Rewind: 15th Anniversary

You're invited. As simple as that, one of Disneyland Paris's biggest ever advertising campaigns had begun promising a year of celebration like no other. The fifth anniversary was celebrated by a 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' style celebration, the 10th was marked by a whole new Disney park opening. But none of these really made a big point about 'celebration'. For the 15th anniversary this was all to change, not only would we celebrate like never before, we'd enjoy no less than four new attractions, a new parade, new character experiences and new shows. The red carpet was rolled out, the castle decorated. The party was set to begin, and how best to announce the start of a party? With a evening extravaganza filled of wonder, music and Disney friends. (Video: DLRP magic)

 The launch was one of Disneyland Paris's most star-studded to date featuring performances from Daniel Powter before the opening of the celebrations to guests the next day by Miley Cyrus from the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana.

2007 was a bumper year for new entertainment in Disneyland Resort Paris starting with a brand new parade, Disney's Once upon a dream parade, running from 2007 until 2012. Each all-new float was given a name relating to the themes it represented such as 'Dreams of Power', which featured the Disney villains. Whilst the theme song for the anniversary was 'Just like we dreamed it', each float of the parade featured its own soundtrack, a soundtrack that can still currently be purchased within the resort on the 'Les parades en musique' CD. (Video: DLRP Magic!)

In addition to the traditional daily parade, Disney characters could also be seen, for the first time, on the Disney Characters Express train, which took place on the Casey Jr. float from The Wonderful World of Disney parade. The soundtrack to this mini-parade, Tous en Train, was entirely new to Disneyland Paris having previously been performed at Tokyo Disneyland. For 6 years this parade has allowed guests to meet their favourite Disney characters, some incarnations the characters have been randomly selected (such as the 15th Anniversary version), others will see the same characters each day (Disney's 20th Anniversary Celebration train), for those 6 years, this has been one of the most popular daily entertainments in Disneyland Paris. (Video: DLRP Magic!)

Perhaps one of the more strange parades seen in Disneyland Paris during its history is 'Alphabet you are!', which, according to this DLRP Today! post towards the end of its run in 2007, often scored high of guest satisfaction. The premise of this mini-parade was simple, every morning letters would dance down Main Street USA spelling out 'Disneyland', each letter had a unique Disney character spin on them. (Video: DLRP Magic!)

On top of all the new entertainment, the Tarzan and Lion King stage shows were almost performed multiple times daily (as well as the Walt Disney Studios stage shows).

The big selling point of these celebrations were, of course, the 'new land' featuring two new attractions. Toon Studio opened on 9th June 2007, both Crush's Coaster and Cars: Quatre roues rallye opened at this time.

The Crush's Coaster has become synonymous of long queues and guests, young and old, wait to be part of this rush through the East Australian Current (EAC). This attraction has stroke a perfect balance between the thrills and storyline, as we board a shell and go through the reef where guests find Nemo and Squirt, suddenly guests meet our Shark 'friends' and glide through the EAC whilst spinning 360 degrees, such an attraction is unique to Disneyland Paris.

Cars Quatre Roues Rallye is a more simple attraction based on the world of Radiator Springs, but that certainly doesn't make it any less enjoyable. Guests queue through Flo's admiring the wall displays (which are often humorous) before boarding a car in an experience that is quite similar to the Mad Hatters Tea Cups in Disneyland Park, but perhaps slightly more thrilling.

Main Street USA received decorations in the form of giant banners up the street which lit up at night featuring the 15th Anniversary emblem and one of the 'mascots' of the celebration Lumiere. The biggest change was the classy castle decoration. The lower window being covered over by the 15th emblem and each turret receiving a Disney character holding a candle.

Each night, as Disneyland Park prepared to close it's doors to guests, a special celebration took place in which these candles would magically come to life with a bit of help from Mickey Mouse in a ceremony featuring dancing and characters 'Candellebration'.

In fact, Disneyland Paris extended it's 15th anniversary for an extra 12 months with even more new attractions and shows, it was even marketed as being bigger than the first year with the tagline 'The celebration continues BIG TIME!'. Urgency was added into the marketing from the outset of this extended celebration as the white rabbit holding a pocket watch appeared in the promotional material ensuring we visit the resort before we're 'out of time'.
This second year saw the launch of 'The Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror' and Stitch Live! On April 5th 2008, Disneyland Paris inaugurated the Tower of Terror in front of the worlds press in perhaps one of the resorts most impressive attraction openings since Space Mountain. The opening featured a mix of actors and video mapping onto the attraction. (Video by DLRP Magic!)

