Transformative Multi-Year Expansion Announced for WDS Paris

[Sir_Cliff]

What really sucks is DSP, even after the Frozen land is built will only have like 3-4 big rides, 2 mid tier, and the rest small kids rides. Still a half day park.....

I think in terms of raw numbers WDSP is still a little light, but at least since Remy opened I think it actually has a pretty decent line-up of attractions. The problem has been more lack of a real connective tissue between them to make the park an appealing place to stay once you've gone on all the rides you want. Crush's Coaster also often has such a long queue that it's not worth doing unless you get there first thing in the morning.

I'm kind of curious how the park is going with the longer opening hours as I would imagine most people still try and get there first thing to get the chance to ride Crush and are then finished by around the middle of the day. I guess park hopping and the proximity to the hotels makes it easy for people to return if they want to see the drone show and maybe with Avenger's Campus the day is easier to fill. At any rate, booked a kind of last minute trip to go there in a few weeks, so am interested to see for myself!

 

[J4546]

With big rides they got

ToT - the smaller version as well I believe, not the much better FL version. I may be wrong

Iron Man Coaster - rethemed RnRc with meh reviews

Remy - a solid darkride that used to be exclusive but people call it a D ticket at Epcot

And in a couple years a Frozen Ride thats a clone of a 30 year old ride that's being built in what seems to be the weakest frozen land of the 3 currently being built.

Mid level rides they got

Crushes Coaster - seems to be the highlight of the park to a lot of people, looks cool and currently exclusive

Web Slingers - solid dark ride but they apparently didn't update the levels so your playing in California campus? Maybe I read wrong or it's been updated.

Maybe the rethemed cars thing could be considered mid tier?

Then it's just small spinners and little things.

Not a very solid lineup imo. No major exclusive rides. Every other park has major exclusive rides. Paris is getting screwed

 

[marni1971]

With big rides they got

ToT - the smaller version as well I believe, not the much better FL version. I may be wrong

Iron Man Coaster - rethemed RnRc with meh reviews

Remy - a solid darkride that used to be exclusive but people call it a D ticket at Epcot

And in a couple years a Frozen Ride thats a clone of a 30 year old ride that's being built in what seems to be the weakest frozen land of the 3 currently being built.

Mid level rides they got

Crushes Coaster - seems to be the highlight of the park to a lot of people, looks cool and currently exclusive

Web Slingers - solid dark ride but they apparently didn't update the levels so your playing in California campus? Maybe I read wrong or it's been updated.

Maybe the rethemed cars thing could be considered mid tier?

Then it's just small spinners and little things.

Not a very solid lineup imo. No major exclusive rides. Every other park has major exclusive rides. Paris is getting screwed

Mickey and the Magician?

Pixar : We Belong Together?

Frozen - a Musical Celebration?

Cars Road Trip?

Disney Junior Dream Factory?

Dining?

Theres another 3-4 hours at least.

No major exclusive rides

Flight Force? Tower of Terror? Road Trip? Plus 3 unique shows.

The park will still need work. I’m not defending that. But I went when it was a half day park and it’s much better now than it was. And will be again with the expansion and dedicated night show.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I remember going last time in 2017 and with the 10am-6pm hours that was not enough time to do all the rides and shows at the Studios.

I would imagine that is even more true now and in the future.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I think in terms of raw numbers WDSP is still a little light, but at least since Remy opened I think it actually has a pretty decent line-up of attractions. The problem has been more lack of a real connective tissue between them to make the park an appealing place to stay once you've gone on all the rides you want. Crush's Coaster also often has such a long queue that it's not worth doing unless you get there first thing in the morning.

WDSP has 11 rides right now and will have 13 when Frozen and Rapunzel's spinner open. Again, not including shows.

That's not really any worse than the WDW 2nd gates in basic numbers, but as you say it's the stuff in between that's lacking.

 

[cjkeating]

I remember going last time in 2017 and with the 10am-6pm hours that was not enough time to do all the rides and shows at the Studios.

I would imagine that is even more true now and in the future.

I agree. It might not be a full day park if you are a regular but for first or occasional visits there is more than enough to fill a day at WDSP. But it does need more high quality repeatable attractions.

 

[Jordan dby]

The ride selection is fine, it's the aesthetics that bother me. Big open concrete spaces which actually could be easily utilised (characters, street performers) but for some reason rarely are.

Hollywood style boulevard will help

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

Regardless of the additions- and some are good- I find its still a very ugly and disjointed park.

