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Disneyland Paris: General Discussion

M

Maelstrom

TS Member
There are strong rumours that a long term investment plan has been put into place at DLP, part of which will be directly funded by the Walt Disney Company rather than as in the past funded by the resort. A report by a respected DLP fan has been compiled based on info from various sources (I have linked article below) with the 2015-2017 plans being very likely to happen and the 2018+ plans are obviously at this stage subject to change. I have put a summary of the rumoured plan below-

Disneyland Park (Funded by Directly by Disneyland Paris)

-2015 Space Mountain to shut in Jan for 6 months for a total refurb including new trains plus new show and effects. Also rumoured to return to the original story line (from the earth to the moon)

-2016- Star Wars 3D; The adventure continues (Star tours set to close mid 2015 and ride upgrade expected to take 6 months) could possibly open in Dec 2015 in time for new star wars film)

-2016-Big Thunder Mountain to be closed for 12 month for a Full refurb which will inc extra capacity on each train and possibly a full interactive queue like the one added at DW. The lake to be drained with the geyser effect to return.

-Disney Village to get a overhaul and new look and will inc a big new iconic restaurant

-2014-2017-Hotels to be refurbished- the aim is also to have a Michelin starred chef and restaurant in place at the Disneyland Hotel

-Park to focus on 4 seasons throughout the year with current events and decoration etc to be expanded upon.

Walt Disney Studios (Funded by Walt Disney Company)

This is a complete over-hall of the park and allow place making and retheming to bring park upto standard and allow future expansion (much like what they did at California Adventure and Hongkong Disneyland)

-Backlot Retheme- The whole backlot area is expected to be rethemed into a Marvel Area (initially area in two parts, New York themed area and a Stark Expo area) that will inc retheme of the existing attractions -

-Rock N Roller Coaster will become Spiderman themed with the trains flying through new York sky scrapers (facade will become the daily Bugle)

-Armageddon will become the fantastic Four

-The Stunt Show will have an Agents of Shield theme

-2018-Toy Story Mania added to Toy Storyland

-Front Lot and Studio 1 will be rethemed into an immersive experience representing Walt Disney Studios from 1930.

Animation Courtyland, la Place des Stars and Hollywood Boulevard will also undergo works to make them more immersive and add a cohesive nature to the park.

2018 onwards

The current roadmap includes the following

-2000 seat theatre next to its a small world

-Star Wars Land added next to Star Tours

-Soarin' over the Horizon will be added next to the Indiana jones attraction

-New E-Ticket Ride at Studio based on the avengers, Plan is a similar system to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey but include 3D screens

-New Hotel built in the Marvel area of the studios

-Hollywood Boulevard will become a real street with a Tramway running through it (think Red Car Trolley in Disney's California Adventure park), with shows and restaurants leading to a hub. One plan even calls for the construction of a real Hollywood hillside.

-The final plan on the roadmap is a clone of Avatar Land to be added.

Full article below

http://www.independentguidebooks.com/blog/2014/4/20/disneyland-paris-rumour-incredibly-detailed-10-year-roadmap-from-2014
 
Sounds good if its true, the Studios park in Paris always felt a bit not quite finished, removing the tram tour would actually improve the park a lot.

The bigger issue I felt with the studios park that these changes won't quite solve though is the lack of true family attractions, too many things are suitable for adults OR children but not many attractions that everyone can do, the Disneyland parks get that balance better.
 
Jesus that sounds good! Not too sure about the BTM lake drainage thing though... :/
 
Yes Yes Yes!

This totally agrees with the negatives I found after my visit to DLP last week! This pretty much addresses nearly EVERY aspect!

Studios is pretty dire at the moment, and with Ratatouille and then the rumours above - this will pretty much sort it.

And massive investment into the main park - great news!

They simply cannot allow the parks to continue to worsen when the likes of Phantasialand, Europa-Park, Efteling and others are on the ball. Competition in Europe is nothing like what they have abroad. Although there is Universal in the USA, within Europe there are simply too many top quality theme parks around and Disney cannot sit back any longer.

It will also encourage Europa-Park, Astérix and co. to up their games even more!

:D
 
After hearing the rumours of Disneyland Paris not having any new investments after Ratatouille, this has come as a big shock and looks to be amazing if it all goes to plan, especially where the Studios are concerned. After what they did to Disney's California Adventure I have high hopes for the 'new' Walt Disney Studios Park!

Its also nice to see the Hotels are getting some much needed attention as they're not looking their best at the moment!

Great news!
 
