Category Archives: Disneyland Paris Resort

Set a Course For Adventure:

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The fabled Adventurer’s Club at Disney’s Pleasure Island was much loved and many protested loudly when it was shuttered for good. It (like all of Pleasure Island) always felt a bit forced to me. Too much pretending that it was New Year’s Eve (when in fact is was Tuesday November 8th or whatever) and too much contrived “spontaneity” for my taste. Things either really happen organically and randomly to produce fun or they do not, pretending that carefully orchestrated events are spontaneously happening in this setting always felt off. However the actual building and the art direction was spectacular. I often wished that I could just roam around and check out the details without being jostled by drunks in flip flops looking for some faux frivolity or being accosted by drama school drops outs dressed in feather boas… but that’s just me. 

The mothership may not be all she was cracked up to be.
What many don’t realize is that there was a sister establishment of sorts across the ocean at (then) Euro Disney. The original Adventurer’s club opened in the spring of 1989 while the new Explorer’s Club opened with the rest of Euro Disney three scant years later in 1992.
 
Adventure awaits… and a standard 15% gratuity.
Situated in the new park’s Adventureland The Explorer’s Club left behind the bar-nightclub model and opted for a full service sit down restaurant instead. Much of the theme and general feel carried over. It was a home away from home club for the adventurous world traveler. While never explicitly stated it was generally set in the late thirties much as the Adventure’s Club was. It shared the exotic theme of being a gathering place for explorers and bons vivants filled with props and photographs from around the world festooning the walls and dangling from the rafters. 
The early days.
Where the Adventurer’s Club took on a more formal European gentleman’s club feel the Explorer’s Club was set on the edges of a dense jungle and the foliage was in fact taking over much of the club. Overgrown trees sprouted from several spots within the club, their branches forming a leafy canopy above dinners. Perched within the leaves were several audio-animatronics birds that would put on shows and interact with guests. This concept dates back to the original Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland and has been toyed with many times in Disney’s past. This was the perfect execution of it, as dinners would enjoy the show while experiencing a full British Colonial menu. 

The main dining room as seen today, no more table cloths and far fewer animatronics.
The former bar area still has some props hanging around.
Dramatic murals depicting journeys from around the globe ringed the main dining room. This was classic Disney, details upon details poured into a unique spot. They took much of the best of the Adventurer’s Club and shook it up creating an outpost unlike any other. Come to think of it they really should have switched the names; The Explorer’s Club felt more adventurous than the Adventurer’s Club did. 

Click on the pictures to see big versions… great detail and check out the “EC” logo.
Parkeologists will find these lost clues to the past.

The first guidebook for the park described it as: 


“Another luxuriously comfortable atmosphere is yours if you choose to dine at the Explorer’s Club. Here the very best authentic cuisine is quietly served among lush vines, rare exotic flowers and even a few surprising trophies!” 


The murals cover everything from the wild west to the deep see to dense jungles and the frigid arctic.

Furthering the depth of the experience, (and undoubtedly upping the annoyance factor) were costumed actors playing the roles of explorers along the lines of David Livingstone, William Parry, amelia earhart or even Indiana Jones. They would interact with the patrons as well as the animated birds and props. The club also had a resident musician, a ukulele playing Brit who would often don a pith helmet and sing somewhat racy songs. Combining the music hall tunes, the actors and the animatronics along with the deep theme and many props it is easy to see that the Explorer’s Club had great potential. 

This classic peice of concept art shows the original Explorer’s Club bar area.  Notice Hemingway and
Jacques Cousteau and the bar and Indy way at the far end.  Originally the Paris park was to have
it’s own version of the Indiana Jones Adventure just beyond the Explorer’s Club.
Then the park opened and the place tanked. The mistakes made by Disney with the opening of Euro Disney are legendary… too many hotels, not enough attractions and too many sit down dining establishments (the small original park had five of them). Disney reacted and the Explorer’s Club was hacked apart and transformed rather quickly into a counter service joint. Briefly they served Chinese food before being changed again into it’s current incarnation; Colonel Hathi’s Pizza Outpost. There is nothing particularly bad about this standard Disney Pizza restaurant. It still has a nice setting with outdoor seating overlooking waterfalls. It still has the murals and even some of the trees and props… but much of the charm and mystique are gone. 
The two surviving fugitives of the restaurants glorious past.
A pair of birds survived, silently sitting as sentinels of the main dining room, the bar area was removed to make way for the counter service area, more tables were crammed in and over the years most of the props and detail has been stripped away. Look closely however and you can plainly see the Explorer’s Club past staring you in the face. The “EC” logo remains on light fixtures, a fireplace screen and on some of the murals and fixtures. 

