Can you believe it? Walt Disney Studios Park has a new restaurant. Not just any dining location, either, but a fully-themed, immersive Table Service restaurant with views through to the unload area of Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy. Read More…
Sunday 22nd June was the big day for more than 50 fan bloggers, reporters and tweeters as we were invited to discover not only Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy but a special preview meal at Bistrot Chez Rémy and an hourlong presentation on the making of the ride by two of the Imagineers themselves.
Staging an event like this purely for a guest list like us was truly unprecedented by Disneyland Paris, but hopefully its success will see the formula repeated again. Besides word that #Ratatouille briefly trended on Twitter in France, it presented a fantastic opportunity for us to gather as much information and as many photos and videos to prepare our blogs and websites ahead of the official public opening date.
In a sense, for every invitee we could take along another thousand or more diehard fans with us. Keeping the fans “in the loop” like this is good for us and great for Disneyland Paris.
No less than 41 live photos were shared on our @DLPToday Twitter feed, mostly focusing on the restaurant preview with the first pictures of its décor, menus and sample dishes. If you missed them at the time or want to relive it all again, here we go! Read More…
Our trip to the Ratatouille: The Adventure Grand Opening previews at Disneyland Paris probably saw more time spent looking at phone and camera screens than directly at the spectacular new attraction and its beautiful Place de Rémy area development — so here are the results! Read More…
Concluding the first full day of the Ratatouille Grand Opening press event, DLP Today takes you to the second, afternoon inauguration ceremony, shares more initial impressions of Place de Rémy and invites you along to the evening Summer Party for music and lights in the newest corner of Disneyland Paris.
This update features 29 photos and 3 Vine video clips, originally shared live on Twitter.
Now, you can relive it here…
Read More…
On Saturday 21st June, DLP Today took you live inside Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy for the first time. After the morning opening ceremony (covered in Part 1), we were able to share the first impressions of a live ride through the new attraction, before quickly skipping off to meet two important Imagineers behind the project.
Then, it was back to the ride for more updates, revealing the Ratmobiles and their load and unload areas in more detail for the first time.
Keep your hands, arms, feet and legs inside the Ratmobile! Read More…
Onto Day 2 of DLP Today‘s live reports from the Ratatouille: The Adventure Grand Opening event, Saturday 21st June 2014, and this is when the rats really began to run loose. We were privileged to capture the main opening ceremony with Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger before riding the attraction itself to share the first live insights.
In fact, there was so much to share — an enormous 71 photos! — that it’s going to be rounded up here for posterity in three parts, beginning with the morning’s press welcome and that picture-perfect opening ceremony, a classic Disney production number dedication.
Here we go again! Read More…
DLP Today has returned from the Grand Opening events of Ratatouille: The Adventure! Throughout Saturday and Sunday, I shared live photos and reports from the events and previews direct to the @DLPToday Twitter feed, taking you to Place de Rémy for a first-hand look as if you were there.
Missed the tweets? Don’t follow Twitter? Or maybe just want to see them again? To prevent all those photos and snippets of information disappearing into the never-ending timeline, here they all are gathered together for posterity.
Beginning, in fact, with Friday 20th June and a quick “live” walk around the resort on a glorious sunny evening, before the #Ratatouille bedlam of the following day… Read More…
Here we go, live from Disneyland Paris! This is your host Anthony reporting along from the Grand Opening weekend of Ratatouille: The Adventure.
To follow all the events as they happen, head straight to the special LIVE page and you’ll see all the latest live photos and information from the brand new attraction at Walt Disney Studios Park in one place. Or, if you’re reading on a phone, you’re best jumping straight to @DLPToday on Twitter and following the action there.
Highlights of DLP Today‘s Grand Opening schedule include the Inaugural Ceremony and Grand Opening of Place de Rémy at 11:00am on Saturday, tomorrow, and The Making of Ratatouille presentation with Walt Disney Imagineers at 11:00am on Sunday, plus lots more surprises in between.
I’ll also be sharing general previews and pictures of the new development throughout both days, along with other live news and views from around Disneyland Paris.
As you might expect, there are bound to be spoilers aplenty as we discover this brand new, world exclusive attraction for the first time and talk to its creators.
Note that as I’ll also be taking notes and collecting photos and videos for reports, some events may be covered more than others and most will be reported more fully in the weeks ahead — so if you can’t follow everything live, come back soon to relive the entire adventure.
I’d love to hear YOUR thoughts too — please reply, comment, tweet as we go!
So join in, and let DLP Today take you there now..!
• Discover Ratatouille: The Adventure on the DLP Guide mini-site!
The “sixtieth” attraction at Disneyland Paris, by official count, sees its Grand Opening for the press this weekend in Marne-la-Vallée. And Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy means a lot more to Disney’s European resort than most of those other 59 attractions.
From the size of the investment to the location inside Disney’s least popular theme park, it’d be easy to think of 60 reasons why this is a really big deal.
But, since there are things to prepare and time’s running out, here are just Six Big Reasons Why Ratatouille Matters…
Space Mountain: De la Terre à la Lune will forever be the addition Disneyland Paris fans regard as the one. Opening in 1995, it arguably saved the resort from financial meltdown — well, until its next restructuring — and provided a big, new version of a Disney classic which Parisian fans could say was all their own. But as a wild thrill ride with height restrictions it wasn’t for everyone and, since the bigger Discovery Mountain project was scrapped, it didn’t have a restaurant or much else to explore around the circular mountain.
