As many of you know I lived in Paris for over a year during the construction of the Walt Disney Studios Park. During that time I would visit the Disneyland Resort almost every weekend and as a result I wrote many articles for the Internet. Once I returned to the UK in 2001 I continued to write about Disney but made far fewer visits to the Disneyland Resort. I did manage to go back for the opening of the Studios Park in 2002 and I also had a short break to Paris in October 2003, but that was my most recent visit until now.

I was recently asked if I would accompany 35 school children on a bus journey to the Disneyland Paris Resort and of course I jumped at the chance. It would be a very tiring journey but it would be worth it to see how both parks have changed since my last visit nearly 5 years ago. This story will detail our visit to the park, highlighting the good, the bad and the ugly.

We set off from the UK on Friday 8th Feb at 6:30pm travelling by bus and ferry until we arrived at the Disneyland Resort at 9:30am on Saturday 9th Feb. It had been a long journey but we were really excited to have reached our destination and even more pleased to see that it was a glorious sunny day.

We had all had received one of the new 'Discovery' Resort Tickets, which is basically a one day Park Hopper ticket, giving you access to both Disneyland Paris and the Walt Disney Studios park. This is a great idea for those people who only have one day to spend at the resort as it enables them to sample the best of both parks.

The children were all in the 15-16 year old age group and therefore would be visiting the parks unaccompanied. Adults were always on duty at a meeting point and accessible via mobile phone should there be any problems.

We all dispersed at 9:45am and headed off into either Disneyland or the Studios both of which opened at 10am. The group I was with consisted of five adults some of which had been to Disneyland before, but only I had visited the Studios before. We headed off first to the Studios as I felt it would be best to try and visit the latest attractions before the resort got too busy.

Our first port of call would be the security checkpoint at the Studios; this took about 10 minutes to get through. They could have been a little more efficient if they had actually opened all the lanes, but overall it was not too bad. Once through we headed to the main gates of the Studios which were now open and quickly scanned our tickets and entered the park. As usual most people quickly crossed the Front Lot, passed through Studio One and into the main body of the park.

The view you now get as you leave Studio 1 is a lot better that it was 4 years ago. Instead of a vast open space with an industrial feel and no theming you are now presented with a detailed Hollywood Street scene and of course the Tower of Tower looming in the distance. This is a great improvement and hopefully it will be continued to other areas in the park. Our first stop was to call at the Tower of Tower to get a Fast Pass. Already the standby line was showing a 45-minute wait, even though the park had only been open for 10 minutes. We all collected Fast Pass tickets for 11:05 – 11:35 and headed off to the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster.

The route to the Rock 'n' Roller coaster and the area around it has changed very little since my last visit in 2002, it is still un-themed and industrial. It is a vast open space of black asphalt with little or greenery or landscaping. The wait time for the attraction was showing 10 minutes and we quickly passed through the internal queue and reached the pre-show area. I am still disappointed by how the queue and pre-show are themed much less than those at Walt Disney World. The pre-show in Paris has no story at all and only appears to be there to break up the guests into smaller groups before they enter the final queue area.

Once on the ride much of the failings for the level of theming can be forgiven, as the ride itself is as exciting as ever. The high-speed launch and multiple inversions are just as thrilling with the Disco lighting theme found in Paris as they are with the Hollywood 'cut-out' theme in Florida. We exited the ride with plenty of time before our Fast Pass could be used on the Tower of Terror so we walked round to the new Toon Studios area.

This is another area that has seen some recent investment and it has made it a more interesting and pleasant place to visit. There are new trees and planters, a lick of paint has been applied to some of the older buildings to tie them together and of course there are the new attractions. The down side is that this area is the only part of the park that really caters for smaller children (until the Stitch attraction opens), meaning that it was very busy. The standby queue for Crush's Coaster was already at 90 minutes, which is not much fun for a small child. Cars Race Rally also appeared to have a very long line and therefore we decided to not ride either and leave the spaces for the kids. Instead we noticed that the 10:45 Animagic show was just about to start, so we entered the almost full theatre, finding seats towards the rear on the left hand side.

I have never seen the show before, as it was not operating during the Studios preview that I attended. The theatre is quite large and the interior is very dark, there is a good reason for this as the show is presented for the most part using 'black light' or ultraviolet light to be more correct. It is a cute show featuring Mickey, Donald and a host of other Disney characters.

My one reservation is that it appeared to be run with a minimal number of performers. As I have never seen the show before I can't really comment on how many cast members were in the show originally, but the performance we saw had only 5 people in it. They had to dress up as Mickey and Donald, all the other characters and operate the black light puppets. At times this lack of performers was very obvious, as the stage would look too big and empty with only perhaps two performers in what should have been a big production number. Clearly there have been budget cuts in this show and I would be interested to hear from anyone who can tell me how many cast members this show originally had.

We left the Animagic theatre and headed across the street to the Tower of Terror as our Fast Passes were now valid. As you enter the area around the Terror of Terror you feel like you have moved into a different theme park, the level of detail and quality of finish is significantly better here than in any other part of the Studios. This attraction would not feel out of place in the richly themed Disneyland next door. The queue area is packed with antiques and the attention to detail is on a par with that found in many other Disney parks. The ride here is of course and exact copy of the one in California so many of you will know what I am talking about. The library pre-show area is excellent and so is the atmospheric and vast boiler room where we wait to board our elevators.

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© 2008 Ian Parkinson