Despite the April inauguration, this attraction actually opened in December 2007, Stitch Live! however, did open closer to the press event. Stitch Live! allows guests in Disneyland Paris to watch, and become part of, a transmission to outer space; not only that, but guests could actually talk to Stitch. . This attraction is offered in multiple languages and replaced the former Disney Channel Studio Tour, Cast Members working here still wear costumes featuring the Disney Channel logo.
This extended year also saw us wave goodbye to the Disney Cinema parade, but we'd have to wait until March 2009 for Disney's Stars 'n' Cars parade. Disney welcomed in the Enchanted Fireworks which ran from 2008 until 2011 before making room for Disney Dreams!

Overall, Disneyland Paris marked this year impeccably, including to Disneyland Paris fans by launching their blog which featured fantastic inside information. Whilst this blog is unfortunately now offline, fans can still watch the videos on Daily Motion.
The 15th anniversary of Disneyland Paris felt like the party of the decade, and provided the 20th anniversary with a tough act to follow. We hope the party atmosphere returns to Disneyland Paris in four years time for the 25th anniversary!

DLRP Rewind is a feature celebrating Disneyland Paris's past. Thanks for this article go to DLRP Magic! - The Number 1 Disneyland Paris guide website and their impeccable coverage of the 15th anniversary. 

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DLRP Rewind: Marketing blast off!

These days, advertising for Disneyland Paris is everywhere, on websites, on television and on every single Disney DVD, viewers often see these limited time (1 year) festivals, these are essentially, a way to get you to visit the resort each year for something fresh and new. But how do you advertise something different? A brand new adventure from the land that already allows you to ride with Pirates, take a flight to Endor or be one of those crazy folk queueing up for a runaway mine train? How do you enlist guests to blast off and become astronauts? Today, it is almost impossible to imagine Disneyland Paris without the iconic structure of Discoveryland, in fact it is difficult to imagine any Magic Kingdom style park without this E-Ticket in Tomorrowland (or their equivalent of). Upon opening in 1992, the Discoveryland located in Euro Disneyland consisted of Le Visionarium, Orbitron, Cinémagique, Star Tours and Autopia, leaving a large gap between the back of Autopia and Cinémagique (the film that today is known better as Captain EO in Paris), it is important to point out that Euro Disneyland made no secret of the fact that Space Mountain (or Discovery Mountain as it was going to be called) would fill this gap, with an attraction inspired by the Jules Verne novel 'De la terre à la lune' (From Earth to the Moon), in which three members of the Baltimore Gun Club attempt to launch themselves to the moon using a projectile. For more information on the attraction, its story and design;  we direct you to our friends at Designing Disney
For most Disneyland Paris fans, the story behind the attraction is familiar and repeated countless times each year, but the one thing that is often forgotten is the optimism behind the attraction and how it could 'save' Disneyland Paris from its loss making nightmare. To do this, Disneyland Paris launched what was to be their largest advertising campaign since the resorts launch. We take a look at two campaigns, the original 'De la terre à la lune' campaign, but also how Disneyland Resort Paris marketed the new updated version of the attraction.

De la terre à la lune

Image: Disney Central Plaza

The marketing campaign for the 1995 attraction opening was, what can only be described as massive. If it was Space related, Disney was eager to get involved. Take the above advertisement: 1960: The dog went. 1961: A Russian went. 1962: An American Went. 1995: Now, it's your turn.  Space Mountain was described as 'The biggest adventure in the galaxy'.

Disneyland Paris even advertised their product on Happy Meal boxes, the boxes had several different designs (One for each land), these type of promotions were run quite often between Disneyland Paris and McDonalds until Disney ended their connection with McDonalds in 2006.
Perhaps you were a little bit too old for a Happy Meal? Don't worry, the marketing hit you too. Perhaps you'd be more tempted with a 'Menu Space Mountain'?

 

Even your Disneyland Paris park ticket advertised Disney's most ambitious adventure yet!

Image: dlrpfan.org

Perhaps you were participating in the preview days?

Perhaps the strangest partnership that Disney entered in was that between it and Renault to launch a limited edition 'Renault Espace' car.  (Espace translating as Space). It was impossible to avoid the almost guerrilla marketing tactics that Disneyland Paris were putting into action.

The official Disney advertising campaign that was sent across Europe was perhaps their most inspiring advertisement yet, yet incredibly simple. It involved close up shots of various aspects of the attraction, and a silhouette of the building, with some 'futuristic' sounding music (well, futuristic for the mid 90's). This will probably be in front of your copies of the Lion King, despite it being over 10 years old, as soon as we watched it, we remembered it. This was a highly effective advertising campaign.
 
