Progress City, U.S.A. » Disneyland Paris

Good News From Paris – No, Really!

Michael — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:23:13 +0000

A rare ray of sunshine appeared this week for Disneyland Paris, which has spent most of the last twenty years unable to finance expansion because of a domino effect of economic badness. The resort’s second gate, the Walt Disney Studios park, bears the unhappy distinction of being officially The Worst Disney Park In The World, but its attempts to improve itself have been hindered by a lack of sufficient funds.

Happy news, then, that the resort has secured a revolving line of credit from the Walt Disney Company in the amount of €150 million. This is in addition to an existing and yet-untapped credit line of €100 million, making it no coincidence that Euro Disney S.C.A. simultaneously gained permission from its existing lenders to make new investments in the amount of €250 million (currently around $317 million).

This new cash infusion is allegedly earmarked for a new ride based on the film Ratatouille, which has been long planned and for which permits were approved last year. Whether or not Disney has more tricks up its sleeve for this non-insignificant amount is unknown; aside from the Studio park, it’s been a very long time since Disneyland Paris itself has received meaningful new investment. At the very least, the resort is getting something new, and that’s great news.

Neverworlds – The Lost Mediterranean Campground Of Euro Disney In Orlando

Michael — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:12:00 +0000

This is a strange one.

In 1987 The Walt Disney Company released a brochure to promote “Euro Disneyland”, their newly-planned resort complex near Paris. Since the design of the project itself was still in its early phases, a simple conceptual layout was the only piece of original artwork contained in the publication. The rest of the concept art, which purported to show the delights soon to arrive on the Gallic shore, was culled from the Imagineering vaults and consisted of pieces originally created for Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland.

Many of them are familiar; there’s the mandatory Ryman painting of Cinderella castle, as well as his concept for the hub in Tokyo. There are pirates by Davis, Tomorrowland by Hench, and even Walt Disney World’s planned but never built Persian hotel. It might be a surprise to find them in this particular place, but to the savvy fan they’re nothing new. All of them, that is, except for this one.

"Ethel, pass the gnocci and the baked beans..."

I’d never seen this before. In fact, it took me a second to realize what I was looking at. In all the conceptual art for pre-opening Walt Disney World that I’ve seen, this vintage illustration was never included. But here it is, showing up years later as a depiction of what resort opportunities awaited guests at Euro Disneyland.

The scene is inviting – there’s the old world charm in the background, the swooping line of the monorail track, and the building to the right that looks like one of those mod Welcome Centers that promised innumerable adventures (and free juice!) to excited interstate travelers of the era. And Coleman coolers always mean fun is in the offing.

It’s a little bit disorienting at first. But what makes this piece really special is that depicts two – yes, two – Never-Neverworld concepts in one.

Not pictured: Dick Nunis piloting a gondola in a striped polo shirt

The first is probably the most familiar. Thanks to the internet, Walt Disney World fans who weren’t around in the early 1970s now know that there were five hotels originally planned for the Florida resort. By around 1975, the Asian, Venetian and Persian hotels would have joined the Polynesian and Contemporary around the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. Due to a number of factors this didn’t happen, but these Neverworld resorts still loom large in Walt Disney World legend.

So the campanile tower (which would appear in altered form years later in EPCOT Center’s Italy pavilion) seen in our mystery rendering comes from the planned Venetian hotel, which would have been located between the Transportation and Ticket Center and the Contemporary’s water bridge.

The second, and less obvious, element of this piece of artwork is in the foreground, where happy families enjoy a tasty picnic and some of the recreational amenities provided in the Vacation Kingdom of the World.

This is Fort Wilderness. No, not the Fort Wilderness we now know. It wasn’t even called Fort Wilderness at this point. But a campground was in the plans for Walt Disney World, located roughly where the Wilderness Lodge is today. Here’s an overview from 1969 – the planned Polynesian high rise is on the left, the Asian is at the top where the Grand Floridian would later be built, and the campground is at the bottom, adjacent to the Venetian.

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these - 'what might have been!'

So that is the site of our mystery rendering. A long way from Paris, perhaps, but a nice place for a picnic!