The “EC” logo pops up here and there is you look for it.  Check out the detail
on the fireplace screen.. ecthed glass and wrote iron… nice!

Why they felt an obscure character from the Jungle Book was vital in the renaming is beyond me. Other than on the exterior sign there are no references to either Colonel Hathi or the Jungle Book in general. Ironically Colonel Hathi himself was based on the very type of explorer who would be a member of this club. 

Depiste being the namesake this is the only place you actually see the Colonel.
Why not keep the Explorer’s Club name and theme and just change the menu? Who knows, perhaps they felt they needed a clean break but the past cannot escape a seasoned Parkeologist as the photos will attest. Beyond the somewhat sad history of this place the beautiful art work and some of the themed props have survived. 

Other smaller dining rooms offer great details and the outdoor seating has splendid views.
The Explorer’s Club did not get any support when it closed, no online petitions (there was not much online in 1993) and no fan clubs. Perhaps a lone French guy shed a tear but it was only open about a year, not really enough time to gain much traction with park fans. It was and even still is a great place to see what Disney does so well. If they ever choose to flesh of the original Disneyland Paris park maybe they can reinstate the original theme and restore the place to it’s former glory… and then again maybe it’s New Years Eve. 
As seen today… HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Fading Star…

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Parkeology was on location at Disneyland Paris the other week. We discovered things both expected and surprising.

The PR photos make it look so, well, magical!

Disneyland Paris features Discoverlyland in lieu of Tomorrowland. It is meant to serve as an ageless look into the future as imagined by Jules Verne. One surprise came at the realization that the costume designers confused Jules Verne’s 1886 with Bill Cosby’s 1986: 




What’s a 100 years or so between friends?

Last week there was an accident on Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland Paris. This was a week after our return but it was still sort of creepy to hear about this happening so closely to the time we were riding it again and again and again (my daughter would still be riding it if she was allowed). 


You may want to check out the posts here from the Disney and More blog… Alain does a good job keeping up with the goings on at Disneyland Paris. Ironically the avalanche scene really did drop a rock onto the tracks, the train hit the faux rock and debris hurled into some passengers, one of which was seriously injured. It sucks.

Sadly the ride that was seemingly operating the best was big Thunder.

This is what may be the biggest surprise of our visit and one that honestly should probably not be a surprise… that is the general shocking and even appalling condition of much of the park. In the near future we will post some on the flip side of this, in other words some of the cool things being done well there, but in light of the accident I wanted to share some snapshots from a couple weeks back.

It is true that we have no idea what caused the Big Thunder accident but one leading theory is poor maintenance, I think we take for granted that Disney parks will be clean, well run and in nearly flawless shape. People get all worked up when a trash can has not been painted this week or when some paint on the upper tiers of Space Mountain starts to peel… but we are talking a whole different league here folks.

The Pirate ship in Adventureland is a central key feature. Much of the land is designed around it, it was once a beautiful focal point…this is what it looks like today, right now:
(Click on them to make them larger)

I’m not sure what is better, the authentic rotting wood, peeling paint, moldy moss or perhaps the weeds
growing out of the cannon opening.

Mind you, these are not taken with some crazy telephoto lens or anything… you can walk right up to and touch the thing (though wear gloves or you will get a splinter). This is on view in plain sight of every single guest… I don’t think this was the Paris country fair or Six Flags over fromage that we stumbled into… this is Disneyland Freaking Paris!
Yea, they have announced that this entire ship will be scraped and replaced in time for the 20th anniversary of the park next year… but how could this be allowed to get to this state? How could they allow it to sit there right now like this? Do they expect people to be excited about this finally being addressed after two decades of neglect?


Looks pretty nice here.

How about that Discoveryland we mentioned before… it’s holding up right? Well the cost cutting is clear everywhere, ranging from showing old movies on screens at Videopolis instead of live stage shows (the guide promises a live Lion King show… it is not playing) to much worse. 

Even nicer here.

