Rock and Rollercoaster's French Cousin

Poor Walt Disney Studios Paris! It opens to a collective thud with very few original attractions and a rehash of experiences from its older sibling in Florida. (Sounds amazingly similar to Disney's California Adventure 1.0, doesn't it?) While it meets the contractual obligations of the agreement with the French government, it disappoints fans by providing a lackluster theme park at the bottom of the Disney rung.

Rock N Rollercoaster is one of the very few attractions to be represented by renderings from the Imagineers. You may ask yourself why. I'd say if you saw the park before the recent additions of Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Crush's Coaster, and Cars Race Rally, you never would have had to ask. It was that bad.

Let's just hope Toy Story Playland turns out much better than the concept art!

(Concept art copyright The Walt Disney Company. Note: I found this on the now defunct DisneyCentury website.)

Le Traffic Jam

Until the recent transformations and additions, Walt Disney Studios Paris was the poorest excuse for a Disney theme park. There is still much work to do to completely transform this Ford Pinto into a Mercedes Benz, but this small attraction for children, featuring the lead characters from the Disney/Pixar hit Cars, was a good beginning.

In person, the Race Rally ride is very small, but it packs a good amount of visual punch in a park that lacks much charm. The next attraction to come was Crush's Coaster, another solid add. With minimal outdoor theming much in the vein of what was there when the park first opened, Crush succeeds because of its high fun factor (in addition to bringing the park its first audio animatronic character). Finally making its debut, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror brings the final punch before the next round of park improvements begin. This has been enough to bring in the crowds- and enough to convince Disney that this park can change from the lemon it once was.

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)