The Ryman Centennial: Other Ports Of Call

Michael — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 03:34:55 +0000

Ryman works on a concept painting for Euro Disneyland in 1988; his concept for the Indiana Jones Adventure is in the background

When Herb Ryman returned to WED Enterprises to work on EPCOT Center in 1976, he also helped with conceptual designs for “Oriental Disneyland” – the park that Disney was developing for Tokyo. Most of his work seems concentrated on World Bazaar, the covered area that would replace Disneyland’s traditional Main Street, U.S.A.

The Hub, Tokyo Disneyland

Note the huge expanse depicted in Ryman’s rendering of Tokyo Disneyland’s hub – the park was designed to be far more spacious than the typical Disney park. Also of interest in this piece is that it’s a mirror image of the actual park; Tomorrowland as depicted here is where Adventureland and Westernland are in the real park.

A more futuristic – dare I say contemporary? – concept for World Bazaar from 1976

A World Bazaar that more resembles the final design

A very rough sketch for the World Bazaar entrance

A portion of one of Ryman’s conceptual paintings for Meet the World

Aside from World Bazaar, Herb also worked on Meet the World; this attraction was a Tokyo Disneyland exclusive, although it was originally intended for EPCOT’s Japan pavilion as well. The show, which took place in an adapted carousel theater, took guests through scenes from Japan’s history through the integrated use of animatronics, film, and animation.

Ryman in Tokyo

After wrapping up his work on EPCOT, Herb traveled east once more to recreate some of his adventures from the 1930s. There was a special side trip, though, as Herb stopped in Tokyo to visit the newly-opened Tokyo Disneyland park.

Concept for the S.S. Admiral, a project for Landmark Entertainment

In Ryman’s spare time, he would occasionally work on projects for Landmark Entertainment. Gary Goddard, a former Imagineer, founded Gary Goddard Productions in 1980; it would be renamed Landmark Entertainment in 1985. Landmark has worked on many, many well-known projects over the years, for Universal and others, and in its early days it employed the services of many legendary Imagineers. Alain Littaye has a wonderful collection of their artwork on his site, and we have two of Ryman’s pieces here.

The first, above, is for the S.S. Admiral project in St. Louis. Below is one of Ryman’s pieces for “Phineas T. Flagg’s Power Plant,” an indoor entertainment project designed by Landmark for Six Flags. Lasting only a few years, this remarkable concept was located in a disused power plant on the harbor in Baltimore. Part of a failed attempt at urban renewal, the site was ironically used more than a decade later for the first ESPN Zone – which was shuttered this year.

I’ve gotta say… I wouldn’t mind a Phineas T. Flagg’s Power Plant 2.0.

Rendering for Phineas T. Flagg’s Power Plant

Concept for Euro Disneyland. Note the elevated train on the right, and that’s our pal Dick Nunis with the child on his shoulders.

Much of Herb’s last work for Disney was on the Euro Disneyland project, where he focused on Main Street, U.S.A. The original designs for this land, overseen by Progress Citizen Eddie Sotto, traded in Disneyland’s more rural midwestern Main Street for an urban, Prohibition-era design from the 1920s. The designs were fresh and very promising, but sadly they were pulled by Disney CEO Michael Eisner at the last moment. More artwork from this wonderfully atmospheric concept can be found at Disney and More.

As you can see, Sotto’s Main Street featured an elevated train that would give guests a view of the area from above. It would also feature a genuine 1920s speakeasy, hiding a swinging Jazz Age club in the secret room behind an innocuous florists’ shop. Another concept the Imagineers wanted to feature was a diner based on Edward Hopper’s famous painting Nighthawks. Sadly, this was all lost when the street’s theming was reverted to the turn of the century.

Ryman’s sketch of the Nighthawks diner; the speakeasy’s entrance was via the orange awning to the left

Ryman’s work on Euro Disneyland and other projects like the Indiana Jones Adventure would wrap up his career; sadly, he would never see their debut.

Are You Ready To Party?

Michael — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:24:42 +0000

‘Cause it’s Mormon Night at Disneyland!

