play to Disney.
Once we're through the turnstiles, it is a familiar scene, with the Main Street USA. station ahead of us, Main Street itself beyond that, and the castle on the horizon. This is a classic Disney formula, always works well, and I'm glad they didn't try to mess around or update it, as they are doing in Shanghai. Main Street itself was faultless and immaculate, and easily matches up to the American Main Streets, if not betters them with the arcades down either side. The attention to detail paid in the architectural recreations of the Town Hall and the Transportation Co. in bringing to life a turn-of-the-century American style always takes my breath away. I'm glad they didn't try to 'de-Americanise' it or 'make it relevant to a European audience' because it is what it is, and it's a delight.
Every cornice, eave, portico and pediment is perfect. From Google Images.
The park ebbs and flows, with some areas that are ho-hum (Fantasyland) and some moments of genuine, jaw-to-the-floor beauty, such as the staggering view of Big Thunder Mesa from the porch of Phantom Manor. But sadly, again, the prevailing theme from the vile Village is continued, with almost every area looking slightly worn in some way, except Main Street, which is infallible. This is a shame because, if kept in good repair, and regularly refurbished and refreshed, I have no doubt that it would be the most beautiful 'Magic Kingdom' in the world.
Entering the park for the first time late at night with the aim of a few cheeky rides before Dreams, Pirates was my first ride at DLP, and set the tone pretty well for what was to come. It's OK. Very good, in fact. Yes, it knocks Drayton and Europa's efforts into a cocked hat. But it was just 'very good'. It didn't blow me away as I hoped, having been told that it's the best of the four Pirates worldwide. It isn't as good as California's, but it should be - it's a lot bigger. It probably isn't because, again, it hasn't been constantly kept updated, refreshed, improved. It does feel 90s, despite being a very impressive ride. Although it doesn't have that x-factor, it is just on the tip of it, and it has the potential. Dare I say it, maybe the addition of the Jonny Depp animatronic could push it over into the 'wow' category.
Paris vs. Orlando
Phantom Manor, now dear dear me. This was another ride I had high hopes for, having been told that it's like a more arty version of the Haunted Mansion, which pushed my pretentious buttons. But the ride irritated me from the start, as it breaks Walt's rule for the Haunted Mansion: "We'll take care of the outside and let the ghosts take care of the inside." And Walt's fears for a dilapidated Mansion in his pristine park have come to pass in Paris: the dilapidated façade looks distinctly out of place. If it had been a beautiful, scrubbed-up little country house on top of that hill, it'd look a lot more intriguing, and crucially be more sinister too.
The ride itself unfortunately follows suit: it just doesn't really work very well. The scenes are clearly meant to be arty and a bit avant-garde, but what that means in reality is that they're mostly a bit empty, with large gaps both in scenes and between them. Don't ask me to cover the 'outside wild west' bit as I have no idea what that is there for. It's like an A-Level art project - very good as a technical and artistic achievement, and surely destined to win awards for its innovative use of this-and-that, but is it actually fun? No. The blunt truth is that it's a bit boring. They forgot to make it enjoyable. The Floridian and Californian Mansions succeed because they're a rollicking good time, a cheerful tour of an old house packed to the rafters with mischievous spirits and ghoulies. It may not go on display at the Tate Modern but they're bright, cheery and fun. The Parisian 'Manor' is a missed opportunity.
Onto Big Thunder, which wasn't the next ride of the day, but I'll cover it next as it makes geographical sense. I have no doubt that Big Thunder, when viewed operating from almost anywhere on the mainland, is the most beautiful ride in the world. If only that elegance and fluidity of movement was carried forward onto the actual coaster. The queue is a bit hellish, with a stuffy cattlepen distracting from the impressive station architecture. Apparently this ride is a throughput beast, but its hard to tell amid the Fastpass station and the constant breakdowns. The trains are wide - wider than Colorado Adventure - but comfortable.
The beauty. From DLP's website.
