Coaster Kingdom  Disney Studios  Our Thoughts

Pictures used with permission from Mouse Planet. Visit for an excellent Photo Essay of Disney Studios.

Disney are masters of the philosophy that a theme park should be a work of art that appeals to, and entertains all ages and tastes. They could easily fill a park with six or seven waltzers, have no theming what so ever and only sell greasy burgers in way of nourishment, yet still attract droves of people just by attaching the name ‘Disney’ to the attraction.

I have been a Disney fan for as long as they have upheld this tradition. I am less a roller coaster enthusiast and more a theme park enthusiast, enjoying every element that makes a day out at a theme park, whether rides, food or shows.

So, in 2002 Euro Disney, the French company that operate Disneyland Paris Resort open the long awaited second gate; Disney Studios.

The park is between the colourful nightspot, Disney Village and the wonderful existing park, Disneyland Paris. Unlike in America, with only two parks, a brisk walk is all that is needed, not the fifteen-minute bus journey.

Emerald green gates set in a spectacular amber archway sum up the glamour of mid-1900s Hollywood. Gold streaks of light scathe across the gate as your attention is drawn to the centre, which is perfectly finished off with a silhouetted Mickey Mouse and a movie camera within a curly rendition of Mickey’s famed head and ears.

Towering over this bustling plaza to the left, Earful Tower, the cream-coloured water tower topped with the trademark ears of Mickey Mouse. Unlike the American version of this, Paris’ Earful Tower doesn’t carry the MGM marque as it isn’t a brand the French relate to as well as our American counterparts.

Once through the gates, water cascades over Mickey as the magical Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Water features abound this popular photo spot and nice touches such as an escaping broom draw your attention away from the lack of detail elsewhere.

The buildings are nice, architecturally, but lack that little touches I normally associate with Disney. The area is bland. All the buildings are pretty much the same, just on different scales, and it is only the small Sorcerer’s Apprentice water feature that distracts you from this monotony.

Your entrance into Disney Studios is through Studio 1, a low budget Hollywood Boulevard. The apparent cuts in investment are not subtle, and this entrance just screams ‘cheap’. Studio 1 is an enclosed Hollywood film set with little more than a park shop and a restaurant, one of only three in the whole park. The theming in here is better than what you expect it to be following first impressions, but fails to impress on the scale of neighbouring Disneyland Paris. The restaurant is just a clutter of cinematography props, for example.

From here lies the rest of the park. Production Central lies in front panning around to your right, on your right, Animation Courtyard and a towering blue Sorcerers hat as worn by Mickey in Fantasia. Towards the back of the park, the Backlot.

Disney Studios is a park on a pocket-sized scale. Without hesitation, I would say that even Oakwood is larger, both with regards to ride tallies and the actual land the park covers. A brisk walk will get you from one side of the park to another in little over five minutes. The park is at such a scale, it aught to be an area inside an existing park.

To remain a popular park, Disney Studios needs heavy investment, and I don’t think a good day out will be offered until at least four more rides of any gravity are put in.

The first ride I approach is the Flying Carpets of Agrabah, one of just two rides in the park, and almost a carbon copy of the Flying Dumbos next door. On this, you fly carpets as Aladin’s Genie, as a director, makes such comments such as ‘and action’.

The ride is okay, but is rushed and a mess, truly shoehorned into the area. The queuing area is behind the Arabian mural backdrop. It lacks every aspect that Disney excels in. Disney are famed for not missing a thing, on this they have missed everything. I am almost embarrassed as I queue up in what looks like a bus station.

Garden floodlights light up the bare zig-zag queue rack as older visitors poke rubbish behind pipes tied to the pillars supporting the tin roof above.

The Art of Disney Animation is quite good, especially for the cartoon enthusiasts and children among us. It contains a clever mix of narration, animation and your chance to animate your own character. I enjoyed this, children did too, but of course, the niggling feeling that this could have been better prevails.

Rock ‘n Roller Coaster works far better than the Floridian version with a spectacular light show accompanying you as you enjoy a 0-60mph launch and three inversions. The ride is quite shaky already in places – not rough, but hardly as smooth as it aught to be seeing as it is new.

As an attraction, it is far less polished than the original with a flea market approach to theming. The ride looks out on a limb stuck behind a flat billboard beyond a vast approach of tarmac. It hardly impresses to the scale of Florida’s.