It’s a sultry Friday evening in 1981 and you’re spoiling for fun – what better to do than head on over to Mormon Night at Disneyland!

Yes folks, for the low, low price of $7 you can spend 7 PM until Midnight enjoying all the delights of Disneyland – provided they fall within the parameters of the “L.D.S. standards” which will “be observed.” Your ticket covers all the park’s attractions save, of course, the shooting galleries, and don’t forget to thank the Seminaries and Institutes of Religion which sponsored your exciting evening!

For completists, the backs of the tickets:

Euro Disney’s Future That Never Was

Michael — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 18:49:35 +0000

Way back when, it was the tradition for every new Disney theme park – or even major attraction! – to get a big opening special. Euro Disneyland was no exception; it got its ballyhooed stateside debut when The Grand Opening of Euro Disney aired on CBS on April 11th, 1992.

This particular special is not one of the better offerings even in the often-rocky post-Walt television canon; perhaps as some odd harbinger of Euro Disney’s woes, it’s stilted and odd and kind of uncomfortable. It’s hosted, for some reason, by Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, who despite being married at the time don’t seem to like each other very much. They’re not natural hosts, either, and Griffith’s seeming attempts to emulate a first-generation audio-animatronic makes one actually miss Kelly Ripa.

The special is so uninteresting, in fact, that we at Progress City never really revisited it as kids, despite playing our recordings of other contemporary parades and specials to the point of absurdity.

One interesting bit, though, comes towards the end of the special when Johnson and Griffith describe the attractions that are slated to soon debut at Euro Disney. These are the famous lost attractions designed for Fantasyland – a ride based on The Little Mermaid and the animatronic show based on Beauty and the Beast. Despite being designed and announced for the park, they were never built (although a computer-generated simulation of the Mermaid attraction was created for that film’s “Platinum” DVD release). Ariel and her friends have yet to make it to Paris; dark rides based on her adventures is currently under construction in California and Orlando.

The other big project mentioned in the Grand Opening is the Disney-MGM Studios Europe, then intended to open in 1995. This would be Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s attempt to build a second version of this concept after the Disney-MGM Studios opened in Orlando in 1989. Eisner was determined to make this park idea a global franchise; his other efforts would include the Disney-MGM Studios Backlot intended for Burbank and the Disney-MGM Studios Tokyo that he tried to push on the Oriental Land Company as Tokyo Disney Resort’s second gate.

None of those concepts would see the light of day, but a pared down version of the Studios concept would debut in Paris at the Walt Disney Studios park in 2002.

Take a look at the future that was, presented by the effervescent Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson!

Around The World In Eighty Mehs

Michael — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 04:39:21 +0000

A saw a story yesterday that made me realize that there have been a lot of little bits and pieces of news trickling out lately about new attractions that are coming to some of the less-covered Disney parks overseas. These developments don’t tend to get the coverage that new American attractions receive, so I thought that I’d summarize them here.

Now, I know I’ve been a bit of a Debbie Downer lately, what with all the disappointing shenanigans at Feature Animation and Parks & Resorts, but I’m afraid that won’t be turned around by these projects. One can pretty much guarantee that any new project at Tokyo Disneyland will be top notch due to the incredibly high levels of quality and service that the Oriental Land Company manages to achieve, but even they’re getting stuck with some new attractions that are less than… inspiring. But let’s take a look:

Concept art for Fantasmic! at Tokyo DisneySea (Disney)

The most recent announcement came a couple of days ago when the Oriental Land Company announced that it would be replacing its current night-time water show BraviSEAmo! with the similarly punctuated Fantasmic! The new show will debut in April 2011 as part of the celebrations surrounding Tokyo DisneySea’s 10th Anniversary, which is on September 4th of that year.

This might seem underwhelming to Disney fans, who might already have seen Fantasmic! in either California (where it’s played since 1992) or Florida (where it debuted in 1998). Thankfully we can hope for a little of that OLC magic (and their roughly $33.5 million investment) to update the twenty-minute show, as the announcement promises scenes from Aladdin, Cinderella and Finding Nemo. One can expect some new staging, too, on the waters of the park’s Mediterranean Harbor area. The concept art above shows Mickey atop some kind of ziggurat rising out of the water, and it seems apparent that the setup of the show will accommodate the larger lagoon.

