Disney spent a lot of money on Euro Disneyland, but the team behind it knew how to make the most of their money
They budgeted for a roof over Main Street. We ended up with arcades because that was actually cheaper and the extra money was spent on making the shops themselves nicer.
They budgeted for a castle as big as the one in Florida, but realized a smaller one would give more money for the inside.
Not needing to have a motor and CM in every boat meant Storybookland could have an actual scene inside the cave.
It's knowing how to maximize the potential of a budget, which WDI and Universal Creative now seem to struggle with. They blow a lot of money on frills, and forget the big picture stuff like sightlines, staging and capacity.
After reading the accounts from the french side of Euro Disneyland, I strongly disagree with your assessment. I read Hop!, the book written by Philippe Bourguignon, the man who saved the resort, along with Disney et la France from Sébastien Roffat and it changed my perception on the subject. I view it as Walt Disney Imagineering spent like crazy and delivered too little at the end for the massive budget, leaving management with a resort that could not make money even if it hit capacity during peak periods.
Philippe Bourguignon came from the Accor hotel group and was originally hired to open and run the hotel side of Euro Disneyland. What happened in reality is that as the challenges piled on, Robert Fitzpatrick who was the company's CEO, was unable to deal with them and Philippe Bourguignon became the defacto leader of the resort. After a rough summer where the resort was forecasted to receive 9 millions guests, Mr. Bourguignon locked himself at home with the books and the analysis was shocking. The resort was on paper capable of receiving 12 million guests a year, but in practice, given vacations, slow period and winter, they got 9 million guests. In order to be profitable, the park needed 14 million guests anually. There were too many hotel rooms, prices were too high, the food was too bad, the park didn't have enough to do, etc.
To further the issues, even with the equivalent of 4 billion dollars USD to build the resort then, WDI only delivered a park capable of receiving 50000 guests at once. Bourguignon's calculations were that given the cost overruns and massive debts, he needed capacity for 60000 guests. He confronted Eisner with his findings, who was quite shocked, but nevertheless, authorized an extra 80 million USD budget to be rushed for a 1993-1994 capacity expansion. The goal here was not quality, but to give guests extra things to do. This is what lead to the creation of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, Storybookland Canals and Casey Jr, the Old Mill ferris wheel and all those walkthroughs that now make the park quite fun to visit as they never have a line and are nice visually.
Temple du Peril was rushed, as I estimate there were less than a year between green lighting a new roller coaster and the actual grand opening. The old "Spark Gap Coaster" concept for Tomorrowland was turned into an indian temple in Adventureland and Intamin quickly adapted the old Pinfari TL-59 coaster layout to boost capacity and be more comfortable.
Spark Gap Coaster
Pinfari TL-59 coaster, which was the original layout concept for Temple Du Peril. Temple du Peril initally was not without its challenges, as it opened with a poor (for then!) 1000-1200 riders per hour capacity. It opened with 8 passenger trains and while it achieved its original goal of relieving demand from Big Thunder Mountain, lines remained massive for it. It was meant to be temporary, with the intention that as soon as the financial situation allowed, the ride would be removed and replaced by the planned Indiana Jones EMV and Coaster complex.
The Storybookland Canal ride system was off the shelf, purchased from Mack Rides. Tow Boat rides are popular in Europe, with Efteling having two, Parc Asterix one and so on. Casey Jr. was an off Vekoma prototype powered coaster that was never sold to any other parks after.
Philippe Bourguignon was named CEO of Euro Disney in early 1993 and Steve Burke as his number 2. They went to work on pricing, menu improvements and reducing costs. One good example from the Hop! book was the burger situation. The original hamburgers served at the resort were unpopular, as they were massive "lean burgers" that appealed to the taste of american managements. In practive, the average guests at Euro Disneyland found them dry and tasteless. Every burger across the resort was tasted by the new CEO and the recipes were changed to appeal to guests. End result? Spend some money changing suppliers and contracts and a much more popular food item that became profitable. The duo also transformed the park's restaurants, converting the Cafe des Visionnaires on the hub to an arcade and turning the Explorer's Club sitdown restaurant into a quick service pizza place.
I didn't mention Space Mountain: that project opened only by the sheer will and creative thinking of Philippe Bourguignon. A space was left in Discoveryland for the ride, but the original massive indoor area with the freefall, restaurant, roller coaster and other things was realistic financially. Philippe Bourguignon instructed his team along with a specific team of imagineers to discreetly design a new version of Discovery Mountain. Michael Eisner, the upper management team of Disney in California, along with the banks were not to made aware that they were designing the attraction. One interesting tidbit I remember reading about this was to cover the initial payment to Vekoma for design and fabrication start, it was passed off as a "Big Thunder Mountain emergency repair". It was only when construction was sufficiently far along to not be stopped, paid by the petty cash the resort had on hand, that Bourguignon went up to Eisner and asked him for the ride's budget to finish construction and open it. Eisner was understandably mad, as he felt they had already paid enough for the resort already. He still had no choice but to provide the money and Euro Disney finished building the ride.
Space Mountain: De la Terre a La Lune as it opened as, is to me the most important Disney attraction ever. It was one of the two thing that saved the resort from bankrupcy. It brought millions of new guests, increased revenues and more importantly: made the resort profitable from 1995 to 2001.
What's the other thing that saved the resort from bankrupcy? Bourguignon and his team finding a rich investor, Kingdom Holding Company. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal from Saudi Arabia was persuaded to invest in the company by reinjecting funds and become one of the largest shareholder of EuroDisney SCA. Even after Euro Disney SCA was taken over by the Walt Disney Company in 2017, the only non Disney shareholder to remain was Kingdom Holding.
To conclude, the situation in Paris was a lot more complicated than it appears and it wasn't the Walt Disney Company that found the solutions to save the resort after it opened.