In that sense, and even taking the roughly ten new attractions Walt Disney Studios Park brought in 2002, Disneyland Paris has simply never built such a complete and well-rounded expansion. One that everyone can ride, one that has all the necessary theme park infrastructure — dining, shopping, toilets — built in. This is how it should be done.
Since Le Visionarium in Discoveryland saw its all-too-early demise, Disneyland Paris has been lacking a certain French-ness in its parks. That fantastical Circle Vision 360 film was a gem, a real love letter to France; it helped to ground the park and helped the park — and its visitors — relate to its location.
Now, over in Walt Disney Studios Park, visitors can feel like they’re in Paris without ever stepping foot on the RER train to take them into the city.
It might seem mad to build Paris in Paris, but — ah! — this isn’t just any City of Light, it clearly has enough whimsy and “Hidden Rémys” to make it its own place.
This works two ways: it gives the park something very French, which foreign visitors will love, and it gives the park something very French, which the French will love.
Unmistakably connected with Disneyland Paris, it will put the resort on the map both for Disney fans and the general public in a way not seen since Space Mountain in the ’90s.
The Studios’ first and only E-Ticket expansion to date, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, was a huge deal at the time and helped give to the park a focal point a feeling of much-needed atmosphere. But coming almost four years after the exact same version of the ride was built in California, and that a full ten years after the Florida original, there wasn’t much new or fresh to actually be excited about. Construction was more about waiting for the next thing, not waiting to see what’s next.
With trackless vehicles, huge 3D projections, plus physical scenery and physical effects, Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy is a comparatively unknown mélange like nothing seen in any other Disney park, on a scale to be truly excited about, and there are no plans as yet to reproduce it around the world.
It’d be absolutely right to hesitate to say that Walt Disney Studios Park is now a “full-day park”, but with an extra must-do attraction and a table service restaurant, it is almost getting to the point where you would struggle to do everything in a day.
Combined with Disneyland Park, this could begin to tip the balance towards three days in the parks becoming more of a standard at Disneyland Paris, at least for first-time visitors. That’s good for the parks, good for the hotels, good for everything.
After Disney California Adventure, Disney seems to have rediscovered the motto that “investment pays” — let’s please have that apply to Paris, too.
Indeed, more so than any expansion of the park yet, Ratatouille should encourage more visitors to hop to the Studios in the first place — and to hop back again. More visitors in the park could mean more much-needed investment — or at least you’d hope so, because…
There might be a lot of talk this weekend and further ahead of Walt Disney Studios Park “coming of age” or “being fixed”. Let’s be clear: this relatively tiny pocket of pure, proper Disney theme park magic is still just that.
Unfortunately, stepping out of Place de Rémy, you’ll still be confronted by the soulless walkway behind Art of Disney Animation, the featureless Place de Stars in Production Courtyard.
The original Animation Courtyard still lacks anything to write home about, and Backlot is positively bleak. The park is still just a collection of generally very good but largely disparate attractions, lacking any Disney glue — or even enough money-making restaurants and shops — between them.
What this new Ratatouille mini-land does do, however, with its intricate sets, endless hidden nods and spectacular fountain, is set the benchmark: for a type of immersion in storytelling which should be standard, but has still yet to be seen across the park. Toy Story Playland actually did immersion quite well, but not so much the quality of its attractions.
Even Hollywood Boulevard which surrounds The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a beautiful area of the park for almost seven years, lacks any kind of real immersion the second you turn to see the flat Hollywood Hills backdrop or the unrestricted views to the rest of the original backlot-inspired park. Could it finally be completed now?
Now there’s Place de Rémy, there’s no excuse. From Animagique to Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic to Armageddon: Les Effets Speciaux, Ratatouille will prove, somewhat painfully, just how under-performing the rest of the park is — both in how it looks, how it works and how it makes money. And that has to mean major changes.
Star Wars Land? Marvel Studios? Animagique 2?! As one new attraction opens, it seems Disneyland Paris always becomes awash with rumour about what’s next. But right now, we just don’t know, and as we’ve seen in a past, these (often very real) plans have a disappointing habit of never making it to reality.
Even before this year, unless you take Princess Pavilions or Disney Dreams! into account, it’s been a long wait for a genuine expansion since Toy Story Playland.
So as Ratatouille: The Adventure prepares to open its doors, enjoy the moment. You never know how long we’ll be waiting for this feeling of simmering excitement again. Savour it.
• Join DLP Today from 11am this Saturday, 21st June for the Inauguration of Place de Rémy, part of our Ratatouille: The Adventure Grand Opening LIVE weekend schedule.
• Discover Ratatouille: The Adventure on the special DLP Guide mini-site!
The time has come to pull back the curtain on Ratatouille: The Adventure. The brand new dark ride sees its official press preview weekend this Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd June, so come along and join the fun as DLP Guide and DLP Today report LIVE from Disneyland Paris, with access to the ride and lots of surprises! Read More…