BraviSEAmo! will perform its last show on November 13th, 2010, and preparation for Fantasmic! will begin soon after. While it might seem sacrilegious in Disney circles, I really am not a fan of Fantasmic!. In fact, I kinda hate it; it’s just not my thing (save for the giant MechaMaleficent). But hopefully the OLC will pull out all the stops to make it worthwhile. After all, their live shows typically tend to blow the offerings in the American parks completely out of the water.

Of course, DisneySea has been paying the price lately for its decade of awesomeness by receiving a string of cast-offs from other parks. Last year they got Turtle Talk with Crush, which fits beautifully with the 1930s ambiance of the American Waterfront area and the stylish S.S. Columbia. The American Waterfront will be the site of DisneySea’s next expansion, arriving in 2012. We’ve talked about this one before – behold:

Eeeeeehh… (Disney)

Toy Story Mania! (what’s up with all the exclamation points?) will be added to the New York area of the American Waterfront. Hopefully its budget of $129 million will lead to a little plussing.

Now.

Over at Tokyo Disneyland proper, there are a few new attractions on the way. The park, of course, has recently received the massively popular Monsters, Inc. dark ride. While unannounced, it also seems certain that the park will be receiving the upgrades to Star Tours that are on the way to parks stateside. In 2011, Mickey’s Philharmagic will be added in Fantasyland. While that’s perfectly reasonable, it naturally makes me sad because it necessitated the loss of the legendary Mickey Mouse Revue which I will now never be able to see in person. Between the Revue and Meet the World, replaced itself by Monsters, Inc., Tokyo Disneyland was a haven for attractions that should exist at Walt Disney World and I always hoped to see them myself.

Anyway.

Another attraction I’d always wanted to see at Tokyo Disneyland was the Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour, a walkthrough attraction that took guests through the bowels of the park’s iconic castle. This attraction has to be one of the most truly bizarre in Disney park history, leading guests through a series of encounters with various villains to a final confrontation with the Horned King from The Black Cauldron as he tries to raise an army of the damned.

So, yeah. I kinda hated to miss that one. It sounded insane, it was the sole attraction ever to reference The Black Cauldron, and it furthered my inferiority complex about the Magic Kingdom having the only one of the first four Disney castles to not have an attraction of its own. But the Mystery Tour closed in 2006, without replacement. Until now.

Now, I understand the closing of the old attraction and I understand the desire to make the new walk-through, which opens in 2011, focus specifically on Cinderella. After all, it’s her castle. And if we’re embarking on a brave new world of endless princess meet-and-greet interactive experiences, this would be a reasonable place for one. But I want you to take a moment and absorb the piece of concept art that was released to accompany the press release announcing this attraction. This wasn’t released as part of a sequence of renderings, or to emphasize one specific aspect of the project. This was, and as far as I can tell still is, the only piece of artwork that has been released to promote this new attraction. Can you tell I’m really wanting to build this up? So much that I’m going to put a page break below to make you click through to see?

Drum roll, please – gentlemen, behold!

Ummmm…. (Disney)

HAHAHAHA… what?

What’s happening here? Why are there feral children milling around in the distance? Why the ominous empty throne? It’s like Stanley Kubrick presents Cinderella Castle Walkthrough. I hear that Gregg Toland even tore out the floor so he could get the ceiling in the frame. I mean, the artwork itself isn’t bad but as the sole rendering released for this project it kind of looks like the one photograph you have from your vacation that you can’t tell why you took it.

Anyway, I was amused.

Moving around the globe to Paris, we find another mixed bag of omens.

On the positive side, DLRP Today has done some really fantastic sleuthing that indicates that planning and R&D for a dark ride based on Ratatouille is well under way for the subpar Walt Disney Studios park. Special Comment: I’m incredibly excited about that.