The French version of Space Mountain is undoubtedly the best. Not just because it goes upside down, in fact I hold that against it, rather because it has a very cool Verne from Earth to the Moon theme, onboard sound and a magnificent show building. One of the key and coolest features of the show building is that giant cannon sitting along the side. Guests used to be blasted out of the cannon with a huge “boom!” and a billowing puff of smoke. Today neither the smoke nor the recoiling motion of the cannon (or the sound) work. Worse yet rust is streaking down the sides and the new “mission 2” show is a huge step backwards from the original. Oh well.

Not so nice anymore.

Sometimes it is not big expensive things… ever hear of a vacuum cleaner guys? I think vacuum is a French word… Le Vacuum s’il vous plait?

This is the ceiling as you enter Buzz Lightyear caked with dust and cob webs… it doesn’t really cost much to clean this off say every 5 years or so, does it?

And speaking of big expensive things… it looks like they are going to allow the Nautilus to head the way of the Pirate Ship. It HAS to costs less to fix this thing now than is does to replace it in 3 years… or maybe they will just shut it down and remove it like they did with the once (but no longer) functioning geysers in Frontiereland. By the way, most of these shots were taken the actual first day the Nautilus came back from a month long rehab… what exactly did they do during that time? They did not even bother to clean the garbage out of the pond. Imagine what it was like BEFORE the rehab!

The 3rd and 4th shots may look almost the same… but they were
taken days apart and no one bothered to remove the soda can
floating there for that whole time. Oh yea, the sub is
also falling part.

Pirates of the Caribbean actually just came off a month long rehab as well and yet the sword fighting pirates were hidden behind a thatched curtain for a good part of our trip (when they are broken they are hidden from view) and the once swinging pirate is now the motionless hanging pirate… I guess it takes some work to keep these things functioning huh?

This may look exciting but when you see a him just hanging there with no motion
it is not quite as amazing.  He does not even get a yeti strobe light!

Check out these shots of the concrete in the large plaza area between Disneyland Paris and the dreadful Walt Disney Studios Paris (better than years before but still amazingly bad). Again, these are not some isolated small patches of hidden concrete… this is what the majority of the ground is like, you cannot walk without navigating large potholes. This type of thing exists in the actual parks as well.

The attention to detail is just astonishing. They have perfectly recreated the pot hole
ridden streets of New York or Chicago, BRAVO!

I could go on and on, there really is this type of thing all over the parks, especially the older and much more detailed Disneyland Paris park.

See that scroll molding above the display.  On your next visit look closely,
you will see one missing.  that was the one that nearly ended up
embedded in my head 6 years ago… and is still not repaired.

In 2005 I was standing in one of the covered arcades that run parallel to Main Street. As I was admiring a display I heard a loud snap and a decorative piece of molding came tumbling down from the top of the display. This is a piece of wood molding about 3 feet long, is crashed to the floor nearly hitting me on the head! I took the wood and leaned it on the display, assuming that it was a freak occurrence and that it would immediately be repaired. In Japan the arcade would be shut down while teams of uniformed workers rebuilt the entire complex, probably repaving sections in gold and magic but this is Paris not Tokyo… I did not expect much. Well 6 years later that same molding is still missing from the same display… simply never replaced or perhaps even noticed. A sign of unfortunate things to come.

OK, there must be a French word for paint because they are using some here.

Now to be fair they are currently repainting the castle (it needs it), recently rebuilt the Molly Brown paddle wheeler (which was in almost as bad shape as the pirate ship) and have been repainting much of Main Street (of course the tarps are un-themed white eyesores but there is painting going on at least).

I think the current management has realized how horrible parts of the park are and they are desperately trying to address some of this prior to the spotlight that the twentieth anniversary will shine on them. But for example the rehab plans do not address the Nautilus or Space Mountain at all. They seem to be trying to spruce up some of the more obvious and famous facades while letting others fade… and don’t even think about something as unheard of as adding a major new attraction.

Pardon monsieur, may I have your assistance in climbing the fence and
destroying the landscaping?  Merci.

Europeans do not have the same admiration and social respect for the parks as Americans (and certainly not the Japanese) have. This general chaotic nature of the guests makes it challenging to maintain the park. During a small parade all hell broke lose with guests climbing over fences, trampling landscaping and generally acting what we would consider to be rude. But that is cultural differences and should be expected… but the lack of any Disney supervision or guidance is still shocking.

In Tokyo this would be the stuff of nightmares.

At one point we were trying to cross the street prior to a parade heading in. The cross path was clearly marked but several guests were sitting in the crosswalk smoking and blocking the way. A cast member was standing feet away… when I asked him to move the guests he shrugged and looked at me as though I was insane… then motioned to climb over them as though he could not be bothered.

