2013: A year of pure Disney magic.

It's over, 2013 has left us and we are now in a brand new year. But wow, what a year it was. It was the year that Disneyland Paris told us that they were building a ride, they even named it. It was a year where exceptional events just happened, and as one event ended, an even more magical one began. There wasn't even time to ponder what would happen next.
So, let's take a look back at those past 12 months.

The year began in a reasonably quiet way, February saw the introduction of the Aristocats to the Disneyland Paris character line up with a spectacular unveiling on February 14th in a special cavalcade that ran twice in the day (Rain cancelled one of the scheduled three showings). This was followed by a weekend of character couples in Disneyland Park - but that was not all. That weekend also saw the inaugural LNB (Ligue national du basket) Leaders Cup take place in the Disney Events Arena in Disney Village, the contest which involved a number of the top French basketball teams competing in a series of knock out matches involved a few Disney touches, each match was covered live on French Sport channel Sport+ which was also shown in the Sports Bar, and saw a special celebration seeing Disney Village open until 2am in the morning. This event was hugely popular and 2014 sees a new round of matches taking place.

The end of March 2013 saw the launch of the 20th Anniversary extended celebrations, this involved a fashion show, Light'Ear launch and two new scenes added to Disney Dreams! (The Lion King and Brave replacing The Jungle Book and Mary Poppins). The ears looked beautiful when every member of the audience was wearing them, but the public would need to wait until June in order to try them out for themselves.

Then came along April which was another quiet month. May saw the Disney Dreamers Everywhere event, a series of private meet and greets were held for a special group of guests in all the Disney parks across the world - a special event indeed.  Despite the main attractions being invite only, regular day guests could meet the rare characters during the day at their special photo location. Characters in Disneyland Paris included Clara Cluck, Darkwing Duck and more.

Not too much happened in June other than the Toad Hall restaurant re-opening after a period of refurbishment, the restaurant was immensely improved. The end of the month saw the closure of Hollywood pictures in order to make way for the LEGO store. 

July saw Parcorama publish a blog about the deteriorating state of Disneyland Paris and launched a petition to Bob Iger to improve the state of things at our beloved Parisian resort. The petition reached the required number of signatures and was sent to the Walt Disney Company in Burbank amongst a high level of media attention across Europe. We also began to learn more about the Halloween festival and Christmas.

In August we learnt that the special Disney Dreams of Christmas would be a show in its own right, and would take elements from the new Disney Animation Studios film Frozen. We learnt that we'd be getting a new Christmas tree, and a new lighting ceremony that wouldn't involve characters.

September was perhaps the biggest month of the year for Disneyland Paris in 2013. The 20th Anniversary reached its conclusion, and Disneyland Paris held a What's New, What's Next event in which hotel refurbishments and new merchandising was introduced to a assembled mix of the Disneyland Paris fan websites and blogs. Ratatouille: L'Avenure Totalement Toquée de Rémy was unveiled as the Ratatouille attraction name, as well as a piece of artwork unveiled.

In October, the Halloween season was launched in Disneyland Paris which involved a new cavalcade, some new decorations and new character opportunities, this was widely regarded as a huge success for the resort. The new Disneyland Paris website was launched, which offered a cleaner design, new features and a mobile version of the site.

November was the launch of the most extensive Christmas celebrations to date, decorations from the previous year were extended and new decorations added. A beautiful new Christmas tree was unveiled with a fantastic lighting ceremony which could be viewed as a 360 degree spectacle. The big finish was a new version of Disney Dreams! named Disney Dreams of Christmas featuring Olaf, Frozen, Toy Story and many classic tales.

And that's it for Disneyland Paris 2013, it was a wonderful year, more news than action but this coming year will see many new features heading to our resort - and I for one can't wait.

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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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