wtg2000
04-13-2002, 07:40 AM
On Monday, April 7th, I swung my legs out of the bed of my Paris hostel dorm and caught an early RER out to the new Walt Disney Studios. Save DCA, this would keep me current on Disney theme parks, having visited TDS in October/November. It was a sunny day with a touch of a chill and some stiff breezes. I was fimiliar with the attraction roster and of course with MGM so I had formed a certain expectation about how the park would look and feel. And I must admit that my expectations were not high since I don't find studio parks that attractive as a rule, and I knew there were only nine rides and shows, of which I had done variations of some before (Magic Carpets, Backstage Tour) and not particularily enjoyed. Still, given all this, the park fell way short of my low expectations.
I'll break my impressions down into five areas.
First is asthetics and theming. Simply put, there is very little. There are bland show buildings to house the attractions, but really nothing else to look at, no nice places to saunter or sit. I've been to many movie studios (including real ones) and this doesn't look or feel anything like a movie studio, or a theme park for that matter. It just looks like a strip of asphalt with a few buildings strewn about. You can see from one end of the park to the other. I saw a lot of bored looking people sitting on the scant patches of grass by 1pm. It's hard to rate something when there hasn't been any attempt to provide it. It's simply missing in action.
Second is rides. There are three.
The Flying Carpets, which despite a little more theming than Florida (Genie is the director), looks like a glossy parking lot carnival ride, just stuck at one end of the park at the edge of the asphalt. I was shocked with how poor this appeared. The ride itself is pretty, but its location made it look like a parking lot carnival ride.
Next is the ubiquitous tram to nowhere. It's kind of hard to have a Studio Tram Tour when there is no actual studio. You go one direction to Catastrophe Canyon (which seemed smaller than Florida), and double back to the Reign of Fire set screaming past the wardrobe warehouse on the way. Jeremy Irons provides some levity in his narration, but this is a real bore.
Finally, we have RnRC. The show building is non-descript, and there didn't seem to be a pre-show. There's a studio room with the band on a video screen a la MGM, but we just breezed through as Steven Tyler muttered a line about trying something new. But I didn't know what that was. We launched and looped past some lights, but I never figured out what the story was, unlike MGM where you know you are crossing LA to get to the Forum. So I found this overall inferior to MGM, not to mention redundant since DLP already has an indoor, looping, launcing coaster.
DLP also has a Aladdin walkthrough, so they've doubled up on the theming there as well. Anyway...
Third is eating. Except for one sit down place in a very barren Art Deco style, there are a couple of burger and sandwich joints, that were very lined up. They actually encourage you to eat at Disney Village, but I find this to be a dreary concrete jungle by day (helped by the lights at night).
So I settled on the Backlot Express (borrowed from MGM). I had a pre-packaged, four-bite sandwich for 5 euro 30 (ouch!) and a pre-packaged, small dessert for 2 euro 30. I sat looking at a wall. This was a far cry from TDS where even after six days I hadn't exhausted all the wonderful eating experiences - not to mention the great service. Here, it was just grab your package off the shelf. So my eating experience doesn't register on any kind of lasting memory scale.
Fourth is park management. I saw lots of cigarette butts, the hampers in the washrooms were overflowing with paper towels early in the day, making me wonder if they had been cleaned out the night before. The only line (because most shows start at a certain time) was Armageddon. It said 15 minutes. It was almost 40. That is poor management. Overall, not good marks here.
Finally, the shows. This is the heart and soul of WDS, and overall the shows are quite good.
Cinemagique, which I saw first, is an amusing trip through movie history with Martin Short caught up in famous scenes. There are a few in-theatre effects including the usual water spray. It lasts 25 minutes and is an enjoyable presentation.
Moteur...Action is the car stunt show, done in the "Indy we're shooting a movie style," and it features some head-turning stunts with the usual broad humour. It's quite a good show and needs to be seen more than once as things happen quite quickly.
Animagique is a trip trough Disney movie history with Donald Duck (and a bit of Mickey). It uses puppets like MGM's Mermaid, and costumed characters. I found it to be under-produced, and quite forgettable. In fact, I can barely remember any of it, except for the ending which had six costumed characters and a large, pink elephant jumping up and down in front of a black backdrop singing "la la la la Animagique." It was pretty lame. Aimed at kids I guess, which is good because they only have one kid ride to go on.
Armageddon is a 5-minute FX show were you board a movie set of Mir and an asteroid crashes into it, sending smoke and fire (it's hot!) into the space. It's a fun show, but nothing earth shattering (no pun intended).
The Art of Disney Animation is very well done, beginning with displays showing the history of animation (started in prehistoric France of course), then onto the standard Disney Classics theatre, a humourous bit with Mushu and an animator, then a hands-on display area where people can draw along with an animator. Pretty good.
Overall, the shows are solid, but I think they needed to be a bit better given that they are the main focus of the park, and there is not much else to see or do. They certainly don't stack up to the TDS shows, except the car show for which TDS has no equivalent.
The best part of the day was being given access to DLP at 5pm for the final three hours. I found WDS to be extremely lacking in most ways, by far the worst theme park I've been in, and quite frankly, embarrassing after visiting TDS.