The park still is wonderfully designed, contains some impressive attractions and could be a true gem, but alas it has been allowed to decay, to literally rot in some cases. It is likely that we hit it at a low point, that it has never been worse and will only get better… but should it ever have been allowed to get to this point to begin with.

Wake up guys! Allow me to translate:

“Réveillez-vous!

Votre parc est en train de s’effondrer et bientôt personne ne se souciera plus.”


Looking good Jules!

 

Where great rides go to die PART 2.

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In our last installment we took a look at the bizarre journey parts of the Horizon’s show scenes took as they traveled from Orlando to Paris only to become in essence garbage. 

I had mentioned that in the video we could see another piece of Disney history rotting away in the “bone-yard” of Disney Studios Paris, did you figure it out?
Worse yet this particular piece of Disney park history could be in use today in any number of locations and costs mega bucks.  Take a look at the video:



Did you notice that after the two Horizon vehicles we see some bits and pieces of what look like Dinosaur puppets?  These were simple mechanical animatronics used in the TV version of the immensely popular Dinotopia books. Hallmark entertainment produced this mini series to run on ABC in 2002. 


Dinos are our friends… until they kill you for sport.

The series failed to catch on and only 5 of the original 13 episodes aired on ABC (the complete series was aired in Europe and available in the U.S. on DVD as well).  So here we have an example of actual props that were actually used in a production that actually aired.  The fact that it was more popular in Europe and was filmed in Europe (though nowhere near the Studios theme park) made the Paris setting even more fitting.  So what am I talking about then? Take a closer look.
That last dino seems a little different than the others doesn’t he?  Instead of just having a simple tubular metal frame he seems more complicated, full of servos and motors, just more advanced overall.  The reason for this is that this particular dino was never used in Dinotopia or any other television or movie project.  No, this dino came straight from Disney’s Animal Kingdom and is in fact a full-scale audio-animatronic!
Lets jump back to 1998 and the opening of Animal Kingdom, as we have discussed before the park was very different than the other parks at Walt Disney World.  It had a slower pace, fewer traditional rides and asked guests to be active participants in exploring the environment.  People did not fully understand this and they flocked to the rides that were present at opening, one of which was the Discovery River Boats.


The Discovery River Boats are long gone, but you can still see a key element of the show if you have a plane ticket to Paris and some imagination.
We will talk more about the Discovery River boats in a future Parkeology article but suffice it to say that this little boat ride, really meant more as transportation from one side of the park to the other, could not handle the crowds.  Guests became angry after waiting in long lines to see this simple cruise.  Disney felt the need to react and after several attempts at re-booting the boats quickly shut them down completely.
While the ride may have been a quiet one there was one notable exception; as guests passed by the Dinoland section of the park they were treated to a view of this particular Iguanodon splashing and playing in the river.  He had a nice range of motion as he reared back and his arms swayed in the water as if he were trying to splash our boat.  

What a cool dino figure, I bet he costs a fortune and Disney pampers him night and day.

What’s more is that he was a real part of the story of the land. This dino was not just a random creature playing in the water; he represented the very dinosaur riders on the big Countdown to Extinction attraction brought back with them to the Dino Institute.  In a brilliant stroke of themeing the Imagineers created a story where this dino was real… we just brought him back with our Time Rover so now where does he live?  He lives right here by the Rivers of Animal Kingdom… or maybe as a rotting hulk in Paris.


Um….. maybe not so much with the pampering after all.

Couldn’t Disney find something better to do with this costly figure?  How about setting him up in a little holding paddock outside the exit of the ride as if that was his new home?  How about creating some dino tracks in the pavement leading from the Dino Institute down to the river? After pushing through some bushes you could spot our new found friend hanging out on the other side of the river playing in the water. How about installing him as an additional figure on the actual Countdown to Extinction ride (now called Dinosaur)?  Heck, even selling it to some local park and recouping some cash would make more sense that stripping him of his skin and shipping him off to waste away as a mislabeled prop in a far away land.
I wonder how much money Disney spent designing and building this only to have it in use a little over a year before being dumped as garbage? In an era when Disney does not seem to like to build expensive audio-animatronics any more how much does it kill you that a great one has been turned to junk?
Finally we will continue with our Animal Kingdom video series… here is the complete Dinosaur attraction and pre-show.  We shot this in night-vision and had some fun, check it out.

