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Disneyland Paris: General Discussion

Themeparksandy1981 said:
I not been the Cinema since Jan 2020 and the cost of 4 tickets to see a movie is £44 then you factor in parking, petrol and snacks even from a supermarket roughly £60. 3 months later I can rent it for £14 or wait another 3 and it will be available to stream as part of the monthly package.
So can understand why Disney wants to invest more money into there parks as they want guests to keep on coming back.
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The parks are the only think making money for Disney at the moment. A string of big budget cinema flops and Disney plus is still loosing money so it's not surprising to see more park investment. The problem is the parks are now becoming so expensive it's pricing many people out. If I had the choice of going to Disney Paris or park Asterisk I would choose the latter.
 
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Themeparksandy1981 said:
I not been the Cinema since Jan 2020 and the cost of 4 tickets to see a movie is £44 then you factor in parking, petrol and snacks even from a supermarket roughly £60. 3 months later I can rent it for £14 or wait another 3 and it will be available to stream as part of the monthly package.
So can understand why Disney wants to invest more money into there parks as they want guests to keep on coming back.
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Although of course Disney could decide to put movies onto Disney+ 6-12 months after the cinema release like they did when it was Sky Movies that had the TV rights before Disney+.
They prioritised Disney+ due to the pandemic but they could choose to prioritise the cinema more again and it seems like they are already doing that to some extent.

I think they are seeing the theme parks as major growth areas, but I think they are also resetting their movie strategies.
 
Is there any update on Eurostar resuming the direct service from London or is that gone for the foreseeable future now?
 
Islander said:
It was never a temporary suspension, it was a permanent removal.
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Not as far as Eurostar themselves seemed concerned:

'From 07 June 2023 and until the end of the year, our direct trains between London and Disneyland® Paris will not run. We'll be reviewing our plans for 2024 during the course of 2023.'
 
It would only change as the politics and the will changes.

Brexit makes significant investment in infrastructure a necessity. And if the UK government can't get it right in Dover, then a 1 train a day out of MLV Chessy is hardly going to be in with a shout.

Sad.
 
AstroDan said:
It would only change as the politics and the will changes.

Brexit makes significant investment in infrastructure a necessity. And if the UK government can't get it right in Dover, then a 1 train a day out of MLV Chessy is hardly going to be in with a shout.

Sad.
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I don't really understand the issue though as the service was running until June 2023 so what is the relevance of Brexit?
 
Bowser said:
I don't really understand the issue though as the service was running until June 2023 so what is the relevance of Brexit?
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Not all of the impact from Brexit has come in to effect yet, although one of the reasons for this service being cancelled was due to the reduced capacity at St Pancras.

I am assuming that when the new biometric checks come in to force, this will reduce capacity further at St Pancras and on the return trip you will take the train to Lille, and those will be handled there. I assume that to upgrade DLP station to support this would just be to expensive?

Following article goes in to more details why Brexit is the main cause of the issue: https://www.therailwayhub.co.uk/674...rvice-while-amsterdam-route-faces-suspension/
 
IanB said:
Not all of the impact from Brexit has come in to effect yet, although one of the reasons for this service being cancelled was due to the reduced capacity at St Pancras.

I am assuming that when the new biometric checks come in to force, this will reduce capacity further at St Pancras and on the return trip you will take the train to Lille, and those will be handled there. I assume that to upgrade DLP station to support this would just be to expensive?

Following article goes in to more details why Brexit is the main cause of the issue: https://www.therailwayhub.co.uk/674...rvice-while-amsterdam-route-faces-suspension/
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Thank you for the link.

I remain slightly confused still. Passport checks for passengers were always in place on the Eurostar, what are these additional checks they speak of since Brexit? Why is the capacity reduced? I know in terms of the import/export of Goods but that doesn't seem relevant here. I've taken the Eurostar pre and post Brexit and the passenger experience is no different. So is it because freight trains are also running from St Pancreas and the checks on them are now taking longer which has reduced overall capacity?

As for 2025, i understand when the EU introduce their new visa system it will create more checks and this will apply to all forms of transport but that's not relevant to the early cancelling of the Disney route. If it was just a case of upgrading DLP you'd imagine Disney would be willing to foot the bill as an investment.

Tbh it somewhat reeks of an easy excuse and simply the route wasn't profitable in light of the pandemic and overall health of both economies.
 
The ETIAS scheme which will result in extra checks when entering the EU from the UK including photos and finger prints was originally due to come into force in 2021 but has been delayed many times and is now expected in 2025.

