Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Walt Disney Studios Ratatouille Ride Update !


Here is the promised WDS Ratatouille ride update. Now that spring arrived at last at DLP and WDS workers on site are rushing to put in place the metallic structures of the rooftops to complete the theming of the show building and restaurant facades. In six months from now, if not before, the exterior theming should be finished and we will have a pretty good idea of how this new mini land will look. First ,let's have a look at the latest pictures of the construction site, thanks to Max Fan D&M contributor and DLRP Welcome webmaster.




The "black hole" on the picture below will be the attraction entrance.


On the right side of the land they also transform the left side of the previous costuming building which will also be themed like parisians facades, and inside which will take place part of the outside queue line for the ride.



Talking about the ride itself, here are some news about it. First, i remind you that, according to the french law, anyone can ask to have a look at Chessy's city hall at the ride construction permit which include the ride blueprints, the list of the scenes, and more. It was of course extremely interesting to have a look, but don't count on me to reveal the whole ride storyline scene by scene. That said, i can confirm what is true and what is not among all the rumors posted since the last two years on many forums, as i think it's better for you to know what you must not expect to avoid being disappointed when the ride will open. What is not true is that some scenes of the ride will take the guests down in the sewers and that we will then go out in the countryside, to find after our way back to Gusteau's kitchen. May be it was in WDI preliminary storyline three years ago, but not anymore. Instead all the scenes of the ride will take place inside or around the kitchen with some inside Gusteau's restaurant ( i'm not talking here about the "real" restaurant which will be built near the ride show building ). The element which is rumored since a long time and which is still right is that the queue decor - at least for the part inside the show building will look like Paris rooftops, as well, by the way, as the one of the loading room and the first scene of the ride.


          Above, a picture of a preliminary concept for the ride vehicle,  here for disabled guests.

As expected the ride will use a trackless vehicle system like in HKDL Mystic Manor - see WDI preliminary concept above  - and 3D projections on giant screens. And just like at Mystic Manor more than one vehicle will share the same scene. There will be ten different scenes in the ride, using for most of them giant hemispherical screens and sometime three vehicles will face together the same big screen, sometime each of the three vehicles will be placed individually in front of smaller screens before moving to the next scene. Expect, too, "heat or cold" temperature effects in some of the scenes, effects which will be of course justified by what will happen in the scenes ( don't ask me what ). And the whole ride will take place on one floor only, which might look strange when you look at the height of the show building but the reason why the show building is so high is because - in addition to the giant screens - the ride will include huge decors which will be necessary to achieve the illusion that guests are reduced at the size of a rat! I don't have any info about the length of the ride but considering the number of scenes i think the ride should last between 4 and 5 minutes. The english title of the attraction is still supposed to be "Ratatouille Kitchen Calamity" but a french title approved recently and to be revealed later this year also exist. I can't reveal it but it includes a funny play-on-words on the word "toque" which in french means a "cook hat" but also "crazy" or "nutty"!

That's all for today about the Ratatouille ride. The attraction surely looks great but unfortunately you'll still have to wait 15 more months before enjoying it as the ride will probably not open before summer 2014!

Pictures: copyright Disney, Dlrp Welcome

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am very interested in seeing the final result of Disney's approach on the "3D-motion vehicle-ride system". I am sure that a lot of people will compare it to Universal's Transformers & Spiderman rides (which are incredibly good in my opinion).

Concerning the ride vehicles, I am not really sure what to make of them. I would prefer it if they would seat the visitors in an "actual" object like a pot or a can. But if the storyline suggests that the visitors are transformed into an actual rat, it might make sense.

jmerritt said...


As a follow up to what Anonymous said. Is it correct to assume this will be more of an "action ride" with Spiderman-type motion base simulator vehicles rather than a more sedate dark ride like Mystic Manor?

It's about time Disney built a Spiderman-type ride but I always thought that basing it on the Incredibles or now The Avengers would have been the obvious way to go.

I don't know if guests will expect a Ratatouille themed ride to be an E ticket thrill ride, if that is in fact what it's going to be.

Alain Littaye said...

Considering that the Ratatouille ride is supposed to have a 150M cost, i think that guests can expect a E-Ticket ride...

Anonymous said...

If the new Ratatouille ride is supposed to cost 150M than I hope that it will be spectacular. Because for that budget they could have finally built Indy Adventure, which has already proven that it's great.
Don't get me wrong, I love it when DLP takes risks and wants to be original and unique. But 150M is a lot of money ... so let's hope that Ratatouille will surprise us!

Parcorama said...

My only concern about this ride is the thrills. Everybody expect WDI to come up with something as wild as Spiderman just because both rides share some similarities. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure a trackless vehicle can go and move so fast. In addition to that, Disney usually creates rides designed to the whole family, which means 'not too much thrills'. And as this ride is based on a highly family friendly franchise, it just can not be too wild (unlike teenage and young adults targetted rides like TOT, RNRC...).
If my analyse is true, I think a lot of park fans who expect something as thrilling as Spiderman or Transformers will be extremely disapointed.

Jonathan said...

what they going to do with the costuming building seems like a massive waste of space !

Jones said...

I hope I´m wrong, but I´m afraid this will be miles away from a real e-ticket. 150 million sometimes buys you surprisingly little (look at Little Mermaid in DCA - where in the world did all the money go?)
And fortunately, it will not be as wild as Spiderman, no way - the theme clearly says "family ride" - and thus it *has to be* a family ride, otherwise dissapointed guests (and lawsuits) are just around the corner...
I just hope they won´t make the street (the Paris setting) too realistic - I mean, building a copy of a Paris street just miles away from Paris simply doesn´t make much sense to me...

Marco Antonio Garcia said...

I think that Spider Man is also a family friendly attraction. It's not a Roller Coaster and the vehicles don't actually go very fast, they just give the illusion of speed to the guests with the 3D screens.

That said, I don't see why Ratatouille cannot be as thrilling as Spider Man, since it is probably very thrilling to be the size of a rat in a restaurant kitchen with a lot of people moving around and maybe trying to catch you. Rats are also very fast for their size.

Marco Antonio Garcia said...

I think that Spider Man is also a family friendly attraction. It's not a Roller Coaster and the vehicles don't actually go very fast, they just give the illusion of speed to the guests with the 3D screens.

That said, I don't see why Ratatouille cannot be as thrilling as Spider Man, since it is probably very thrilling to be the size of a rat in a restaurant kitchen with a lot of people moving around and maybe trying to catch you. Rats are also very fast for their size.