Where great rides go to die.

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No matter how you look at it Horizons was an attraction that closed too soon. Even those who felt it was dated before it even opened at Epcot Center in 1983 would have to admit that being operational for a scant 16 years was a disservice to the enormous effort that went into creating it. But the story of Horizons is a long and sordid one and perhaps one we will tackle on another day.

The simple truth is that attractions, even really great ones, sometimes get torn out and close for one reason or another. Sometimes they deserve it, other times not but one thing all these closures have in common is that it gives us a chance to do some good old fashioned parkeology. That is to say that we can research what traces are left of the original attractions and how those remains have affected other areas of the Disney empire.

Horizons looked at the future and how we might live and interact in it. It examined three potential areas to colonize as our world population continues to grow; the deserts, the oceans and outer space. In each location Horizons showed us a concept of a future vehicle we might one day enjoy.

There was the hovercraft (officially known as the Pegasus Hover Lift) for a quick trip around Mesa Verde.


Yea, nothing like an non air conditioned open top flying pod to keep you protected from the blistering desert sun of the future!


The Solo Sub was part of the vast Sea Castle undersea development. This mini sub was used to zip around the sea floor and take in the view.



James Cameron pities that tiny little sub, he has bigger in his bath.

Finally we have the Space Pod used at the Brava Centauri space station. The space pod bears a striking resemblance to the Solo Sub that always bugged me a bit but it allowed for a cool projected transition from under sea to outer space as we saw a Solo Sub morph into a Space Pod.


Notice how it says “Century 3” on the side? That was the original working name for the Horizons pavilion… Parkeology at work even nearly 30 years ago!


Props this cool would obviously be carefully removed from the attraction upon its closing and preserved in the vast Disney archives right? They must have a giant warehouse full of these wonderful set pieces.


The Disney archives of our dreams carefully house and preserve park artifacts, treating them with kid gloves, perhaps the single rider Horizon vehicles are safely tucked away here?


At the very least maybe they would be sold off at ridiculously high prices as the prized possessions of wealthy collectors. Right… that’s the only thing that would possibly make sense… Or maybe there is another option… how about sending them on a European vacation and then having them rot in the baking sun as generic props in the worst park Disney has ever conceived of, yea THAT’S THE TICKET!

Amazingly Disney chose option number three, packed up a couple of the subs and the Hover Lift and shipped them over to Disneyland Paris where they were relegated to the miserable little Disney Studios Paris park.

The first Solo Sub was spared the worst fate; that is until recently. It could be seen in the Backlot Express hanging from the ceiling as an un-credited “movie prop”. The Backlot Express, a mediocre counter service restaurant at Disney Studios Paris, was actually a highlight of this meager little park. It at least had some level of theme applied to it, that was in stark contrast to the mostly un-themed majority of the park. It was meant to appear as a prop warehouse, perhaps not unlike the one I wish Disney actually had to house these many relics of the parks past. Junk filled shelves, larger scale items hung from the ceiling… there was some cool stuff in there like a speederbike from Return of the Jedi (a repro I am sure) and a jaws look-a-like fake shark (Disney should probably let Universal handle the shark duties though).



What does it say about a park when THIS is the pinnacle of themeing?


While the Solo Sub hung anonymously from its perch it was at least saved and sheltered. Sadly last year Disney decided that the last thing this park needed was a nicely themed dining room, rather they wanted to force some more synergistic wonderment on the European Disney fans and so the Backlot Express was shuttered. The unique props were all removed and disposed of and in its place opened the Blockbuster Café. Where the Solo Sub once hung now hangs a banner for Wildcats Basketball… some sort of High School Musical tie in, another piece of the park history lost.


But I did say that there was another sub and the hovercraft also sent to Paris right! Perhaps they faired better… sadly, no.


Look at the magical detail visible in the flat plywood cut outs and the bare steel fencing.


The Parisian studio park features a pathetic little tram tour and as part of this they pass through the “bone yard”. We are told that this is where they store larger props and vehicles used in the many Disney produced live action blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean and um…. well like Pirates of the Caribbean. There, sun baked and slowing eroding away you will find the second Solo Sub and the Hover Lift.



The dawn of a new Disney junkyard of the future here today!


Check out this video to see more… it is another parkeology exclusive.



Did you catch something else interesting in that clip? Look carefully… Next time I will tell you what other former park treasure has been abandoned in the backlot… and this one is much newer and truly should be in active use today.