Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney Studios update

Here is a new Disneyland Paris update as a lot of things are happening now in both parks.
We will begin by the Walt Disney studios, as the construction of the new area toward the tower of terror is rising pretty fast. This new street of decors must be ready for December - the TOT itself is supposed to open in January, but expect some soft opening for christmas, if there is no delay in the works.






The metallic structure of the future buildings located at the back of this little street are already built, too.



Grandmath from the very good french forum central plaza did these photo montage, as he think that the new street will very much look like the one at DCA Hollywood studios.
Is he right? For part of it, probably.





Meanwhile, the painting work on the Tower of terror itself is still going on, this time around the “supposedly” broken part of the hotel.



The green domes are finished, too .



This next picture is more interesting than it looks, as what you see here is the land still available in the Toon studio area. As you can see, if in the future they want to expand the land and built a new attraction, they will have plenty of room to do so, which is good news.





Talking about Toon studio, remember last time the pictures of the young kids climbing on Guido and Luigi replicas? Well, what must happen happened, and some fences have been set around them to prevent the kids to climb on the two Cars characters - and to have to repaint them each month. BUT, we are in France, and even the kids have the sense of transgression, so they manage to go under the fences for the smaller or around them for the tallest. When a kid want his shot with these characters, nothing will stop them! I must add that it was inevitable, so let’s just hope that there is a budget for repainting!



And, they did the same for Lighting Mc Queen and Tow Mater located in the decor of the ride itself, as once the ride over the kids were running to have a picture with them, causing some delay for the next people, as the cast members are not allowed to start a new ride if the former guests are still on the set. Frankly, i think these fences are damaging the theming, and, as we saw on the photos above, it don’t resolve the problem...



In WDW they had the same problem and they had a cast member near the cars to prevent the kids to climb on them, maybe the Studios here may have to do the same...

Always in the Toon studio area, this new character from the Ratatouille movie appear in the photo locations.



And on the front lot, this Toon train is coming several times a day. It’s not a parade, but only an orchestra with Chip and Dale on some floats. Not great, but better than nothing.



Some of you regularly ask me what is the difference in the WDS Tram tour with the one existing at WDW. Well, the main big difference is the big set from the Reign of fire movie, a huge decor of London, supposedly destroyed by the dragons.
Nice work, really, and the flames of the dragon hidden in the ruins is launched twice for each tram. However, it's a pity we don't see any dragon head - they simply didn't have the budget for that - and if you want to see one , you'll have to go inside the Sleeping Beauty castle of the first park.







What almost nobody knows is that normally it should have been the decors of Martin Scorcese’s Gangs of New York. When the imagineers saw 6 years ago the set in Cinecitta they were enthusiastic, but the executives thought that Gangs of New York was a too violent movie for a Disney audience. This was really stupid - but you know how can be the executives, specially in the Eisner era - and it’s a pity we didn’t have the Gangs of New York decors who were absolutely great.

Anyway, when the tram exit the London decor, right behind you can see some of the vehicles used in the Reign of fire movie.





Let’s go to Paris Magic Kingdom, now. It’s summer, and everything looks beautiful in the park.



A mexican orchestra is now welcoming the guests in the Frontierland's fort.



By the way, at the top of the fort, if you look well, you can shot this picture of the Phantom Manor and the TOT in the background. You can see it from a small hole between the wood pylones, but you don’t see it from the park, so there is no visual intrusion really.



The major news is the comeback of the Molly Brown river boat. One year ago, a fire happenned on it and since then, the boat was stopped, and frankly, i didn’t expect to see it back so soon. You have to add that the french government told the park that the drivers of the boat must have a river boat driving license (!) and so, all the boat drivers of the park had to go through the exam and get this damn’ license, just like if they were driving boat on the Seine river in Paris. It’s ridiculous, and it’s also for the same reasons that the River rogue keelboats didn’t made their comeback until last week. The other river boat, the Mark Twain is stopped for refurbishment during the next three months.( updated july 30: it seems that finally the Mark Twain made its come-back two days ago )






Big thunder mountain was freshly repaint for the 15th anniversary, and looks really great again.



Recently, the Cowboy cookout barbecue, at the other end of Frontierland, was entirely repaint, too, and, although it looks a little bit too “red”, it's okay , as the color should be “weathered” by the rain over the next few next years.





In Adventureland, a new food cart has appeared, themed on “Pirates of carribean”. This is the fourth themed food cart in the park over the past year, after the “Cool station” in Discoveryland “ , the Main street vehicle, and “l’arbre magique” in Fantasyland. The good news is that each time the theming is very well done as you can see here, but as they are sponsored by coca cola, i suspect they also pay for it, this explaining that.




All photos : copyright Alain Littaye, except the three Photo-montages by Grandmath of the Disney central plaza forum.