Transformative Multi-Year Expansion Announced for WDS Paris

Parkatm

New Member
Well there surely can come with other ideas to reproduce the same effect.
They already have the ride system used for Radiator Spring Racer, it’s not totally the same but the idea is to make sure that the vehicle looks like it is riding some other kind of tracks that the one it is already riding : i.e. a real road for Cars or a secondary track for Donkey Kong. I would love one day to race a sort of mountains national park road on a motorbike.
I guess they could so something similar for the speeders in Star Wars but I imagine it would be difficult to make it because like the motorbike it is a one person type of vehicle and it would ne be efficient for the capacity of the ride. You’d have to put 2 people side by side, either on the same speeder but it would damage the searched effect or each on on its speeder but it would mean that both speeders have to look like they are driving on a road while today the Cars ride system can only do that for one centered vehicle (sorry if you have trouble to understand me, english is not my native language).
I think that for the SW rumor, we are more on a standard motorbike coaster like Tron with maybe speeders on it but still with a track underneath. And obviously, it will be complicated to integrate it into the story. I think that because there was a rumor a few years ago that DLP wanted to have Tron in its Discoveryland. I think a motorbike coaster is something they’ve wanted for a long time and it’s not very usual to have this type of coaster in Europe. I did one in Toverland but it was not very sophisticated.

edit : there is actually a park that makes some kind of motorbike coaster on road and it is Genting Skyworlds in Malaysia. the attraction name is « Mad Ramp Peak - Full Throttle Racing ». I’m not sure it is open yet. It seems to link both bikes in the middle and then it’s a single hole in the middle of the road like. I don’t know if this is immersive enough for Disney. But that’s what I would imagine for a speeder race ride. ^^
 
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SplashJacket

Well-Known Member
Didn’t Uni patent this ride system?
Yes, and while I am far from a patent lawyer, you could likely circumvent the patent by using a different system. I haven't dug too deeply into it, but the patent filings seem to continuously mention being on a faux track/riding surface but don't mention just not having a fake track at all. It also only shows the vehicle-mounted from the side with a track perpendicular to the ride vehicle, but for what I was suggesting, you would just have a normal coaster track parallel to the vehicle's floor and connected directly below. Effectively, it would just be like a normal coaster train, except it would have a booster bar that elevates the vehicle a few feet off the ground.

From the patent itself, it states
"a simulated ride surface positioned above the track and beneath the passenger vehicle;" it wouldn't have a simulated surface because it's simulating flight. As for track beneath the passenger vehicle, that's any coaster ever (barring inverted coasters)

"wherein the simulated ride surface is configured to imitate a path of the passenger vehicle, the bogie is coupled to a surface of the passenger vehicle via a leg member extending around the simulated ride surface, and the leg member suspends the passenger vehicle above the simulated surface such that the bogie and the track are blocked from a passenger view perspective of the passenger vehicle."

Once again, I'm no patent lawyer, but "the bogie is coupled to a surface of the passenger vehicle via a leg member extending around the simulated ride surface" suggests that it's coming from the side, and not directly from below. I really don't think this patent covers coaster vehicles that are essentially coasters on a stick, but instead covers side-mounted disguised coasters.

Donkey Kong's effects will be awesome, but the side mount is a need specific to it, and not what I suggested. My suggestion would be more inline with the slit on RSR where the car is connected.

The patent specifically says "The boom coaster of claim 18, wherein the leg member is a substantially “J”-shaped boom." which really makes me believe it's fair game to do what I was suggesting as the "J'-shaped boom is pictured below and included in all the patent photos.
1680517081533.png
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Donkey Kong's effects will be awesome, but the side mount is a need specific to it, and not what I suggested. My suggestion would be more inline with the slit on RSR where the car is connected.
But then surely it would be back to square one since the rider would still see an apparent “track” (the slot)?

Personally I would prefer to see the budget spent elsewhere, especially given it would be a coaster next to a coaster. More so I’d still prefer Rise in WDSP. But hey.
 