Unfortunately, and as much as I like being a contrarian, I will have to concur with almost all riders before me: Big Thunder is a big blunder. Again, maybe like Phantom Manor, while putting every painstaking effort into making it beautiful, the Imagineers forgot to actually make it exciting. Unlike Colorado (its inevitable comparison in Europe) with its swoops, plunges and moments of out-of-control wildness, Big Blunder simply meanders amiably around the circuit, deftly side-stepping any moments of potential excitement just before they threaten to occur. Colorado feels fluid, and organic in its layout. Big Blunder feels like it's been designed on Rollercoaster Tycoon. Forward-forward-forward-shallow incline-back to flat-forward-180 turn-forward-small drop-forward-turn. etc. Unfortunately, the ride's indisputable highlight - the genuinely intense dive back under the lake - is also its swansong, and the incline back into the station area should be called 'disappointment hill'. The ride is such a tease - like Avalanche at PBB, just as it gets going and promises something great, it stops.
Splash Mountain was next, an--oh wait. Then we tried Indiana Jones Adven--hang on. The Jungle Cruise offere--ahh. Nope, with the Indy coaster down for an expensive Botox treatment, that's pretty much it for this side of the park. There's a lot of nice landscaping between Big Blunder and Pirates, but it seems to come at the expense of any actual hardware. It feels like the management at DLP almost have a deep hostility to and mistrust of rides. Onto Fantasyland.
Unfortunately, walking round Fantasyland inevitably leads the mind wandering to Orlando, where Pimp-My-Fantasyland is just in the process of being completed. This isn't really fair as Anaheim's Fantasyland is still old-school. It's a massive area at Paris, but somehow doesn't seem to use the space very well, mostly being windswept plazas for people to hurry through. However, this Tiananmen Square of a land has a secret: it holds the core of the park's charm.
I won't go into too much detail as they're not really aimed at me, but the three little dark rides - Pinocchio, Peter Pan and Snow White - are a delight. They're exactly what Disney used to do before they considered anything except €200m+ epics to be beneath them. They're reasonably low-budget, mid-level little dark rides, and they work a treat. Each - though Peter Pan is the highlight - is a wonderful little diversion through the story of the respective fairytales, using old-fashioned but well-crafted physical effects to achieve simple storytelling aims. Disney should build more of this - top-quality filler between your Tower of Terrors and your Ratatouilles.
There is apparently a little boat ride and children's powered coaster round here, but I didn't bother due to long queues and my general apathy. Small World. The less said the better. It's boring in Orlando, boring in Anaheim, boring here and probably boring in Tokyo and Hong Kong too. Nobody really feels enthusiastic about this ride, yet inexplicably its the only one that always appears on the line-up at every new Disney park. Not Splash, or the Matterhorn, but this tedium. Who cares?
Tomorrowland - sorry, Discoveryland - is the final area of the park, and as usual, it contains three of the big hitters. The Jules Verne vibe is nice, but as in the rest of the park, suffers from omission. I get the impression that if they hadn't been consistently in debt during the 90s, they would have added more buildings in this style, and made the area feel more comprehensive. In Anaheim and Orlando, constant development has led to the Tomorrowland boulevard becoming a terrace, with all the gaps filled in with new attractions. It feels like a charmingly dated street of the future, and it has an atmosphere of hustle and bustle. Not so here, where the area feels less like a city street and more like a village, with the low-lying buildings scattered about and isolated from their peers.
Star Tours is frame-for-frame identical to how it was in America (when I visited, anyway), and is still a wonderfully designed and executed attraction. Disney and Star Wars joining forces had the potential for epic pomposity and accusations of taking-themselves-too-seriously, which the light-hearted and funny approach to the ride quickly dispels. I hope this isn't lost in the new multi-squillion dollar version. This ride is the opposite of Phantom Manor - not going to win the Turner Prize as a great piece of art, but it's overwhelmingly fun and daft. Diving into the trenches on the Death Star? Why not! Animatronic C3PO in the queueline? Hell yeah!