 

[fradz]

It’s going in the right direction, but there’s still a lot of work, especially when you exit studio 1 and look on both sides. The park was nicknamed Hangarland up until recently on French forums…
It’s still at the bottom of the rankings for Disney Parks, but it has potential…

 

[HauntedPirate]

With big rides they got

ToT - the smaller version as well I believe, not the much better FL version. I may be wrong

Iron Man Coaster - rethemed RnRc with meh reviews

Remy - a solid darkride that used to be exclusive but people call it a D ticket at Epcot

And in a couple years a Frozen Ride thats a clone of a 30 year old ride that's being built in what seems to be the weakest frozen land of the 3 currently being built.

Mid level rides they got

Crushes Coaster - seems to be the highlight of the park to a lot of people, looks cool and currently exclusive

Web Slingers - solid dark ride but they apparently didn't update the levels so your playing in California campus? Maybe I read wrong or it's been updated.

Maybe the rethemed cars thing could be considered mid tier?

Then it's just small spinners and little things.

Not a very solid lineup imo. No major exclusive rides. Every other park has major exclusive rides. Paris is getting screwed

Spoken like someone who knows about the park only via YouTube videos, and that may be generous.

 

[UNCgolf]

Once Frozen Land rolls around, it'll be a solid add-on for a Disneyland Parc Paris visit, but it still won't be able to hold its own in a great way, but the steps they have taken are working, and I'm very excited about the park's future. I can't help but stress how badly it needs another land after Frozen.

Frozen Land would be a bigger help if they weren't just cloning a poor C ticket as the headlining attraction.

FEA is in the bottom tier of attractions at WDW -- while it's not the worst, if you throw out flat rides/spinners there are only a few attractions behind it -- and they should have designed something new.

 

[HauntedPirate]

No idea if he's been or not, but as someone who's been there, it's still easily the worst Disney/Universal Park in the world by a mile.

It's an okay add-on now for Disneyland Parc Paris, whereas before, I mean if you're already there you might as well, but it felt more like a poorly themed land with a handful of good rides.

Once Frozen Land rolls around, it'll be a solid add-on for a Disneyland Parc Paris visit, but it still won't be able to hold its own in a great way, but the steps they have taken are working, and I'm very excited about the park's future, yet I can't help but stress how badly it needs another land after Frozen partly because of how little theming there is in the park already paired with Frozen: Ever After being a weak ride.

WDW was underfunded for decades until the expansion period from Pandora to TRON, yet the Orlando parks still need more; those additions were more like catching up to a standard they should be at rather than purely expansion.

You have to remember that WDS was starting from a significantly worse position than WDW.

I mean though, unless you're visiting Disneyland Parc, which is absolutely stunning in a way no other "Castle Park" can compete (albeit in need of a major new E-ticket), there's also Europa Park, Efteling, and Phantasialand in Europe that are all significantly better than WDS, so there's no legitimate good reason anyone would go just for WDS even after Frozen opens.

I view that as a good gauge of how good a park really is. Secondary parks can top main parks all the time. Islands of Adventure easily tops Universal Studios; DisneySea obviously tops Tokyo Disneyland as well, EPCOT tops MK for me with its two new modern rides, etc.

WDS was like an even worse version of how abysmal California Adventure was to Disneyland before Cars Land. Cars Land will be far superior to Frozen Land, so WDS is improving, but I can't help but think it still is in DLP's massive shadow until they get another land on top of it all.

Disney should be held to their original plan. My guess is they get a Pandora land on the Galaxy's Edge plot if the current round of investment is successful.

I can't argue that it's probably the weakest Disney park I've been to, even though I went to DCA when it was the better incarnation before they dropped the Pixar bomb on the place. That being said, it's still good, it just needs "better".

They're moving in the right direction, no doubt. However, it's still hamstrung by underinvestment, or perhaps "misguided investment" is a better way to phrase it. Better spending coupled with a better vision is what could make it a great park. Kind of like the amount of money they've spent on Epcot - They've spent far too much and gotten far too little from it, and it feels like that's the exact same direction they are taking with WDSP. That is also part of a larger problem of the Iger era - spending a boatload of money but building these insipid "mini-lands" with a fraction of what it actually needed. The Rat area is fantastic and was very well done, but it has one ride (But, maybe it doesn't need more and they need to do more elsewhere). Examples at WDW: The Fantasyland expansion needs more. GE looks good but it needs more. TSL ... no need to beat that dead horse. Everything is underbuilt and feels incomplete, or else things get an obscene amount of money and the result is underwhelming. Under the Bob's, "good enough" suffices when "better" needs to be their floor, not their ceiling.