Also in the “good news” column can be counted a series of hints by Alain Littaye about the resort’s future. Littaye talks about the possibility of a Ratatouille attraction, as well as the likelihood of Disneyland Paris getting the Star Tours upgrades in time to wrap up the park’s 20th anniversary celebration which will run from 2012 to 2013. He also mentions that the on-again, off-again addition of Soarin’ to the Walt Disney Studios is still under consideration (which earns a “meh” from me, but few others).

The most exciting of Littaye’s news for the Walt Disney Studios is the possibility that, at long last, the unbroken slab of concrete that dominates the park might eventually receive that hallmark of any good Disney park – water! As the Studios eventually expands its makeshift Hollywood Boulevard further into the undeveloped area inside the park, Littaye suggests that Disney will add a lake for the eventual staging of some sort of nighttime spectacular. The current rumor, although it’s for the somewhat murky future, is that the park will receive the Wonderful World of Color show that debuts at California Adventure later this year. All good news for this sad little park; check out Alain’s story for more details about future hotel, conference, and theme park developments in Paris.

Now I hate to end on a sour note, but…

OH DEAR LORD NO! (Photo: DLRP Today)

Before all these future developments, we have to watch Toy Story Playland be inflicted on the Walt Disney Studios park. And, as the picture above shows, this beauty of a park is only going to get more…. magical?

Construction on this new addition has gone vertical, with sightlines across the park being invaded by the gigantic pole for the Toy Soldiers Parachute Jump. Yay?

Oh, that sure is… a thing. Yep. (Photo: DLRP Today)

This construction, of course, also serves as a preview of the Toy Story Land that’s being foisted on Hong Kong Disneyland as part of their upcoming expansion. More construction pictures and information can be found at DLRP Today.

So, you take the good, you take the bad, you take it all and there you have the Walt Disney Parks & Resorts division. But hey, Ratatouille!

“We Haven’t Announced Anything For Paris”

Michael — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:20:07 +0000

They might not have, but they also might want to talk to the people making their park maps. The always-revealing site WDSFans has posted the official 2010 map graphics for the Disneyland Paris Resort and the Walt Disney Studios park itself. And it has a secret for you:

Oh poor Walt Disney Studios – no one will ask it to the prom

Do you see it? Unless the Rowlingesqe strategy Disney is trying to use to hide major construction in plain sight of millions of people has worked, you might notice the as-yet-unannounced Toy Story Playland hiding in the barren wastes of the Walt Disney Studios park:

John Hench is sooooo mad at you right now

I continue to find this hilarious. First Bay Lake Tower, now this. At least that made sense – Disney was trying to unload all its unsold DVC stock before they announced a new resort. But why the secrecy here? To hoodwink the Hong Kong government into thinking their Toy Story Land is an original idea? Or to keep French farmers from burning tractors at the park’s gates when they find out that the park’s next much-needed attraction comes in the form of a trio of carny rides?

This isn’t the Da Vinci code, guys. We can see it on the map!

UPDATE: More information, pictures, and some amusing fan reactions can be found at Disney and More.

Hiding In Plain Sight

Michael — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:11:44 +0000

Nothing to see here… these aren’t the toys you’re looking for… (Photo: DLP.info)

One of the stranger moments of my D23 Expo experience was having one of my questions shot down by Bruce Vaughn, the Chief Creative Executive of Imagineering. At a press conference following the panel discussion of the creation of Pixar-based attractions for the theme parks, I asked about some of the attractions they hadn’t mentioned – those being planned for the Walt Disney Studios park in Paris. To the apparent surprise of many of the fellow Disney obsessives in the crowd, Vaughn’s response was that no new projects had been announced for Paris.

To those in that audience who were less-informed, I might have come off as simply wrong or trying to be sneaky. Truth being told, I was trying to be sneaky – just not in the way you might think.

We’ve known about the upcoming Toy Story Playland for quite some time now. The expansion has been rumored for a few years, and more recently the expansion’s plans and construction permits have been posted online. We even discussed it at length here in April. Obviously, the old adage is that until ground is broken plans can change. The thing is, in this case ground has been broken! The always-informative DLP.info has posted construction pictures of the site, as well as the construction wall art that heralds the arrival of the Toy Story characters. You can understand why I didn’t bother to check to see if a press release had been issued before asking my question!

