Originally Posted By Malin I have just come back from Disneyland Paris with many thoughts which I'll share a bit later. But many positives things to report and a few negatives. The worst one being how shocking some of the Animatronics and various ride effects were in the various attractions. Main ones being Pirates and Phantom Manor. Some minor improvements were made during the week. But I know a lot of the problems were evident last month. And that's even more shocking that these issues have yet to be fixed. Don't let pictures of refurbishments that some have been posting on various message boards fool you. Yeah the park looks good on the outside but the same love and care has not been shown to the attractions. I'll rant on this a bit more later and in my view a Resort suffering in ride capacity, entertainment, and we even had the Characters go on strike on one of the days. But I'll also report back on the positives like how amazing Disney Dreams the new show was and some other stuff.
Originally Posted By Malin I have just come back from Disneyland Paris with many thoughts which I'll share a bit later. But many positives things to report and a few negatives. The worst one being how shocking some of the Animatronics and various ride effects were in the various attractions. Main ones being Pirates and Phantom Manor. Some minor improvements were made during the week. But I know a lot of the problems were evident last month. And that's even more shocking that these issues have yet to be fixed. Don't let pictures of refurbishments that some have been posting on various message boards fool you. Yeah the park looks good on the outside but the same love and care has not been shown to the attractions. I'll rant on this a bit more later and in my view a Resort suffering in ride capacity, entertainment, and we even had the Characters go on strike on one of the days. But I'll also report back on the positives like how amazing Disney Dreams the new show was and some other stuff.
Originally Posted By dagobert I expected that. It's always the same. DLP does cosmetic refurbs and many Disney fans go crazy about the improvent, while the truth is that the mein problems, like ride effects or AA don't get fixed. It's always the same. We have been in 2010 the last time and before we went some rides got refurbs. They looked nice and new on the outside, but the inside was as bad as before. Sadly more people care about the outside than about the ride itself.
Originally Posted By dagobert Sorry to hijack your thread, but I think this article fits very well here. <a href="http://disneyandmore.blogspot.com/2012/05/want-to-eat-at-disneyland-paris-after.html" target="_blank">http://disneyandmore.blogspot....ter.html</a>
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Sounds like my experience for the 20th. All the attractions had noticeably bad broken effects/AAs (enough for a 6 and 8 year old to notice and get angry). And the restaurant situation was a nightmare as half the counter service places were shut all day (this is during the 20th anniversary and the Easter vacation remember - high season). And the prices for food and merchandise were ridiculous. So although we loved Dreams and the cosmetic refurbs were great, my kids are not bothered if we ever go back. That is not cool. And when the 20th was so bad for closures and crowds (last chance cafe, lucky Nugget, Col Hathi, toad hall, pizza planet and Chalet la Marionette were all closed and table services were all booked), rather than wait an hour for cold mediocre counter service meals at 15 euro ($23 for US lpers) and the likelihood of a need to sit on the floor as many did, we went ahead and left the park and went to the village to Annette's for lunch. In fact this was an issue many days, so in the end we went to the Val d Europe or back to the villa for a number of meals. The result is other than our AAs, Disney probably got 20% of our business that week. Very poor. But the experience of the birthday itself was fantastic, for one day, entertainment park, DLP felt like a real Disney park. And the refurbs and dreams are great. But the park still has so many problems, we will now probably only go back for the 25th anniversary.
Originally Posted By dagobert We will go in september and hopefully DLP has sorted out those crazy restaurant opening hours. Since no big refurbs are planned, I guess the ride situation will be the same like now.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Who is running DLP at the moment? The closed restaurant situation sounds ridiculous considering that they just added this big nighttime show that encourages people to stay later. It doesn't make any sense.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>Who is running DLP at the moment? The closed restaurant situation sounds ridiculous considering that they just added this big nighttime show that encourages people to stay later. It doesn't make any sense.<<< It's crazy, but they want to encourage people to buy more merchandise during that time, because the revenue margin is bigger on merchandise than on food. At least that's one thought Alain Littaye from the Disney & More blog had. Currently Philippe Gas is the CEO of Euro Disney SCA. At first I thought he knows what to do about DLP, since he worked for DLP until he moved somewhere else. He started this huge refurbishment program, but now we have staggering opening hours of rides and restaurants.
Originally Posted By u k fan I guess at the end of the day it helps with costs and also with staffing. I seem to remember reading that French employment laws are very strict on number of hours worked and having a restaurant open for shorter hours means having to run 1 less shift per day. That's my guess!!!
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< Sounds like my experience for the 20th. All the attractions had noticeably bad broken effects/AAs (enough for a 6 and 8 year old to notice and get angry). >>> Dude, you need to get yourself out to TDR to see what the opposite is like: having a multi-day visit where you ride everything and find it remarkable if you can find a single element during the whole visit on any attraction that's not in top form. There's simply no notion of "Gee, this ride is overdue for a refurb" as they all look exactly the same the day before and the day after refurbs, aside from upgrades.
Originally Posted By tashajilek Sounds like things at DLP are as bad or almost worse than at WDW. After reading Malin and Ferret's reviews i am thinking twice about visiting.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt You should visit if you are in the area. It's definitely worth a day trip on the RER train from Paris.
Originally Posted By SuperDry I've only been once, but based on my experience, they are much worse than at WDW. But, I agree with Hans - if you're enough of a Disney fan to be posting on LP, then DLP is worth a visit if you're in the area.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Agreed, DLP was still in better condition than our last trip to WDW. As for TDL, I want to make it out there, but given an expensive divorce and a career change, it will need to wait sadly.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Thanks Hans, add social services involvement, coming to terms with diabetes, my 16 year old brother having his legs built, and a mom with a blood clot requiring heart surgery, it has been a year.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Hang in there man. I'm glad to see that you are still popping in here now and then.