 

[Jordan dby]

I might annoy a few people but in my opinion magic kingdom is the worst disney park and it is the only one I wouldn't look forward to visiting.

 

[IMDREW]

How much did that new Cars tram ride cost again? Somethings off with spending for real.

 

[Indy_UK]

I don’t think they spent a lot. Purely an update as filler while they did the new lake expansion. After that opens, I can see it going

 

[cjkeating]

How much did that new Cars tram ride cost again? Somethings off with spending for real.

It is a lot on paper and compared to what any normal theme park would spend but for Disney it was about as cheap as they come.

I don’t think they spent a lot. Purely an update as filler while they did the new lake expansion. After that opens, I can see it going

It is very much Disney "temporary" in that it will stay until they need the land for something else. After Frozen there are three expansion pads before this land would be required unless they choose to use this before then. So in the Disney timeline it could last until 2040. Whilst it is cheap capacity now as the park (hopefully) gets busier this capacity will never not be needed.

 

[cjkeating]

I don't really get why everyone is so nervous about future expansion at WDSP... the park has literally been under constant expansion since the day it opened. The only real reason why its expansion slowed was because it was during one of its verging on bankruptcy phases then the TWDC takeover phase and then then COVID pause which all makes the progress slower than it should have been.

It wouldn't surprise me if after Frozen they get in a 5 year major expansion cycle at WDSP (to help bridge the anniversary celebration gap years) supplemented by other placemaking improvements in WDSP and hopefully some select thematically appropriate ride investment in Disneyland Park.

 

[SaveDinosaur]

Disney should have gone the Fantasy Springs route and opened three areas at once for the 2024 Olympics, that way they would have great capacity for the new influx of tourists that will come for the event and new lucrative opportunities, like more dining and spending across the resort, while leaving a time gap for Disneyland Park to receive something new in the near future...

Unfortunately, Iger probably wanted massive marketing pushes generated by opening one area per year...

 

[cjkeating]

Disney should have gone the Fantasy Springs route and opened three areas at once for the 2024 Olympics, that way they would have great capacity for the new influx of tourists that will come for the event and new lucrative opportunities, like more dining and spending across the resort, while leaving a time gap for Disneyland Park to receive something new in the near future...

Unfortunately, Iger probably wanted massive marketing pushes generated by opening one area per year...

Olympics don't create the tourism boost that you would expect, at least not during the Olympics. I speak from experience from London 2012 when the city was dead because regular tourists didn't come (because all the hotels were fully booked or expensive) and locals where possible went on holiday out of London to avoid the Olympic chaos and workers worked from home where possible. Also the majority of the people who attend the Olympics are from the country they are hosted in, so their vacation time is used to visit the Olympic games. Yes there might be some crossover attending other tourist venues but it would be limited. So maybe a day trip to DLP but this will be at the cost of them not doing a 2/3/4 night stay.

The tourism boost comes afterwards, the Olympics is to an extent a 2 week tourism promotion for the city and country. I'm very much expecting DLP to have a soft 2024 Summer and I hope they have looked at previous Olympic trends to realise this themselves so a 2025 opening for Frozen could work well for them as it will give people who saw Paris 2024 a reason to visit in 2025.

 

[SaveDinosaur]

Olympics don't create the tourism boost that you would expect, at least not during the Olympics. I speak from experience from London 2012 when the city was dead because regular tourists didn't come (because all the hotels were fully booked or expensive) and locals where possible went on holiday out of London to avoid the Olympic chaos and workers worked from home where possible. Also the majority of the people who attend the Olympics are from the country they are hosted in, so their vacation time is used to visit the Olympic games. Yes there might be some crossover attending other tourist venues but it would be limited. So maybe a day trip to DLP but this will be at the cost of them not doing a 2/3/4 night stay.

The tourism boost comes afterwards, the Olympics is to an extent a 2 week tourism promotion for the city and country. I'm very much expecting DLP to have a soft 2024 Summer and I hope they have looked at previous Olympic trends to realise this themselves so a 2025 opening for Frozen could work well for them as it will give people who saw Paris 2024 a reason to visit in 2025.

Well, I actually live in Rio de Janeiro and the city was packed for the Olympics, to this day I have never seen so many tourists here, but maybe that is because we aren't a major tourist city like London. Anyway, I just think that with 2024 being a big year for Paris and Disney having more faith in DLP, they should have done like TDL and built three areas at once.