I wasn’t really asking about the Playland, though. In my oh-so-clever craftiness I thought that by asking a vague question about the Pixar projects underway in Paris instead of asking specifically about the Toy Story rides, I might get a comment about the rumored Ratatouille attraction that is also said to be underway. I couldn’t care less about Toy Story Playland and its three carny rides, but I’m darn sure interested in the rumored trackless Ratatouille dark ride. It’s pretty funny that I didn’t want to look like a jerk asking about a Ratatouille ride that I wasn’t sure had been officially confirmed, so I thought I’d cover myself by asking about the Toy Story Playland which I thought was fair game. Busted.

Obviously, I have no gripe with Vaughn over his answer. After all, if they haven’t announced anything, they haven’t announced anything. The look on the faces of the Imagineers when I asked the question was worth the price of admission anyway. Sorry guys, I knew not what I did! But my question is this: why hasn’t the Playland been announced? This seems to be a Disney trend lately; you might recall the constant denials of a new resort project as the Bay Lake Tower was built in plain sight of thousands of daily guests.

At least with Bay Lake Tower I can understand the reasoning; Disney still had plenty of DVC units to sell at Saratoga Springs and Animal Kingdom Lodge, and didn’t want to spoil that market by dumping all the Bay Lake rooms into the mix. But why the secrecy about the project in Paris that is obviously underway? I can think of two possibilities. The first is that there’s some contractual weirdness with Euro Disney S.C.A. that requires those announcements to be made in specific places and times. The second is that they’re trying to keep the Parisian version of Toy Story Playland under wraps for as long as possible, because an exact clone of the area is one of the three highly-touted expansions for Hong Kong Disneyland. Disney already had the area planned and ready to go for Paris; the Hong Kong version is a copy, and Disney might not want that to be obvious as they deal with testy Chinese officials. Surely the Hong Kong officials know, though; Toy Story Land was a last-minute addition to the HKDL expansions, joining the lineup when Chinese officials nixed the proposed Glacier Bay area.

As for Paris, the toys are on the way. Unless this is the most committed disinformation campaign ever!

Maps! Euro Disneyland Paris, 1994

Michael — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:30:30 +0000

Euro Disneyland Paris, 1994

This isn’t an official park map; it’s from a booklet that Disney distributed at Walt Disney World to promote the Euro Disney Resort to American guests. It shows the park as it was in 1994, which is remarkably similar to how it is today. There were still some small attractions to be added as park of the capacity expansion program that occurred during the 1990s, but a lot of the major attractions intended for future expansions have yet to appear. One major missing element is Space Mountain, which would be added the next year and which would be credited with pulling the resort out of its financial doldrums.

I was actually saving this image at first for a story I was planning about how the poor Tomorrowlands have always received short shrift in every new Disney park since Disneyland’s 1955 opening. In any early map of any Disney park, Tomorrowland just looks so sad and pathetic. Look!

So many trees!

Neverworlds – Lava Lagoon

Michael — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:09:42 +0000

A guest takes a fiery plunge down Pele’s Plummet in the domed jungle of Lava Lagoon

To even the most devoted of American Disney fans, the Disneyland Resort in Paris can all too often become an afterthought. Being so far out of sight, it easily falls out of mind, especially when it does little to draw attention to itself. Unlike its overseas brethren – Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland – the Paris resort has had no major additions to tout in recent years; its only major expansion was the decidedly underwhelming Walt Disney Studios in 2002. The Parisian Disneyland park itself has seen no major additions since Space Mountain opened in 1995.

So, aside from renovations within the Disney Village and various third-party real estate developments around its periphery, the original themed areas of the Disneyland Resort Paris have stayed fairly stagnant and garnered little attention from fans overseas or the media. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t stories to be told, though, or Parisian Neverworlds to be explored. Mary of these projects are legacies from the 1990s, dreams deferred by the resort’s initial financial difficulties. Best known of these are the still-unbuilt Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones Adventure; they also include the original “Discovery Mountain” concept for Tomorrowland and Frontierland’s abandoned Geyser Mountain.

