Transformative Multi-Year Expansion Announced for WDS Paris

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
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.
 

cjkeating

Well-Known Member
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. :D Whilst it is cheap capacity now as the park (hopefully) gets busier this capacity will never not be needed.
 

cjkeating

Well-Known Member
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.
 

MatheusPG

Well-Known Member
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

Well-Known Member
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.
 

MatheusPG

Well-Known Member
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.
 

LondonTom

Well-Known Member
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.
I think it also helped that they actually run public transport at its actual capacity all day every day (and without works/major downtime by some miracle) and basically cancelled everything else that London usually does (especially in the summer) to make it feel empty 😂.


I think DLP's extra uptake in 2024 might depend on how the ticketing for the Pairs Olympics shakes out with these packages, if there are a lot of people with a day or two between events, I can see them heading to DLP for something different or because Paris itself operating as it usually would.
 

theodau

New Member
In the Parks
Yes
A lot of people are talking about the Olympics but what do you expect from it?
Disneyland Paris is already located in the most visited city in the world AND in the most visited country in the world. However, DLP is not the most visited Disney resort... This proves that the relationship between tourism and park attendance is not that simple.
The Olympics won't make a lot of changes...

Disneyland Paris needs more cutting-edge attractions or even a new park to make it a real multiday destination, not a single day in a much larger trip to France.
 

cjkeating

Well-Known Member
A lot of people are talking about the Olympics but what do you expect from it?
Disneyland Paris is already located in the most visited city in the world AND in the most visited country in the world. However, DLP is not the most visited Disney resort... This proves that the relationship between tourism and park attendance is not that simple.
The Olympics won't make a lot of changes...

Disneyland Paris needs more cutting-edge attractions or even a new park to make it a real multiday destination, not a single day in a much larger trip to France.
Whilst maybe not happening at the speed everyone would like I think the current medium term plan will easily get another day out of visitors.

> New lands, night show and extended park operations in Walt Disney Studios Park
> Rebuilt and expanded Disney Village so its a place people will want to spend time
> Continued investment in new, seasonal and limited time entertainment in Disneyland Park

And with a longer term plan to get a new hotel built on the vacant lake pad.

The last thing the resort needs is another park right now, let's revisit that thought in 10 years.
 

Robbiem

Well-Known Member
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.
London 2012 was badly managed. Organisers were so scared of overload that they ran a big campaign encouraging people not to travel for the games. I remember the build up was crazy busy then when the games started no one without a games ticket went into town. As the games went on it got more busy and people flooded into the public events like the triathlon and the marathon. That level stayed for the time between the Olympics and the paras and then the olympics themselves. It was certainly a special time to be in the city.

Can’t really say if more people visited afterwards I didn’t notice but I get your point about the games being a big travel promo.

I think its interesting that we will have three games in a row in cities with disney parks, Tokyo was obviously not comparable with covid but I wonder if Disney will use Paris to see what they should / shouldn’t do in LA in 2028
 

fradz

Well-Known Member
It has been rumored and talked about for a while but it's now confirmed by OutsidEars: No Tiana QSR (budget cut), and this take-away counter the replacement:

 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
It has been rumored and talked about for a while but it's now confirmed by OutsidEars: No Tiana QSR (budget cut), and this take-away counter the replacement:

beat me to it!

 

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