It's all come not a moment too soon. DLP is in dire need of this investment, much like DCA was for a number of years. There needs to be some serious shake up at the park to make sure that they get their act together once and for all. So much money has been piped into the park over the years, and yet it has still remained financially volatile. It simple cannot continue in the way it has, with years of misdirection right from the start. Hopefully WDC now has the chance to really push for change and fix it for good.

For me I think the mains ones to watch will be Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, and Star Tours. Rumour has been circulating that the plan for Space Mountain is to not only re-instate the original Jules Verne concept (Which it was utter madness to ever abandon), but to also restore all of the original effects as well as some new ones as per original spec, all headed up by WDI. It's a good job too, as at least with them pushing the plans through we should be assured of a degree of quality, and hopefully avert another disaster of Mission 2!

Although Star Tours 2 simply has to happen sooner rather than later a part of me will be sad to see the original leave. I love that ride dearly, and I do think that there are certain elements which the original executes better than 2 (The boarding video for example feels more real in the context being presented by a human being than a CGI robot). The whole ride concept is simply brilliant, and a real tongue-in-cheek Disney ride. I had heard before of the expectation to incorporate a Star Wars land into Discovery Land to accompany a reboot of Star Tours. So long as it remain at the back of the area, and leaves the original Discovery Land unaltered I'll be happy.

Big Thunder, along with Space Mountain, is probably one of the attractions in most dire need of TLC. When we were going around the park with a cast member back in January there was many a joke bantered around about denying the back of the mountain exists, and it really is small wonder why. The whole structure is tired and crumbling. It needs a complete renovation and refresh to ensure that it looks fantastic from all angles. Since the Ranch and Chaparral Theatre were abandoned there has been no reason other than the railroad to walk around the back of the island, and DLP seems to have acknowledged that as an acceptable reason to let it go to wreck and ruin. It's not, and I'm sure WDC would agree with that too. The ride system was already supposed to be having a PLC overhaul in an attempt to resolve the ride's horrendous reliability record, including the addition of kicker wheels at certain points on the track to help underweight trains complete the circuit successfully. Hopefully in addition to the ride system and external mountain overhauls we'll also see some of the amazing new effects premiered at California to further enhance the experience.

Sticking in Frontier Land I have to say I'm somewhat surprised to hear the suggestion that the geysers may be returning, after a park exec was quoted only recently as saying that they definitely would not be coming back, but be replaced with something more substantial in the future (Presumably with the intention of extending the area around the remainder of the lake to form a complete circuit). High costs and poor reliability are often cited as the reason for their absence, and personally I'd have no objection to them removing that area completely in favour of something else. It's very tired, and does look to be beyond repair. I don't know about anyone else too, but when I stand at the end of Boot Hill and look over the geysers I actually find it very chilling, and not in the good way. It looks like some creepy abandoned area, thanks to the silence around it, skeletons, and lack of anything else in that direction. If they are indeed going to return then great, but personally I think that the area could be much better suited to something new.

The Chaparral Theatre and Ranch are also in this boat. Both feel like a ghost town, and it's rare to see any other guests around here. There's such a huge space, not to mention a giant theatre going to waste, where you could easily fit a large scale new ride. The whole area circling round from the top of Boot Hill to the Big Thunder workshop needs a total reimagineering in my opinion.

One thing which is also meant to be imminent is the addition of Jack Sparrow to Pirates of The Caribbean. The animationic has reportedly been at the park for several seasons now, but integration issues with the existing show system mean that he has yet to be installed.


Moving out of Parc Disneyland and to Disney Village this news too cannot come soon enough. The Village is an absolute dive, and has only gotten worse in the past couple of seasons, with them ripping down the entrance sign, one of the few decent looking things about the area. Many of the shops and attractions are dated and under-utilised, only made worse now that the impressive new World of Disney has opened just feet away. The area itself is a horrible miss-mash of ideas where they've attempted to redeem themselves from the hideous design, with the addition of the big coloured balls for example. The whole Disney Village idea has always felt pretty false to me, and I'd hope that rather than improving the appearance of the area a total re-think is on the cards, much like WDW are doing with the Disney Springs/Downtown Disney renovation.

The hotel renovations are also welcome, and much needed, although I do wonder did we ever hear any more about the contract the park were under to build so many hotels within a time window? It does concern me that the French government could try and make things difficult for them if they have breached the conditions the park was established on...


