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Disneyland Paris has announced that in 2025, coinciding with when World of Frozen opens, the park will be renamed from ‘Walt Disney Studios Park’ to ‘Disney Adventure World’. They will also be transforming to the entrance of the park from a movie studio to all-new design paying homage to historic movie theaters. They will also have entertainment on the new lake they have been building, which will be called Adventure Bay. https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2024/04/disney-adventure-world-disneyland-paris-reimagines-second-park/

Disneyland Paris https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/disneyland-paris So, the other half to my trip report for Walt Disney Studios Both days I visited I went into the park in the afternoon. This probably makes sense because there’s not really anything you want to ‘rope drop’ in Disneyland, it’s all quite high capacity attractions (aside from Peter Pan, which I ended up skipping both days, just couldn’t be arsed waiting 90 mins for it. Most rides seemed to be around 30-40 min waits, so no problem visiting a wide variety of attractions. Overall impressions is that it is very nice, you can really see how they went above and beyond with the theming here in order to impress the well cultured European market. The castle is ornate. They have nice arcades behind main street. More details in general. I also felt that Paris has the “better” version of many of the classics. Their big thunder mountain is better, Pirates of the Carribean has a better themed queue and facade, Phantom Manor looks a lot cooler than the haunted mansions, and of course who can forget their more thrilling Space Mountain. Only downside is I don’t think the park has enough ‘unique’ rides (Aside from Space Mountain being very different). It’s like how Tokyo has Monsters Inc or Beauty and the Beast, or HK has Mystic Manor, or MK has Seven Dwarfs mine train. The main unique thing Paris has is some additional themed walk throughs. So Paris is good if you are a fan of the classic E-ticket rides, but you’ll have to go next door to the studios for something more unique. On to the rides! Indiana Jones - Et Le Temple du Peril Ugh got this one out the way early. It’s like a bigger version of Nitro Coaster type layout, a glorified galaxi with a loop, but built by Intamin. Rough as guts, and the theming is decent (But not a touch on Raging Spirits) The queue line is down under a canvas tent and you go up a grand stone staircase to the ride, which is built around a temple. It does get points for how well they position a stone arch that hides the structure of the loop, so if you are not paying attention you might not be aware it goes upside down. Star Tours Yeah, this one is always nice for its well themed queue. The storyline we got was a bit older, it was the pod racing sequence and then ending up on Naboo, which I think debuted when the new 3D version of star tours was launched. The last time I did star tours in Tokyo in 2019, it was a brand new film based on the last Jedi Space Mountain This was perhaps the one I was most hyped for. When they would show Disneyland Paris on shows like Getaway as a kid, Space Mountain would alway feature prominently. The outside looks gorgeous, particularly the enormous cannon pointing up the side of the mountain. It’s a shame they deactivated the whole mechanism where it woul roll close and recoil when fired. It was such an iconic thing. Maybe one day they will bring it back, and delete the star wars overlay in the meantime. The first bit of the queue is outdoors, before going through some plain corrugated metal corridors inside. Eventually you reach the well themed open air station. It has the new Vekoma trains with onboard audio, so comfort wise it was fine. Out of the station is an enclosed turn, drop and then incline which gets you onto the catapult launch. Despite not being the fastest launch, the fact you are pushed back in your seat going uphill gives it a bit of force. Inside, its like a more drawn out version of RNRC / Avengers Flight Force. Starts with a big drawn out turn that does a lap around the ride building, eventually leading into a sidewinder and a couple of tighter turns, mcbr, then a drop into a corkscrew. From that point the layout peters out a bit, with a regular lift hill towards the end, some more turns and helixes, and vekomas early attempt at an overbanked turn. All the while the audio is playing chaotic star wars music and there are projections on the wall of tie fighters etc being blown up. It’s a Small World What can you say about this ride? Does anyone other than kids enjoy it? Do people just ride it for tradition? For its infamy? Because it has a shortish queue and it gets you out of the sun for 15 mins. Possibly all of the above. I think all the kooky imagineers get put on the design team for this, with all the stylised design sets depicting various countries. Molly Brown Riverboat A moment to relax. I rode this in the afternoon which allowed for some awesome shots of Big Thunder. Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast A ride I secretly enjoy and will always ride at Disney. There was a 30 min wait for this one, so I actually googled how do get a high score. A couple of the secret targets are very hard to to hit, but i was able to spam some of the difficult triangular targets and at least get a score in the hundreds of thousands rather than the tens of thousands. Pirates of the Caribbean This is proper POTC. Other versions have you going straight out from a New Orleans area into this pirate boat ride. Meanwhile this one has you going into the actual corridors of a pirate fortress, so big points for having an actual themed queue. All the scenes were the same, including the pirate battle and the burning town. What made this version better was how the layout was on a few levels and had a few crossovers, so youd get views through to other scenes from a higher level before actually arriving in it a few mins later. Phantom Manor Another Disney classic, and well executed. It looks a lot more spooky having the house sitting up on a hill by itself, surrounded by overgrown gardens. There were a couple of scenes unique to this version. In the load area there is a lonesome bridge, staring out a huge glass window with a thunderstorm raging outside. At the end of the ride you go through a haunted mining town (to tie in with its location in Frontierland), and that part was reminiscent of Fire in the Hole. Still, my favourite part will always be the floating head in the glass ball. Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs. These fantasyland dark rides are a bit ‘blink and you’ll miss it’. You speed through a quick retelling of the story in what feels like a couple of minutes, so only have a brief moment of time to appreciate the scenes before crashing through the doors to the next one. Nice enough, but I struggle to think of a single moment in the ride that really sticks with you or where I was like ‘woah how did they do that’. Ok there was one memorable thing. The ride control panel is themed like an old open book, and the buttons are on the pages. Les Voyages Des Pinnochio Similar Comments to the above. Mostly UV black light painted sets. Autopia Big Ole car ride through some pleasant pine trees, and a handful of billboards with advertisements for space destinations, and themed bridges to give it that Discoveryland feel. If you are short on time you could probably skip this, but again, not much of a queue so I gave it a go. Big Thunder Mountain Ended up saving one of the best for last. There was an intial false start. The ride needed an evac so they emptied the queue and i came back an hour later. The paris one is different because the coaster is on an island in the middle of the river, with the station on the mainland. This means you have a pitch black tunnel at both the start and end of the ride to get over to the island and back, which bookends the experience nicely with thrilling moments. So from the station you drop down into a mine, and it feels like you go really quite deep underground. I’d just about say its a better tunnel than Oblivion. From there it’s classic Big Thunder, with themed lift hills (including one with projection mapping involving fuses burning towards a stack of TNT) and helixes, but also a lot more random drops, and it seems to maintain speed better than the others, rather than hitting a lift the moment you build up a bit of speed. The end of the ride has you go into a themed tunnel, but then the track starts diving deeply and getting darker, and then you just keep diving and diving and go around a huge underground banked turn, and head back up a lift hill. The train practically makes it to the top before the chain finally catches and you rise out into the daylight and coast into the station. So one thing you must know about Paris is that it has a handful of well themed walkthroughs. This seems to be a European ‘thing’ since you see similar attractions at Efteling and Europa Park. Adventure Isle A series of bridges, caves and passageways and great themed sections, like a grotto full of pirates treasure, and a skull shaped rock you could look out through. Needs more slides La Cabane Des Robinson Not Far from Adventure Isle, and another Disney Staple. What I find notable is the way it uses a lot of visual distraction to still maintain the reveal of different parts. From a distance, all you see is this giant tree and a couple of platforms sticking out. When you get there, you basically just see a staircase disappearing up into the tree and the famous water wheel. Quite unassuming considering all that is going on above. When you are up there in the tree canopy, you can see walkways going everywhere, above and below you, and the bits of the treehouse perched in different parts of the tree, so all you can really do is follow the walkway along and be guided through the labyrinth. Thematically its one of my favourites. La Cabane Des Robinson Not Far from Adventure Isle, and another Disney Staple. What I find notable is the way it uses a lot of visual distraction to still maintain the reveal of different parts. From a distance, all you see is this giant tree and a couple of platforms sticking out. When you get there, you basically just see a staircase disappearing up into the tree and the famous water wheel. Quite unassuming considering all that is going on above. When you are up there in the tree canopy, you can see walkways going everywhere, above and below you, and the bits of the treehouse perched in different parts of the tree, so all you can really do is follow the walkway along and be guided through the labyrinth. Thematically its one of my favourites. Le Passage Enchante d’Alladin This has a few dioramas behind glass telling the story of Alladin. Havent seen this film since about age 5 when we watched it on the last day of term before school holidays, brought back memories, ended up watching it again on the plane home! Les Mystères du Nautilus Probably my favourite of the walkthroughs, and I almost missed the best part! From a small building next to lake in Discoveryland you go down a spiral staircase and through an underground passageway into the interior of the Nautilus submarine (You see the top of the Submarine poking up through the water next to the entrance. All the rooms are ornately themed, with a cool engine room full of moving equipment. The main room I strolled straight through, but when I looked back i noticed a crowd of people gathered around a small circular window. Went back to have a look, and all of a sudden the window expands like an iris / camera shutter, revealing a much bigger circular window looking out of the submarine. The iris opens and closes every few