Day 8: Touring the Worst Disney Park in the World
I promise you, Dear Reader, that I wanted to like Walt Disney Studios Park. I
tried to like it! Nobody spends all that money and time flying across the Atlantic just to hate where they’re going. Surely WDS couldn’t be as bad as everyone said. There had to be some overlooked gem, some underappreciated theming….
something! But, despite our lowered expectations and natural excitement over seeing this new-to-us park for the first time, Walt Disney Studios just wore us down, chipping away at our goodwill moment by moment until we fled back into the arms of Disneyland.
And if you think this assessment is harsh, consider that just one week after we returned from our trip, Disney announced a
multiyear, €2 billion makeover of Walt Disney Studios!
We got up early and hit the ground running that morning, ready to experience that tummy flip-flopping thrill of walking into a Disney theme park for the first time ever. The sun wasn’t up yet and workers were already back at it in Disneyland, trying to clear the ice that had formed overnight.
It was so nice to be able to walk a few steps down the hall and get a fresh, made-to-order omelette…
… Or, you know, an intravenous sugar explosion!
After breakfast we ran back to the room for our 47,000 layers of outerwear and our completely unsuitable shoes (a.k.a., The Widowmakers!). Patrick noticed our doorknob.
I noticed the workers were still clearing paths through the ice.
After a fond last look at Disneyland, we turned toward Walt Disney Studios with a spring in our step. A new adventure awaited!
Fantasia Gardens was still buried under Elsa’s goo…
“Look! There it is!!!” we shouted as we pointed and threw elbows like
Angular Kids™ in Disney concept art.
“Wow,” we said to ourselves, “It looks just like a real-live outlet mall!” We could almost smell the Wetzel’s Pretzels…
It was Extra Magic Time, so when the rope dropped, we didn’t stop to take pictures of Studio 1 or the Hub as we hustled to our first ride. Here’s one from later, after the snow started.
“To all who come to this crappy place, welcome. Disneyland is your land… and it’s about five minutes’ walk in that direction!”
At the top of our Extra Magic Time To Do List were Crush’s Coaster and Ratatouille: The Adventure because we don’t have them in the U.S. Because Crush’s Coaster doesn’t have FASTPASS, and because I’d read it gets the longest lines, we ran straight there first.
We screeched to a halt, flummoxed by the presence of a line. On a weekday. During Extra Magic Time. Five minutes stretched to 10… then 15. The streams of other guests passing us to get on rides that were actually open began to worry us. Periodically one of us or someone else near us in line would head to the front and quiz the cast members, but they kept telling us they didn’t know what the delay was or when the ride would open.
The woman in line ahead of us said her husband had taken their kid over to Ratatouille, but it was down too! That’s right, the park’s two (only?) star attractions were both closed during WDS’ Extra Magic Time!
After 20 frustrating minutes, Patrick and I decided to take our chances with the rest of the park instead of wasting our one extra magic hour standing in a line that wasn’t moving.
Fortunately, park management had decided to open Tower of Terror early, since the two star attractions were still closed. It was a bummer to have our first ride in the park be one that we’ve ridden hundreds of times in another park, but at least it was an E-Ticket.
Paris’ Tower of Terror is a hybrid of Florida and California’s (RIP) in that the queue has real, 3-D details on the walls and ceiling like Florida’s instead of California’s cheap trompe l’oeil painting, but the ride system is the shorter California version.
We decided to knock out Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Avec Aerosmith while we were sorta in the neighborhood. It seemed to be just like the Florida version, but with a shorter, nonsensical movie at the beginning (no Ken Marino from
The State!), more crazy loops at the start of the ride, and a sort of anti-climactic ending. But Patrick liked that it doesn’t have all the cheesy LA freeway signs and is just lighting and rigs as if you are at a concert.