The queue doesn’t work quite as well, but the pre-show is shorter which of course gives the ride far more re-ride value. It highlights the language problems evident in the park with Aerosmith originally talking in English, dubbed over in French with English subtitles at the bottom.

Although the station is a clutter with studio props, it works better without the grotty backstreet of Americas. The actual ride benefits beyond comprehension by ditching the flat cut-outs of Hollywood icons and just having a mesmerising light show, which as well as looking fantastic, improves the actual ride experience by a mile.

As an attraction, Rock ‘n Roller Coaster is rather frivolous and flippant, but on the whole, is far more enjoyable than the Floridian one.

Moving on, Moteurs Action is an impressive and entertaining stunt show set on a Mediterranean set of a film. Less slapstick, more gutsy stunts generally featuring cars and some spectacular fireballs throughout.

With toe-curling action and laughs to boot, this show is as good as the park gets for all the family.

Armageddon is good, but could be better. From the outside it looks drab and uninspiring, a bit like a Curzon cinema, but the attraction is good and quite exciting. 80 people see a pre-show explaining how effects in the blockbuster Armageddon were created before going up into a space station to experience a meteor shower including the usual repertoire of effects including bumps and tremors, decompression and balls of fire.

The dialogue in the show is atrocious and features a confusing and distracting mess of translations both through audio dialogue and on-screen.

The attraction is deficient but adequate. It lacks suspense and the feeling of being involved – you are an audience, not someone caught up in the disaster.

Cinemagique is great, but again, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, could be far better. A loud tourist in the audience on their mobile gets sucked into the magique-al world of film.

It is of course a gratuitous excuse to show old films, but seems to work well and is nicely produced. There are a few effects in the auditorium, but the show can either do without these, or at least use them properly.

The Backlot Tram Tour is okay, but not anything special. It doesn’t feature the special effects demonstration as is present in America before you get on the tram, nor the street of house fronts that the tram goes down.

The queuing area is a disgrace, with a zig-zagging queue rack underneath a glorified bus shelter. There are no movie props to look at and no introduction as the long, red trams pull in every ten-or-so minutes.

Each car on this tram has a television with narration courtesy of Jeremy Irons, which although of very high quality is overly confusing and poorly scripted.

The first half of the ride you pass props from various recent films, Dinotopia for example. Catastrophe Canyon follows, and is the highlight of the ride with some of the epic theming and effects absent elsewhere in the park as an exploding petrol tanker slides down a cliff side in a tidal wave of water.

Like most of the attractions at Disney Studios, it is presented to you that you’re on the set of the film before the tram continues on around the back to see just how some of the effects were pulled off.

On the way back to the bus station, you go past a street from the 2001 film Reign of Fire, a London street with stereotypical buildings and a red London bus in the wake of a dragon attack. This is fantastically themed, although offers no more than a fleeting glance.

Generally, the Backlot Tour is much like the studios in general. It comes across as a good idea poorly executed, with a pinch of quality here and there, showing a true blend of frailty elsewhere. Too much time is spent skirting around the edge of the park and doubling back on where you have just been.

Disney Studios is weak. There is not enough content to sufficiently accompany Disneyland Paris, let alone be an accompanying theme park. Not only is the park deficient with regard to ride content, but the tours fail to engage you as they should, restaurants are few and far between, and when found hardly rock your world, and merchandise can all be found elsewhere in the resort.

Disney Studios has no charisma. It has about as much soul as a hospital corridor with vast and bland expanses of featureless grass and tarmac. Ride facades hardly shout ‘come hither’ and are often found in what looks like a car park with a cheap billboard forming the entrance.

As much as I try, I cannot recommend Disney Studios. I obviously consider that the park is new. This would account for the lack of rides and empty spaces that are unavoidable in the park.

Disney have always made it an art-form to hide such blemishes, and whilst I never thought the park would excel in ride count (note ‘would’, not ‘should’), the studio tours would make it a worthwhile day out accompanying Disneyland Paris.

I speak for the three generations that visited in my company when I say that Disney Studios has dropped the baton that has been held by Disney for so long.

Perhaps compared to other parks Disney Studios isn’t as catastrophic as it may sound. But I have no hesitation in saying this is one of the poorest parks I have visited and by far the worst Disney park I have ever been to.

I visited Disney Studios honestly wanting it to be a nice park. I left Disney Studios wishing it was.

Kelly Price

Pictures used with permission from Mouse Planet. Visit for an excellent Photo Essay of Disney Studios.

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