Moon knight

Well-Known Member
What makes me sceptical about this timeline is that this would mean we get four new (mini) lands (Frozen, Lion King, Star Wars, Pandora) within roughly five years. This would be highly ambitious even for TDL which does not shy away from major investments. The same time we are discussing all the budget limitations and how Avengers Campus had to cut corners, Frozen only getting one ride, etc.
Unlike TDR, the Parisian resort has insane development delays, we're talking about decades not even years. The WDC has realised the true value of the hyper-regulated European market, unlike China, which does not have the same type of consumption at all, and DLP is the only Disney resort that is not perpetually confronted with natural disaster risks.
The Chinese parks are unmanageable with the hold of the Chinese communist party. In Europe, they are mostly bringing the parks in line with the American experience, if not exceeding it in terms of quality and hospitality. The new entry sequence with the security checks is just beautiful, Disney Village is going to get closer to the Disney Springs offering and the WDS will start to feel more "complete", as far as the offering is concerned, than some of the WDW parks.
In fact, they're trying to figure out today how this resort, which is really becoming a holiday and meeting destination for friends or co-workers, could accommodate an adapted version of the Magic Band+.
However, certain functionalities would not be possible in France due to the European data protection policy and some requests of the CNIL.

The choice of The Lion King is well thought out, they know that it is the right time to build an attraction based on this masterpiece. Avatar and Star Wars will arrive 1 or 2 years later, frankly we won't complain. The logic is to bet on exclusivity again after copying and pasting attractions that already exist elsewhere. They already did very well with Mermaid Lagoon, yet there aren't that many key places in Atlantica apart from the palace, Ursula's lair and Ariel's cave. They'll get you through it just fine, no worries there.

@Parkatm other projects are planned for Adventureland in the long term with WDW, these expansions are 1000 times more consistent with the theme of the land, the Lion King in Adventureland is almost as outrageous as putting Zootopia in DAK. In DLP Adventureland is divided into geographical areas and they have no more room in the African area...

I would add that it is a totally deliberate choice to have only one Frozen attraction at the moment and not a lack of budget. It's the kind of universe where one attraction is enough, beyond one it would become redundant. Afterwards, they will always have the possibility to build additions to this land, especially when you realise that once under refurbishment, the whole land will be kind of dead...
So far they haven't had any major problems with the budget, it's always been a transfer rather than a reduction in the budget. For instance Tiana's Palace was replaced by a smaller pavilion to improve the concept of the waterside table service restaurant, which was then very similar to DCA's Lampost Lounge.
 

J4546

Well-Known Member
i dont really get the "beyond one would be redundant" argument either....having more than 1 ride in a massive themed area is never a bad thing imo and DSP desp needs it more than any other park. Hopefully something will be added in the future to round the land out, I could absolutely see the cancelled HK sliding sleighs ride being added onto the lake front perhaps or maybe an ice covered mountain coaster like matterhorn in the back.
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
They went with two in HKDL and the universe seems to support the two with no problems from what we know so far.

Also, even if someone really likes Frozen Ever After, it's just a C ticket. It's not remotely close to being a sole headlining attraction for a land; it'd be like building a Finding Nemo/Dory land and then just dropping in the Nemo ride from EPCOT as the attraction. Or building a Toy Story Land that only included Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.

If it was just "hey we're going to add a Frozen ride to Fantasyland" then FEA would be okay -- not great, since it's a badly designed ride, but okay. It's a strange choice as a centerpiece of something new.
 
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Parkatm

New Member
Are these not D-tickets instead of C?
But it doesn't change the argument, I agree with you.