A French 30 second TV Spot created the buzz about an astronaut being launched into Space.

A British channel BBC Two (which doesn't air advertising due to it being paid for by the British public) effectively aired a 45 minute advertisement for the attraction in the form of a behind the scenes documentary which has become celebrated in Disneyland Paris fan circles.


Beyond traditional advertising, the launch of an attraction can be the most effective form of publicity, if done with enough celebration and media interest. Press events at Disneyland Paris have become known for their extravagant press events, featuring fireworks and world premiers, most recently featuring the Light'Ears for Disney Dreams! for the start of the 20th Anniversary Extended.

The inauguration featured tributes to Frenchmen George Méliès and Jules Verne in an extravagant show, the book '20 years of Dreams' states that 50 performers had pyrotechnic elements on their costumes and three buckets of fireworks were launched around the park, in one of the biggest fireworks shows ever seen at Disneyland Paris. Keeping with the space theme, the guest of honor was a certain Mr. Buzz Aldrin and the rocket man himself Elton John played a concert to 40,000.

This achieved the desired effects by making French news channels.

A little later on in the Year Disneyland Paris launched their 'space festival' where rocks from the moon were able to be touched by guests, as well as explore replicas of the Apollo spacecraft.

Image: http://spatial.forumdediscussions.com/

Mission 2

In January 2005, Disneyland Paris astronauts took their final voyage to the moon before it closed for several months to become 'Space Mountain Mission 2' which launched in April 2005 featuring the same track layout, but an adjusted storyline and all-new music, which lead Disneyland Paris to a tough question. Just how do you market an old attraction as if it was brand new?

The marketing campaign for Mission 2 was, understandably, smaller. That, however, does not mean that it was no less intuitive. In fact one of the most creative advertising strategies ever seen by the resort was put into effect with this, a PC game by Disney Interactive

 

Don't worry, it's not quite as it seems, this game was essentially two existing games rolled into one. Disney's Rollercoaster and Walt Disney World Magical racing tour. Nevertheless, a fantastic advertising strategy to your target audience, who are mostly at the video game playing age. 

 This was the visual used to promote Mission 2 on posters (most notably on the Paris Metro), the modern type face, however, does not quite match the sign on the attraction entrance. The attraction received a VIP opening with a firework display (notably smaller to that of Space Mountain: De la terre à la lune) and on opening morning the usual Disneyland Paris ambassador opening outside the attraction.

Disneyland Paris has always had a prominent role in advertising their new attraction or seasonal celebration, but perhaps nothing will ever beat the hype and optimism of the opening of the voyage to the moon.

Where possible, we always give credit for any images used in our posts. However some are difficult to find, if we have used one of your images, please e-mail info@dlptownsquare.com and we'll happily correct our post. 

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DLRP Rewind: Gare de Marne-la-Vallée - Chessy

Every year millions of people pass through the doors of the Gare SNCF de Marne-la-Vallée - Chessy, the majority end up in the Disneyland Paris parks or hotels, others will just be passing through on their way to other destinations across Europe; this is the life of the number one inter-connection station in France. The station and Disneyland Paris are so intrinsically linked that it is almost difficult to imagine the resort without the station that brings the magic so close that 37 million Europeans are now just one train change away!

When the Walt Disney Company and the French State signed their agreement (La convention pour la création et l'exploitation d'Euro Disneyland en France) on the 24th March 1987, the agreement mentioned the creation of a station for the LGV Interconexion Est which is a high speed line connecting the existing North and South East line, this interconnection opened in May 1994. At the time, the Chief architect of the French Railways described the new station as 'helping tilting the balance of the Ile-de-France back towards the east', from an already wealthy west.  When reading the 1987 agreement, Article 11 named 'Extension R.E.R. - T.G.V.' outlines an extension of the exisiting RER A line (previously terminating at Torcy), and the new terminal station which should be able to handle 10,500 passengers per hour. The exterior of the station was to be designed by the winner of an architecture competition run by the RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens) with Euro Disney S.C.A. being allowed to take an observer role. If Disneyland Park is known for it's castle with its impressive spires, its clear that some inspiration has come from the castled world to this station with its spired front, or according the the architects Arep (JM Duthileul, E Tricaud and F Bonnefille) 'Our task was to express a real station in an artificial world', the glass walls of the station are designed in order to show the impressive TGV trains to an audience who may not take the train, this is achieved as when we leave the yellow Disney busses from our hotels, we must pass the stations glass wall in which we are able to see all the way down to the platform, in this respect the station is very much like that of Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle and Lille-Europe. What really is interesting about the link between Euro Disney S.C.A. and the construction of this station is the amount of constraints put onto the building, for example the agreement states that the station exit and the entry to Disneyland Park could not be more than 150 meters (the final distance is in fact 125 meters) and that Euro Disney S.C.A. should do their best to ensure a direct access to the park from the station (something that new security checks prohibit). The RER station and TGV station are technically different stations, one half is managed by the RATP (RER) and the TGV half is manged by the SNCF, however the two share the same style of architecture and one can easily traverse between the two stations.