mins, revealing something new each time, eg a pod of whales swimming by. Amazing bit of imagineering to build that mechanism. La Belle Au bois Dormant I found out about this one via the Imagineering Story. They did some really ornate stained glass windows in an area in the ‘foyer’ of the castle, so definitely take the time to check this out. La Tanière du Dragon Under the castle, there is a damp cave with a dragon that occasionally wakes up and roars. Easy to miss if you dont know about it. Alice’s Curious Labyrinth A large hedge maze with statues from Alice in Wonderland. You eventually reach a small castle, but its bloody narrow and crowded up there, though its a great vantage point for photos over the park. Disneyland Paris Railroad I thought this was going to be closed for my visit but it ended up re-opening late afternoon day 2. They've designed the carriages to only load from one side, so most of the views are designed to face into the park…If you are riding, sit on the side closest to the platform. For those of you not familiar with the Disneyland Railroads, you dont just do a lap around the park, a couple of times you pass through other ride buildings, and through a couple of indoor sections with actual built sets (The latter too hard to get photos of in the darkness. The other “train” Casey Jr Circus Train was closed on my visit, so no powered coaster for me. So final thoughts. Nice park, superb theming, but perhaps it just feels middle of the range compared to the other Disneylands since it’s all ‘classics’ and the last new ride they got was Buzz Lightyear. More photos here: https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/disneyland-paris

I visited France back in June and visited a few parks over the course of 3 weeks. Might as well get one of the easier ones out of the way, with Walt Disney Studios. https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/walt-disney-studios I had a two day pass which was the right amount of time for Disneyland Park / Walt Disney studios. But for the purposes of this TR I'll just go attraction by attraction rather than a recount of both days. Getting to the park is easy, about 40 mins from Central Paris on the RER, then through the security checkpoint into Disney Village and the two parks. When you arrive, the main street is actually a sound stage, with plywood sets forming the shops and restaurants. Crush's Coaster Recommended to start on this one since it draws long queues. I frequently saw it reaching 120 minutes. It was broken down when I arrived, so I hung around for 20 mins and got on as soon as it opened. Really good! An indoor marina themed station (complete with seagulls chanting "mine") leads into a short lift hill, a couple of turns outdoors before heading back into the building. From there are a few dark ride scenes where you are going with the sea turtles to ride the east coast current, a jellyfish field, and finally a lift hill in the hull of a ship with sharks chanting "fish are friends not food". From there it's into a very dark show building with the standard Maurer SC2000 layout, with a few scrims with projected flowing bubbles to simulate riding the current. Much darker inside than scooby. The coaster is zippy and good fun. My only criticisim would be that too many coasters at Disney Paris rely on being in a big dark room with a few effects. Avengers, Crush's and Space Mountain all rely on it, so thats half the coasters. A tip, the single rider queue time lies. I saw it advertised as 50 mins, walked in and there were 3 people waiting, so it was more like 5 mins! Worth using since there is nothing worth seeing in the standby queue. RC Racer Similar comments to the one in HK. I really like these compared to the spinning halfpipes because the beyond vertical spike creates this great sensation where you are floating, but also being forced forward in your seat (much like the beyond vertical drops on GL/Abyss), combined with the launches picking up speed. Again the single rider queue is the way to go. Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin Missed the one in HK so did this because it has a short queue. Most gentle matterhorn ride ever lol, but the theming looks great. Not sure who makes it, but I suspect Intamin because it looked like the cars actually run on Intamin track. The theming is great, with a pile of dog toys on a bowl as a centerpiece. Ratatouille Hmmm, a bit underwhelmed by this one sadly. I love trackless and 3D dark rides, so was really looking foward to this, but it falls a bit flat. The vehicles can spin, but cannot do the full range of motion like you get on rides like Spiderman or Planet of the Apes or the Justice Leauges at Six Flags. You ride in large rat shaped cars that seat 6, and scurry around through the kitchen, being chased by angry kitchen staff, with a mixture of oversized sets (including going under a stove, into a fridge, through the wall cavities), interspersed by scenes in front of giant screens. For some reason I thought that despite the reduced range of motion the vehicles would still maybe scoot around a tiny bit on the spot or rotate a bit from side to side in front of the screens to give a little feeling , but nah you're just parked there in front of a giant screen for 30 seconds watching a giant movie, with things popping off but it feels strange and muted without any movement. The best part probably is the giant sets. A nice touch is when you are under a giant waiters trolley, and as you roll fowards the castors either side of you rotate as well. In this area they had a food festival going, with very permanent looking stands selling food from different regions of France. I tried this cheese and potato thing but it was a bit pungent! Spider-man WEB Adventure Ok, so it wasn't until shortly before I went on this trip I found out they built an Avengers campus at WDS (For some reason I thought it was just Rock n