In fact I 'll repeat something I said on the french forum:
Once upon a time, we had big and immersive lands with a general and generic theming like adventure, fairy tales, future, far west...
We could easily fit any attraction of any IP as long as it fits the general theming of the land.
Then, it started shifting. Maybe when Universal built the Harry Potter lands, or maybe before, I don't know when, but we started to build lands with a single IP. That was indeed to make the lands even more immersive because you can actually walk in your favorite places from your favorite movies. So we got Pandora, Radiator Springs, Galaxy's Edge which are very immersives lands, but also very expensive to build and they basically means that all the money goes to one single IP while before, you could balance the IPs and not putting all into the same basket.
So what did they do next? They started to create mini-lands to decrease the risk. Zootopia, Frozen, Ratatouille at our studios (yeah, Paris was early on this trend because the trend appeared to save money and Paris always had to save money ^^)
But I find the mini-lands to be not as immersive as the big IP lands and not even as immersive as the old generic theming lands. In fact, when they multiply the mini-lands around a lake, it makes it look like they deconstructed the old immersive design to reconstruct it, only with no consistency.
The fact that every mini-land doesn't have systematically a E-ticket makes it look like in fact, all the mini-lands are part of a larger inconsistent land and that kills the immersion that was intended to be better. I would prefer that they sticked to the old design of a generic big themed land.

If the lake is like a green fantasyland, I can see the consistency with the Frozen Mini-land at least. But I have trouble to connect the dots with the Lion King world. As for Pandora, if we have it someday, I would expect it to be a big single IP land and not a mini-land.
 

Moon knight

Well-Known Member
They went with two in HKDL and the universe seems to support the two with no problems from what we know so far.
HKDL needed a 40s kiddie coaster that's all... It will feature Olaf and Sven, the two most represented Frozen characters in Frozen Ever After. How original !
Some European fans want to have exactly the same thing as other parks only because the others have it and we don't, except it doesn't work like that. Each park has different needs, HKDL already has a tea cup attraction, WDS does not. The demand for coasters in Asia and Europe is not the same and it would be a mistake to rebuild a very low capacity "family" coaster in this park after the underevaluated capacity of Crush Coaster. They preferred to use the remaining money to have two new and beautiful flat rides rather than a poor Gadget Coaster. Now I agree that it is a bit light, I myself would have re-themed and moved Cars Quatre Roues Rallye here by replacing the cars with sleds.

Also, even if someone really likes Frozen Ever After, it's just a C ticket. It's not remotely close to being a sole headlining attraction for a land; it'd be like building a Finding Nemo/Dory land and then just dropping in the Nemo ride from EPCOT as the attraction. Or building a Toy Story Land that only included Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.
It will be a D-ticket/ D-ticket+ at DLP...
 

Sir_Cliff

Well-Known Member
HKDL needed a 40s kiddie coaster that's all... It will feature Olaf and Sven, the two most represented Frozen characters in Frozen Ever After. How original !
Some European fans want to have exactly the same thing as other parks only because the others have it and we don't, except it doesn't work like that. Each park has different needs, HKDL already has a tea cup attraction, WDS does not. The demand for coasters in Asia and Europe is not the same and it would be a mistake to rebuild a very low capacity "family" coaster in this park after the underevaluated capacity of Crush Coaster. They preferred to use the remaining money to have two new and beautiful flat rides rather than a poor Gadget Coaster. Now I agree that it is a bit light, I myself would have re-themed and moved Cars Quatre Roues Rallye here by replacing the cars with sleds.
To be honest, I don't quite get the argument that WDS needs more flat rides over a new family coaster as the park already seems to have plenty of tame flat rides that aren't swamped by guests as it is. It also seems like a different argument than another ride in Frozenland being redundant. Maybe capacity would have been an issue for the coaster (or whatever else they could have put in there), though the fact Crush's Coaster is swamped doesn't seem like an argument for WDS not needing more family coaster-style attractions.
 

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
If it was just "hey we're going to add a Frozen ride to Fantasyland" then FEA would be okay -- not great, since it's a badly designed ride, but okay. It's a strange choice as a centerpiece of something new.

FEA - It's a Bob Special©!

The exterior visuals will have to be absolutely stunning to justify putting this as the centerpiece across the new lake. They've had time to come up with something better than a clone of a poorly-done overlay.
 

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