RATP, the quickest way to Disneyland Paris.
Photo: Johansdreamworlds.wordpress.com

The 1987 agreement also set how Euro Disneyland would market this new rail link that had been built in order to service the resort (after all, this new line extension and station will have cost the RATP a lot of money, it is only natural they wanted a return on their investment), Euro Disney S.C.A. were not permitted to include parking charges in their park admission ticket (in order to discourage car usage). They were also forced to encourage guests to take the RER from Central Paris to the resort in their advertising in the form of using the approximate time taken from Nation station to the resort. The new extended RER opened on April 1st 1992, 12 days before the opening of the resort, now guests could easily reach Disneyland Paris, and local residents could take the new rail link and arrive in central Paris much quicker than ever before. It would be a further two years before the high speed rail link would open in 1994.

In 1992, the capital city of Paris became that little bit closer to the magic, on the 29th May 1994 the rest of mainland Europe got a little bit closer with the opening of the new TGV high speed link, which linked Disneyland Paris with major French cities such as Lille, Lyon and Bordeaux. This was celebrated by a paper train containing 500 people stretching from Disney Village to Fantasyland, such was the enormity of this train that when the front of the train was in the park, the rear was still in the esplanade.

Photo: www.disneylandparis-generations.com

In November 1994, a new passenger high speed service linked London Waterloo and Paris Gare du Nord for the first time, in January 1996 the Kent station 'Ashford International' opened, a few short months later a Eurostar train pulled into the station of Marne-la-Vallée Chessy for the first time.

Photo: www.disneylandparis-generations.com

On board this first arrival was Sir Richard Branson, who was met Mr. Philippe Bourguignon (who at the time was president of Euro Disney S.C.A.) at the Gare du Marne-la-Vallée Chessy. To celebrate a float was created representing the classic Eurostar train front with two Mickey ears with a 'platform' on either side of the train acting as a place for the two gentlemen to stand, this was accompaigned by Grenadier guards. Just one year later, the Thalys international high speed link (linking France to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany) arrvied in Marne-la-Vallée. Visiting Disneyland Paris by rail was becoming increasingly easy, with over 70 trains arriving each day and Marne-la-Vallée Chessy becomes the number one station for inter-connections in France.

In fact, getting to Disneyland Paris by rail has never been cheaper as in 2013 the low-cost TGV 'OuiGo' was launched at the Marne-la-Vallée Chessy station linking Marne-la-Vallée to Lyon, Marseille and Montpellier for as low as €15 for a single journey.

The future of this vibrant, busy suburban Paris station looks bright as even more services get added, as even more of us sit back, relax and let the train do the work.

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DLRP Rewind: When the Tour de France came to visit

This year is the 100th running of the Tour de France and to celebrate, this years Tour de France is taking place 100% in France. But did you know that the race has visited Disneyland Paris twice? We decided to celebrate the final week of this weeks tour by delving into the archives and finding out all we could about the races visits to the resort.

The Tour de France is a sort of badge of honour for a French town, if you have not hosted a stage of the Tour de France, you want to, and you are prepared to spend a lot of money in order to get it. It seemed that for our newly launched Disney park in France, that badge of honour was much wanted, or needed, perhaps to prove that Disney wanted to integrate itself into French culture and not be seen as an invading American force. The Tour is screened worldwide, and more importantly, in many European countries such as the UK, France, Belgium, Spain and so on providing a good method of getting cheap advertising. The Tour and Disneyland Paris have a long history, the park has hosted the race in 1994 and 1997. It has appeared in the races publicity caravane twice and even today the race is screened in the sports bar in Disney Village each day in July. So, let's open that history book and take a look at what we have found.