Most of these intriguing concepts come from the resort’s early years; there’s been a dearth of quality rumors over the last decade since so many of Imagineers’ initial plans for the resort are still yet to be realized. For Parc Disneyland, the financial difficulties that followed the resort’s 1991 opening meant a delay in the construction of major E-ticket attractions, and the downsizing of others. For the resort as a whole, it meant the delay of larger projects.

While Disneyland Paris (then known as the Euro Disney Resort) was under construction, it was announced that the resort’s second gated attraction, the Disney-MGM Studios Europe, would open in 1996. Optimism about the resort’s potential and the success of the Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando eventually led Disney management to bump up the projected opening of the European second gate to 1994. It was also announced that the resort’s projected third gate, a European EPCOT, would open sometime around 1999.

When Euro Disney opened, though, there were immediate problems. Attendance was very strong, but it wasn’t enough to meet the projections that Disney had estimated would be necessary to recoup expenses on the elaborate theme park and the many expansive themed hotels that Disney chief Michael Eisner had insisted be ready on opening day. Worse still, Disney had completely misjudged a number of important cultural and demographic factors that all led to a significant overestimation of the resort’s potential profit margin.

As those early years passed, those small operating deficits built up. Without a second gate and due to differing European vacation patterns, Euro Disney was unable to become a “destination resort,” one to which people would come to stay for several days or more. So many hotel rooms sat empty that entire resorts were closed during the off-season to save operating costs; as guests continued to underspend on food and merchandise, the resort continued to run a deficit. Expansion plans were put off; the Disney-MGM Studios Europe was pushed back to 1995 with the third gate coming later.

After a few years, due to some cuts in admission prices and a lot of advertising, the park’s fortunes improved. Unfortunately, by that time the resort had accumulated a crushing debt load that was costing millions upon millions of dollars each year to service. The money that had been raised for a second gate through the issuance of bonds had to be used to pay down the resort’s debt and to add some much-needed attractions to the original park; most prominent among these expansions was the addition of Space Mountain in 1995, which is typically credited with righting the ship of Disneyland Paris. Eventually the resort’s managing company, Euro Disney S.C.A., did manage to restructure its debt, in part thanks to the now-famous infusion of cash by Saudi Prince Alwaleed. Disneyland Paris was finally on firm financial footing, but many years of potential progress had been lost.

The most obvious casualties of these delays were the “phase three” projects that have obviously yet to be seen. Geyser Mountain, Toontown, EPCOT and who knows what else were supposed to debut around the turn of the last decade but aren’t even whispered about today. Phase two fared somewhat better; the resort did finally get its studio-themed second gate only seven years after originally intended. But what else from phase two did we miss out on?

The Disneyland Resort Paris, with Disneyland Park seen at the top center of the image. A diagram of Lava Lagoon is in the lower right quadrant.

Perhaps most famously, we missed out on Lava Lagoon – a tropically themed, tiki-riffic water park. Disney designed this attraction between roughly 1990 and 1992 to be part of the resort’s phase two, with a projected opening date of 1995. It would have been Disney’s first water park outside of Florida, and to suit the harsh European winters it would have been contained under a massive glass dome. Lava Lagoon was not built as a “destination” for day-tripping European visitors; rather, it was intended mostly for the use of resort guests to help extend their length of stay and keep the hotels full.

The best article online about this park can be found at the excellent WEBCOT (not to be confused with my long-dormant, but someday to revive, WEBCOT). It is from that article that all the images you see below shall come from.

Lava Lagoon would have been an impressive sight. Rising from a heavily landscaped base, the exterior of the structure would resemble a giant, abstract metal and glass volcano. Inside would be even more impressive; the centerpiece of the park would have been a massive volcanic peak called The Big Kahuna. Down its slopes would stream a number of steep or winding slides, and it would be circled by several winding paths and “lazy rivers.” At the base of the volcano would be a large wave pool called The Great Pacific.

Composite of several images of Lava Lagoon give an idea as to its layout; the internal water park area, including The Big Kahuna, is surrounded by the structure on the right. The outdoor slides and beach area are to the left.