Roller coaster being re themed with other stuff coming later)....Cool, means I don't feel guilty about skipping DCA! This is another 3D dark ride, with vehicles that track the movements of your hands and allow you to shoot webs. Can tell you ahead of time there is nothing special enough to see in the standby queue, so by all means do this with single rider...You still get to see the preshow either way . The ride is themed like an old brick warehouse that used to be "Stark Motors" that has now been taken over by a tech startup called the "World Engineering Brigade" . The preshow is set in a research workhop and uses a few layers of scrims, and has Peter Parker showing you his new spiderbot . The spiderbot is able to mine materials and 3D print it's own replicas, which sounds cool until they start cutting holes in the walls and replicating out of control. That's where you come in to start hunting them down before they replicate into the millions, by blasting them with webs just like spiderman. The ride reminded me of a long lost relative of toy story mania, with large back to back vehicles travelling in front of game screens. The bits in between were probably better themed, and in this case yes they did take advangage of the spinning of the vehicle to get a bit of wild movement between scenes. I've heard this ride bagged out a bit, but I had a great time. The graphics and the gesture tracking was super crisp, and each scene had heaps of ways you could interact with it, eg shoot webs at the spiderbots, or you could fling a web at an oil drum, then sweep your hand a across and cause it to fling across the room and cause a massive explosion. Avengers Flight Force This was a rethemed of Rock n Rollercoaster, with a snazzy, but perhaps sterile queue set in Avengers HQ. Think lots of stainless steel and chamfered panels, like an Apple store without the wood. Simple storyline, some missiles have been sent towards earth by the bad guys, all the other avengers are busy with other missions, so its up to you to help Captain Marvel and Iron Man by flying in a manner that draws the missiles away from earth. There's a really good Iron Man animatronic in the preshow. Another touch I liked is the pulsating lighting tubes throughout the queue that all go haywire from the power surge when the ride launches. The coaster, again, excellent, with flashing red lights on the launch, followed by 3 inversions taken smoothly in the dark, with the odd curved screen with the two heroes shooting beams etc in the battle. The finale is a huge panoramic screen where you see the baddies missiles blown up in a spectacular green explosion, coupled with a cresendo in the music, all at full speed, before finally hitting the brakes. Pym Test Kitchen Forked out for Sit Down Meal for a change. This restaurant was a buffet with novelty food items that were either bigger than smaller than normal. The theming reflected this. Eg for burgers, you could get sliders, or get a slice from a burger the size of a hubcap. There was a bit of scientific mixed in too, eg blue coloured salad dressing, things in test tubes, this really nice lemon dessert that had an crystaline atomic structre pattern on the top etc. 49 EUR, ouch! Tower of Terror This thing is wild. I've done other TOTs in Cali, Florida and Japan but this one has the best most intense ride cycle and its not even close! Right from the first pushback, you are rocketing to the top forcefully. No slow lifting floor by floor, just several sustained ups and downs, all the while a creepy girl at each floor tells you "not to scream, it will only make it worse". I get the feeling Europeans are a bit tougher in terms of thrills, so they get a better cycle as a result. The queue is the same as the others. Gorgeous. Cars Road Trip Urrrgh. This is unashamedly a filler while they build the Frozen area. It was the studio tour, it has been cut short due to construction work in the park, and they kept the catasrophe canyon bit, and stuck it in with this utterly rubbish road trip thing where you look at 3D props of roadside landmarks. Think lame stuff like a giant spanner, billboards, the Tyre-ful Tower. But then the catastrophe canyon bit is ham fisted too becasuse they took the tanker that blows up and put a cars face on it, so you're literally watching a setient tanker getting burned alive with a look of mild concern. Walk on queue said it all. Tapis Volants You know, out of all the Disney rides I've never done one of these Dumbo/Orbiter type things, time to rectify that. It's themed as if Alladin is being filmed as a live action movie. You can move the carpet up and down with a little lever in front of your seat. Supposedly the other lever makes you tilt back and forth, but despite reaching back and trying it did nothing? The viewing area was nice too. Cars Quatres Roues Rallye. Same sort of ride as Patricks Jellyfish Frenzy, a figure 8 motion demolition derby, but with Cars theming. The queue predates cars land, so it's like a mini mish mash of Radiator springs. Despite having two of the rides installed side by side it still must get long queues. Final thoughts The park is pretty good, though a lot smaller than every other Disney Park. The offering is about 1/3 of Disneyland next door. I did appreciate the thrill rides here, probably the most 'intense' lineup of any Disney park. Perhaps what it lacked was strong themed zones. The whole front of the park is this open bitumen area with a lot of plain looking studios and food trucks. The bits around Avengers Campus, Ratatouille and Toy Story felt immersive, but then the rest of the park is a bit mish mash. Perhaps once frozen is finished it will feel a bit more consolidated. At the moment, even the orignal DCA is better! The park seemed popular, with crowds and 30-60 min waits all day. As always, photos are here. https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/walt-disney-studios