Tour de France 1994

The final day of the Tour de France traditionally starts in a Parisian suburb within easy reach of the capital city of Paris, where the race would end with a few laps of a Champs-Elysées circuit, this stage would mostly be a procession until the riders hit the circuit. In 1994, Disneyland Paris was chosen as the 'suburb' to start the final stage. Whilst very little information is available about the start of this stage (as is usually the case, the starts are rarely televised), a few frames did make the highlight reels of the pre-race buildup.

 

Part of the reason for hosting the tour will have been to get short clips of the parade to advertise the resort, such as this clip of the Disney Classics Parade

 

The resort would have probably have hoped for a bit more time than 10-15 seconds of footage on the highlight shows, however the Tour is essentially a sporting event.

The previous day, Miguel Indurain (one of the 5 time Tour de France winning legends) will have sealed victory. On this July morning, the money shot for the photographers will have been this, the yellow jersey with Mickey and Minnie mouse. Subtle advertising once again for the new resort.

The stage start was given outside the Town Square photography store on Main Street USA, and very quickly left the park and headed on its way to Paris. And just like that, the Tour had been and gone.

When asked about the decision to bring the race to Disneyland Paris, the race director replied that the race must be modernised, and so a little bit 'Americanized', this was probably also to please the new Disney owned broadcaster of the Tour de France in the United States, ESPN. America was an emerging market in the world of professional cycling, the Tour was the first to crack the big money American television market. The worlds biggest cycling race was soon to become much, much bigger.

Tour de France 1997

This time the Tour's visit is much better documented thanks to the effort of French Disneyland Paris fans on YouTube as well as English speaking Tour de France fans. The Australian and British television coverage featured a small feature on the problem of the parks being an American invasion on French culture, but pointing out that essentially the reason for bringing the Tour to Disneyland is to make the race money, much like the original reason for the creation of the race by L'Auto newspaper. This year, two of the twenty one stages would feature Disneyland Paris. The first of which was Stage 20, an individual time trial from Disneyland Paris to Disneyland Paris. Despite starting and ending in the resort, the stage never actually went into the parks, however it did end on the Avenue Paul Séramy after the main road splits off to become the parking lot.



Below is a video from Australian television station SBS which features a full highlight package of the stage, but perhaps only the first 5 minutes is of real interest to Disneyland Paris fans.



It is Stage 21 of the 1997 Tour de France that really showcased the resort. A stage of the Tour de France

typically starts with a neutralised section, to allow the riders to find ideal positions in the bunch and to allow riders to warm up a little bit before heading into the race.
In the case of this stage, the neutralised section took place in the Disneyland Paris backstage area, luckily for us Disneyland Paris fans, footage still exists from this stage on youtube. The race passes through the parade passageways before entering the park itself through the Autopia backstage entrance (we assume, that is not so well captured) before turning onto Main Street USA and parking up for the official start outside the Town Square Photography store, where Mickey was waiting for the bunch in his cycling gear. The footage also features some fantastic aerial views over Disneyland Paris, it also gives us a glimpse of the 5th anniversary decorations for the 'Carnivale des fous'. Then the race steps out of the park through the backstage entrance next to Discovery Arcade where cast members greet the tour with a cheer, then using the same passageway it used to enter the park, to leave the park, via 'Parking Nord' which is reserved for cast members, before exiting backstage at the roundabout near Coupvray. For those who have wanted to see the roads that the parade leaves the park on, this piece of footage really is a gem.


A huge thanks to ThunderDCP for finding, or recording these videos and uploading them to YouTube for us to enjoy.

 

Backstage at Disneyland Paris

 

The peloton lines up at the bottom of Main Street USA outside Town Square Photography greeted by the Disney Characters

 

View just through the gates in town square

If Disney was still an outside force invading French culture, by hosting this race a second time, perhaps Disneyland Paris showcased the best of both French and American cultures.

Tour de France 2005

Photo: dcpblog.canalblog.com

The Tour may not have come to visit the park since 1997, but Disneyland Resort Paris did not let that hold them back. The race is presented with an accompanying 'Caravane', essentially this is a rolling advertising cavalcade. Better know by fans as the cars that come along giving free gifts (and a break of watching empty roads) to spectators. These cars were decorated with Disney characters riding bikes. The message seemed to be that Disneyland Resort Paris is closer than you think with each character being placed next to a distance stone with various French towns listed on them with their distance to the resort.

Photo: dcpblog.canalblog.com

Whilst the partnership between the Tour de France and Disneyland Paris has come to an end (at least for now), Disneyland Paris still is a keen advocate for sporting events, as shown by hosting the LNB Leaders Cup in 2013 (and that will return for 2014) as well as looking into other sporting events. There certainly aren't any other sporting arenas quite so 'magical'. 

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