As for Studios? I dislike it immensely, so they can try and do whatever they like to it, but if you ask me, it's going to take a lot of money to fix it up, which is no doubt why WDC is planning to foot the bill :p


So all in all good news for the park if it does all come to fruition, and I look forward to seeing it develop further, to hopefully secure some sort of a stable future for the park :)
 
It's been less than 3 days since we on the Junket meet commented on how tired and dated a lot of Walt Disney Studios and Disney Village looked, only for this long term plan to pop up! I was wondering when DLP would be instating their latest IP toy, Marvel, at the Studios particularly, though I wish they were including the Anaheim Indiana Jones attraction rather than a Soarin'.

Internal happy screaming has definitely ensued with Space Mountain :D
 
From what I understand when we heard last year that the Walt Disney Company had put a stop to all future development it was so they could come up with a plan to sort the resort out.
 
This is weird. We were only saying on Junket that the place needs a lot of work, and they'e doing all this. Fantastic! :D

Perhaps one of the more surreal moments of that trip happened on my first night there. The entrance sign to Disney Village by the station had disappeared, and upon walking through the village from McDonald's (or 'Nald's', given that they were the only letters lit up on the sign), U2's song 'Where The Streets Have No Name' was playing. I couldn't help but laugh at that. :p
 
Having been at Disneyland Paris just a few weeks ago, I'm all for everything in this plan. It's a seriously huge investment, hopefully it all happens.

I'm not so keen on Studios being Marvell-ed up that much, especially RnR, but I won't be too sad to see the current theme go, the pre-show video is embarrassing and the coaster itself has almost no theming at all after the launch.

Great to hear Space Mountain could be going back to the old story, I loved it, but everything wrong with it seemed to be a result of the Mission 2 retheme.

Personally I'd prefer another coaster but Soarin and a Disney version of Harry Potter will more than suffice.
 
Personally I'm not sure on Snorein'. Like Rowe, I'd much sooner have seen a more substantial Disney headliner like Temple of The Forbidden Eye, as I'd expect it to have far more full than Soarin'.

Although, as we were told by a cast member when asking about it "Cali and Florida have enough trouble keeping that ride system running. Can you imagine the French trying to keep it in check?!" :p
 
Blaze said:
I'm not so keen on Studios being Marvell-ed up that much, especially RnR, but I won't be too sad to see the current theme go, the pre-show video is embarrassing and the coaster itself has almost no theming at all after the launch.
Click to expand...

Yes, I hate the fact that the Paris version of RnR acknowledges it's a coaster. The theme on the Florida version is that you are getting in a super super stretch limo to join then band at the concert and the Paris pre-show doesn't bother to set this up.

But I overall quite like many attractions at WDS it just needs to be a bit more well rounded. Some of the original shows that they don't have at the other parks worldwide are great, Cinémagique, Animagique and Armageddon are all unique to Paris and are good. Crush's Coaster is also enjoyable. The park needs more unique new attractions, not just clones of Florida and California.
 
It's all looking very nice but can't help feeling what the main park needs is Splash Mountain and testrack.
 
After hearing about Disney during the junket these improvements are really needed, it's a shame really that they've let it get in a massive state
 
While I'm all up for the stuff on that list (Space Mountain all my YES! :D) I'm not too keen to Marvel up RNRC, unless the sponsor deal with Aerosmith is nearing its end. Still, any big investment for DLP is very much needed at this point.
 
This sounds amazing. Holding my breath until I see the long awaited Space Mountain refresh or Star Tours 2 happen but if this plan comes to fruition then wow.

Some of the ideas sound fantastic. I personally like the idea of Marvel coming to Studios. The park needs a clear direction and purpose and these additions, along with massive E-tickets like Toy Story MM, and a Harry Potter style ride would cement the park as being a place to visit in it's own right.

The place needs a huge shake up and so much love and attention so I really hope this (or at least large chunks of it) takes place.
 
I am in two minds about Marvel. I love Marvel, and think it would be great, but there seems to be a lot of it, maybe to much. I almost feel that TOT will feel out of place with all the Marvel stuff behind it.

I look at this like, and almost think its to good to be true. Almost like someone has written their wishlist for the next 3 years, and somewhere along the lines this has been turned in to a rumour, and then gone through several other people to get released.

Fingers crossed it does happen though, but from peoples previous visit last weekend, it sounds like improving staff happiness is just as important as giving the place a refurbish, and it would be great to see some of the additional money being used to improve staff pay and working conditions, as this would have an immediate effect on the park.

Ian
 
So the only ride I enjoy across both parks is to be bastardised into some child friendly super hero tripe. Woop. ::)

Click here to see how I would improve the park...
 
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