I understand why they have built the park, and I know perhaps it is not fair to compare since the market is different and financial goals are different, and all that. I can only judge it from what I saw. I what I saw, save a couple nice shows, was pretty feeble. I hope the Parisians enjoy it. I feel a bit sorry for them compared to the people in Tokyo.
I'll break my impressions down into five areas.
First is asthetics and theming. Simply put, there is very little. There are bland show buildings to house the attractions, but really nothing else to look at, no nice places to saunter or sit. I've been to many movie studios (including real ones) and this doesn't look or feel anything like a movie studio, or a theme park for that matter. It just looks like a strip of asphalt with a few buildings strewn about. You can see from one end of the park to the other. I saw a lot of bored looking people sitting on the scant patches of grass by 1pm. It's hard to rate something when there hasn't been any attempt to provide it. It's simply missing in action.
Second is rides. There are three.
The Flying Carpets, which despite a little more theming than Florida (Genie is the director), looks like a glossy parking lot carnival ride, just stuck at one end of the park at the edge of the asphalt. I was shocked with how poor this appeared. The ride itself is pretty, but its location made it look like a parking lot carnival ride.
Next is the ubiquitous tram to nowhere. It's kind of hard to have a Studio Tram Tour when there is no actual studio. You go one direction to Catastrophe Canyon (which seemed smaller than Florida), and double back to the Reign of Fire set screaming past the wardrobe warehouse on the way. Jeremy Irons provides some levity in his narration, but this is a real bore.
Finally, we have RnRC. The show building is non-descript, and there didn't seem to be a pre-show. There's a studio room with the band on a video screen a la MGM, but we just breezed through as Steven Tyler muttered a line about trying something new. But I didn't know what that was. We launched and looped past some lights, but I never figured out what the story was, unlike MGM where you know you are crossing LA to get to the Forum. So I found this overall inferior to MGM, not to mention redundant since DLP already has an indoor, looping, launcing coaster.
DLP also has a Aladdin walkthrough, so they've doubled up on the theming there as well. Anyway...
Third is eating. Except for one sit down place in a very barren Art Deco style, there are a couple of burger and sandwich joints, that were very lined up. They actually encourage you to eat at Disney Village, but I find this to be a dreary concrete jungle by day (helped by the lights at night).
So I settled on the Backlot Express (borrowed from MGM). I had a pre-packaged, four-bite sandwich for 5 euro 30 (ouch!) and a pre-packaged, small dessert for 2 euro 30. I sat looking at a wall. This was a far cry from TDS where even after six days I hadn't exhausted all the wonderful eating experiences - not to mention the great service. Here, it was just grab your package off the shelf. So my eating experience doesn't register on any kind of lasting memory scale.
Fourth is park management. I saw lots of cigarette butts, the hampers in the washrooms were overflowing with paper towels early in the day, making me wonder if they had been cleaned out the night before. The only line (because most shows start at a certain time) was Armageddon. It said 15 minutes. It was almost 40. That is poor management. Overall, not good marks here.
Finally, the shows. This is the heart and soul of WDS, and overall the shows are quite good.
Cinemagique, which I saw first, is an amusing trip through movie history with Martin Short caught up in famous scenes. There are a few in-theatre effects including the usual water spray. It lasts 25 minutes and is an enjoyable presentation.
Moteur...Action is the car stunt show, done in the "Indy we're shooting a movie style," and it features some head-turning stunts with the usual broad humour. It's quite a good show and needs to be seen more than once as things happen quite quickly.
Animagique is a trip trough Disney movie history with Donald Duck (and a bit of Mickey). It uses puppets like MGM's Mermaid, and costumed characters. I found it to be under-produced, and quite forgettable. In fact, I can barely remember any of it, except for the ending which had six costumed characters and a large, pink elephant jumping up and down in front of a black backdrop singing "la la la la Animagique." It was pretty lame. Aimed at kids I guess, which is good because they only have one kid ride to go on.
Armageddon is a 5-minute FX show were you board a movie set of Mir and an asteroid crashes into it, sending smoke and fire (it's hot!) into the space. It's a fun show, but nothing earth shattering (no pun intended).
The Art of Disney Animation is very well done, beginning with displays showing the history of animation (started in prehistoric France of course), then onto the standard Disney Classics theatre, a humourous bit with Mushu and an animator, then a hands-on display area where people can draw along with an animator. Pretty good.
Overall, the shows are solid, but I think they needed to be a bit better given that they are the main focus of the park, and there is not much else to see or do. They certainly don't stack up to the TDS shows, except the car show for which TDS has no equivalent.
The best part of the day was being given access to DLP at 5pm for the final three hours. I found WDS to be extremely lacking in most ways, by far the worst theme park I've been in, and quite frankly, embarrassing after visiting TDS.
I understand why they have built the park, and I know perhaps it is not fair to compare since the market is different and financial goals are different, and all that. I can only judge it from what I saw. I what I saw, save a couple nice shows, was pretty feeble. I hope the Parisians enjoy it. I feel a bit sorry for them compared to the people in Tokyo.