Lava Lagoon would be divided into two main parts. The indoor area, with its tropical plants and waterslides, would remain open year-round. It would also feature a second level with a restaurant, shops, and other recreational facilities such as saunas. The outdoor part of the park would only open during the summer, and would nearly double the capacity of the facility. There would be a couple of slides and raft runs outside as well, and a large beach facing a lagoon; the beaches inside the dome would feature volcanic black sand, while the lagoon would be lined with beautiful white sand. The lagoon would connect to Lake Disney, allowing boat access to the resort hotels and Disney Village, and across from the water park would sit a new resort hotel. This new waterway would continue past Lava Lagoon to connect with the third theme park which would be built on an adjoining piece of land.

Lava Lagoon with the major outdoor bodies of water – Hula Hula Bay, Alakoke Pond, Koko Cove and Hanahuma Bay – as well as the indoor Big Kahuna and Great Pacific

While the outdoor attractions would no doubt provide relaxing recreation, the star of Lava Lagoon would most likely be The Big Kahuna. Surrounded by lush tropical vegetation and South Pacific themeing, the volcano would be surrounded by a number of exciting features:

The Big Kahuna

You can see in the image above that the Kahuna would be riddled with a number of paths and slides. The major slide for thrill seekers would be Pele’s Plummet, which you can see streaking down the east side of the mountain. On the west face, feeding into The Great Pacific, is The Steamer; where it runs into the wave pool there are rapids called the Caldera Curl – could this have been for surfing?

On the south face of the volcano you can make out three slides – Lava Loop, The Spouting Horn and The Plunge. There’s also a tunnel passing underneath the volcano. On the north face there are two winding walkways; the Rim Run winds through the mountain while The Walk of Fire seems to lead to the Sizzling Stones. There’s also something in there labeled The Boiler, but it’s unclear what type of feature that is. There are two raft rides in the image, with Aloha Falls to the north and Kahuku Falls to the south.

The outdoor slides of Lava Lagoon

There were slides outside, as well, for summertime visitors. These included the Toa Needle and Waimea Canyon, and the Waihia Falls raft ride.

For me, though, the big attraction of Lava Lagoon would have been its themeing. I’ve mentioned the tropical landscaping, with its palm trees and orchids, but amongst the volcanic rock would have been various Tikilicious touches.

Model of Lava Lagoon with prominent Tiki representation

The idea of rafting down a winding river through a tropical jungle, passing wooden huts, carved Tiki gods, and flickering torches, and then passing underneath the volcano itself is quite appealing. Sadly, the park’s development was abandoned around 1993 and has yet to resurface. Is there a chance we’ll see it someday?

It’s hard to say. So many of the phase two additions remain unbuilt, including Splash Mountain, the Indiana Jones attraction, and the two famous unbuilt attractions based on The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. While the second gate did get built, that park unfortunately proved such a disaster that it immediately imperiled the finances of its parent resort, which was at the time coming off of several years of healthy performances. Disney was essentially staffing an entire second theme park in Paris that no one was attending, again running up operating costs and debt load without an accompanying rise in income. While recent additions (most notably the Tower of Terror in 2007) have helped raise attendance at that park, the funds used for those expansions came at the expense of other projects. Much remains to be done to salvage the Studios, and there is still a need to refresh Parc Disneyland. This could soak up available capital for years to come.

Even more ominous on the horizon is the fact that, by 2017, Disney is contractually obligated to begin work on a third gate in France. The last instance I can find of Disney mentioning the European EPCOT dates to 1995; I assume that idea is long-dead, and more recent rumors mention a park with a nature theme. It’s been speculated that Disney is obligated to only put something on the third park plot, which was partially the basis of their interest last year in bringing an F1 racetrack to the resort. By putting the racetrack on the plot intended for the third park, they could buy time to raise funds for a third park while finishing the first two. By the time they were ready for a third gate, it would be easy to remove the racetrack.

While the F1 deal fell through, it’s unclear what Disney intends to do with the land. It’s conceivable that the possibilities could range from a parking lot to a theme park, but if we ever do see that expansion I’m still hopeful that Lava Lagoon will not be far behind.