Eurostar needed to make the decision to prioritise capacity at St Pancras many months in advance and so the further delays in introducing ETIAS were made after the decision to pause Disneyland trains.

On top of this the station at Marne La Vallee already had capacity issues with border control. It isn’t owned by Disney and so wouldn’t be up to them to fund any changes.
 
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Bowser said:
I remain slightly confused still. Passport checks for passengers were always in place on the Eurostar, what are these additional checks they speak of since Brexit? Why is the capacity reduced? I know in terms of the import/export of Goods but that doesn't seem relevant here. I've taken the Eurostar pre and post Brexit and the passenger experience is no different. So is it because freight trains are also running from St Pancreas and the checks on them are now taking longer which has reduced overall capacity?
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At the risk of going off topic, it depends on what passport your travelling under, but if you have a British passport, they are now being stamped, where they did not get stamped before. As there is no electronic system, boarder control should be checking all the stamps, and making sure you have not exceed 90 days in a 180 day period. Might be quick if you have 2 or 4 stamps, but if you have 16-20 stamps, its going to take a little longer. The ETIAS process is supposed to reduce these manual checks, and means no more stamps in your passport again. It might be worth having a read through the Brexit thread, although there is a lot to go through: https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/the-brexit-thread.5050/

Hopefully one day, we will have a direct train from London, but its unlikely to happen any time soon. Lille is a nice place to stop at on the way though, and I suspect most people went this route in the past due to the cost of it being cheaper.
 
Thanks for the clarification both of you 👍

Pretty sure they didn't check for stamps the last few times i went (they were also supposed to be checking Covid related things one time which they didn't either) but appreciate these are anecdotal and potentially isolated experiences and not what Eurostar would be making decisions from.

I wonder if this has any meaningful impact on DLP business-wise? Probably not but it's a real shame, it was a great concept. Hopefully one day it gets restored.
 
Think it also has to do with Eurostar being pissy with us. We still don't have a full UK service. The two non London stations remain closed and I as someone who used them alot have lost all the goodwill they had built up. Remeber the UK government would not bail out Eurostar during COVID? Well it's basically owned by the french government. Lots of politics.
 
SuperMuscleMan said:
Think it also has to do with Eurostar being pissy with us. We still don't have a full UK service. The two non London stations remain closed and I as someone who used them alot have lost all the goodwill they had built up. Remeber the UK government would not bail out Eurostar during COVID? Well it's basically owned by the french government. Lots of politics.
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The UK Government sold it off as they love to do with stuff in public hands.

Maybe if the UK still had a share, they'd have more leverage in getting Eurostar to reinstate services, including to Disney.
 
Eurostar is the biggest missed opportunity in the UK in my opinion. You look at the original vision - connections to Manchester, Leeds and even further north. With many of the plans still not officially canceled, but 'on hold' can we dare to think that it may happen eventually?. For the majority of the UK it is currently cheaper and faster to fly and connect to the train.

With the current 'network' to London, you do wonder just how much demand there would be to DLP direct from London. I know trains were buy during peak times, but I can't imagine the full length of the route being profitable year-round. From a operational Point Of View it must make more financial sense just to have people transfer when in France. I'm sure if there was a direct train that went Glasgow - Manchester - Birmingham - DLP (or even just Paris) that would be a resounding success. We can only dream.

(We seem to be really good at canceling usueful rail projects)
 
ScottishChris said:
Eurostar is the biggest missed opportunity in the UK in my opinion. You look at the original vision - connections to Manchester, Leeds and even further north. With many of the plans still not officially canceled, but 'on hold' can we dare to think that it may happen eventually?. For the majority of the UK it is currently cheaper and faster to fly and connect to the train.

With the current 'network' to London, you do wonder just how much demand there would be to DLP direct from London. I know trains were buy during peak times, but I can't imagine the full length of the route being profitable year-round. From a operational Point Of View it must make more financial sense just to have people transfer when in France. I'm sure if there was a direct train that went Glasgow - Manchester - Birmingham - DLP (or even just Paris) that would be a resounding success. We can only dream.

(We seem to be really good at canceling usueful rail projects)
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Believe me I wish I did not have to change in London when I go up North. SUSSEX/Kent. Is not London and we often get lumped in with London but we definitely are not. I'd love to see north connections that bypass the mess that is London.

The DLP train was always busy in Ashford when I went through. St..panc is a mess as it's not built for the capacity.
 
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