The Disneyland Paris Resort today announced a "multi-year transformation plan" for its Disney Village shopping and dining area.
Paris' version of Disney Springs in Florida, Downtown Disney in California, Ikspiari in Tokyo, and Disneytown in Shanghai, will get a makeover that will result in "a relaxing lakeside park and boardwalk, enhanced pedestrian walkways, brand-new facades, relaxing terraces and patios, and lush landscaping," according to Disney's press release.
The announcement was otherwise short on details, but did note that the Cafe Mickey restaurant would be replaced by Rosalie, a French brasserie to open next year under the management of Groupe Bertrand, which manages multiple brasseries in Paris.
"We believe this unique, family-friendly restaurant will elevate the guest experience at our resort by offering famous French specialties in a unique setting, and we can’t wait to make this new partnership a reality," Disneyland Paris Vice President Business Strategy & Integration Laure Albouy said. The two-story, 500-seat restaurant will offer both table service and takeaway options including pastries, viennoiserie, sandwiches, and salads.
It's been a minute since I visited Disneyland Paris, but I thought Disney Village the weakest of Disney's shopping and dining areas worldwide. Save for the World of Disney store, many locations' design and finishes were not up to Disney's highest standards, nor were the food options up to Paris standards. As a result, we spent most of our non-parks time at the resort at the nearby Val D'Europe mall.
So the Village has been in need of an upgrade. The transformation will happen in phases, but Disney did not announce a timeline beyond the Rosalie opening in 2023.
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Already when it opened it was ugly as anything. 30 years of neglect.
This whole area was allegedly designed this open so Dick Nunis could send in the army as soon as too many French were protesting the so called Cultural Chernobyl.
Never been there but when I saw pics, I had to double-check to realize these were recent and not from mid-90s. Way past time for an update.
Dutchduck, not sure if having a shopping mall next to the park has anything to do with getting the army to quell a protest, but from Michael Eisner's autobiography he said he was the deciding factor on the design that was built. There was another design (that most people in the room favored) that was a New England theme but Michael Eisner liked the garish 90s look with the banners and big balloons so that's what they went with.
@the_man: the design is tacky. But the fact that this area is without any trees or shade is because Nunis was afraid of large uncontrollable crowds of protesters. I don't have the source anymore but I do remember back in the nineties I found this amusing because it was a clear example of the Clash of cultures US vs European Disney was struggling with.
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Re-doing Disney Village is 15+ years overdue, I remember walking through it in 2007 thinking the place was stuck in the mid 90s and needed to be updated and its still almost the same now how it was back then. Its sad that even though it had the Disney name, it seems like Disney didn't start caring about Disneyland Resort Paris until after they bought it out since they weren't the ones losing most of the money from it before.