Happy 22nd birthday today to Walt Disney Studios Park.
The second gate at the Disneyland Paris resort opened March 16, 2002. Themed to a movie production studio, the park disappointed many Disney fans when it debuted. Only the Animation Academy step-drawing class and Flying Carpets Over Agrabah spinner continue among the park's opening-day attractions.
Over the past two decades, Disney has added several new attractions to the park, even as it has revamped or removed others. A Cars overlay now occupies the remnants of what was once the Studio Tram Tour. Rock 'n' Roller Coaster with Aerosmith got a Marvel retheme to become Avengers Assemble: Flight Force, anchoring the Avengers Campus land that also claimed the former Armageddon show theater.
In 2014, Walt Disney Studios Park added a Ratatouille-themed ride, which came to Walt Disney World's EPCOT in 2021. That is now part of WDS' Worlds of Pixar land, which also includes Crush's Coaster and Cars Race Rally, which were added to the park in 2007, and Toy Story Playland, which opened in 2010.
Now under construction, WDS' Frozen-themed land, Kingdom of Arendelle, will open next year. Mostly a clone of the World of Frozen land that recently opened at Hong Kong Disneyland, Paris' version will not include the Wandering Oaken's Sliding Sleighs family roller coaster. In addition, the park is slated to get a new Alice in Wonderland show later this year. But it also is closing the Studio 1 building, as Disney creates a new entrance plaza for the park.
So, as always it seems, Walt Disney Studios Park remains in a state of transition, as Disney keeps working to draw more fans to what was its least-attended park worldwide before the pandemic. But, hey, happy birthday, Walt Disney Studios Park. We can't wait to see everything that Disney has in store for this destination.
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Even the Imagineering docuseries had them talking about "never build a park just to keep land rights."
Disney's worst theme park indeed.
However, I love their version of Tower of Terror due to the length of its drop sequence. That ride saved the park and Crush's Coaster was a fun spinning time.
I am excited for the future of this park, and look forward to the new expansion to give this park that love it needs.
I only spent about a 1/3 of a day here on a trip more than a decade ago, but it was easily my least favorite Disney park at the time. Not sure if it will still retain the title with the additions since then (including those yet to open), but it's probably always going to feel like a lesser version of DHS to me.
The biggest sin with this park is not that it was a bad park when it opened, as it got caught up in that same era as DCA/HKDL, but that its been open 22 years and still sucks. Disney's corporate bureaucracy is killing any kind of common sense when it comes to this property.
The Toy Story area they added is underwhelming, Avengers Land is underwhelming, and their biggest addition they had promised (Star Wars) appears to have been randomly cancelled (which I actually agree with, but I don't agree on the no planned replacement part). And its taking them an absolutely absurd amount of time just to build the Frozen mini land. They also have not added a real e-ticket to Disneyland Paris Park in 30 YEARS. They better get their act together and spend real money before Universal Resort UK opens or they will have serious egg on their face getting overshadowed by all those modern attractions.
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This is, and it’s not close, the worst Disney park I’ve been to.