Again, like Star Tours, Buzz is pretty much a like-for-like remake. It's fun, but at the end of the day, it's a shooting dark ride. There's only so good a shooting dark ride can be, especially in the cartoony style that most of them seem to opt for (this, Abenteuer Atlantis, Laser Raiders). An interactive dark ride can never be immersive, but that's fine, as long as there are those deep experiences available on park (hello, TOT). The indisputable highlight of the ride is actually in the queue, the top-notch Buzz animatronic, which is almost spectacular enough to make you drop all criticism of the park and worship at the altar of Disney right there and then. More beautiful than the movement of the greatest ballerina on any stage from here to Moscow.
Space Mountain is definitely the ride that's been tampered with the most on the long journey across the atlantic, which is a double-edge sword. It's a shame because the American version is such a classic, is suitable for families, tried-and-tested, and is an absolute laugh-riot all the way round. On the other hand, the Parisian version is a pedal-to-the-metal out-and-out thrill machine, the furthest Disney have ever gone. I prefer the American classic, just, but that's not to say that this isn't great in its own way.
Unfortunately, while track & train it's great, everything surrounding the coaster at the heart is a bit poor. The queue-line is uninspiring and unimaginative, though I'm told it used to be better. The queue does plunge deep into the mountain, but all that tension building is undone when you emerge back into an almost-outdoor station, the sunlight drifting in casually just to kill any last morsel of outer space vibe. In 'classic' SM, the stations are at the very core of the mountain, and despite merely being a few hundred feet away from daylight, they create the exciting illusion that you are deep into the heart of some advanced space-station, and the dispatching of the ride appears as some advanced scientific operation. This creates buzz and anticipation, which is absent on the Parisian 'sequel'.
Anaheim vs. Paris
The trains are the then-standard from Vekoma so rubbish, obviously. They're uncomfortable, cramped and feel like a coffin. They may have been all that the Dutch whizzkids offered at the time, but Disney can surely do better than this now. The 'canon' launch is pretty useless, given that it trims over the top so that it might as well have been a lift-hill, but is wonderfully and pointlessly dramatic. There is no clever way to put it: lining up in that canon ready to be fired into the ride is just a damn cool moment. The launch is tame, but a nice way to start proceedings with a bang.
Then it's down, down, down in what feels like a neverending spiral before the fun really begins. It's rough, yes, but it's also damn intense. It successfully achieves the thrills that Gouderix and Python don't even approach, though the flipside is the pain. Crucially, like the 'classic' SMs, the ride doesn't get worse as it goes on.
Cleverly, at two points during the layout (the MCBR and the lift-hill), it 'recharges' and delivers another burst of intensity, meaning that the thrills keep coming right from the launch to the groovy red neon-tunnel at the end. It is a ride that understands pacing, and understands that it is a thrill coaster, and doesn't compromise on that. It promises a thrill coaster, and it is a thrill coaster. But don't expect it to offer a glass-smooth ride with it.
I feel a certain degree of cognitive dissonance about this new Space Mountain. I really like it as an intense, well-themed thrill coaster on a personal level, but also paradoxically think that it's a terrible ride for the park. This is Disney. No Disney coaster should be that rough. You shouldn't have to 'learn to ride' any coaster at Disney. It looks like they were going for family-thrill but wildly missed the mark: I would feel very uncomfortable putting my kids on this. It's a ride that needs constant bracing throughout, and it needs an aware adult rider to shore themselves up against the roughness. It's a great ride, but not suitable for here. It's far too rough and far too intense to be a Disney ride.
What is to be done? In 2005, Anaheim's SM got a complete track-for-track replacement, with new trains. Maybe that is the answer here, though they would probably take the option of toning down the layout a bit as well. It's a total pipe-dream, but imagine the horribly torturous Vekoma system replaced with an identical layout of a Mack Megacoaster. To see Blue Fire's trains soaring up that cannon would be an intoxicating thrill in itself!
In Part 2... Walt Disney Studios and my conclusions
). Personally I quite like DLP, while its not as polished as the USA parks, and Euro staff will never be as happy as USA staff there are many nice features.
