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| Marta and Paqui Jones at Disneyland Paris |
The Jones are visiting Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallée. They are enjoying with all the characters of this selected club of entertainment. It's a special day for all of them, including The Grandma who has met two lovely old friends, Mary Poppins and Peter Pan, and has remember one of her favourite quotes: Don't grow up. It's a trap!
Disneyland Paris, originally Euro Disney Resort, is an entertainment resort in Marne-la-Vallée, a new town located 32 km east of the centre of Paris, and is the most visited theme park in all of Europe. It is owned by The Walt Disney Company through subsidiary Euro Disney S.C.A.
More information: Disneyland Paris
The resort covers 19 km2 and encompasses two theme parks, many resort hotels, a shopping, dining, and entertainment complex, and a golf course, in addition to several additional recreational and entertainment venues.
Disneyland Park is the original theme park of the complex, opening with the resort on 12 April 1992. A second theme park, Walt Disney Studios Park, opened in 2002. The resort is the second Disney park to open outside the United States following the opening of the Tokyo Disney Resort in 1983.
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| The Jones are visiting Disneyland Paris |
Following the success of Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida, plans to build a similar theme park in Europe emerged in 1972. Under the leadership of E. Cardon Walker, Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983 in Japan with instant success, forming a catalyst for international expansion.
In late 1984 the heads of Disney's theme park division, Dick Nunis and Jim Cora, presented a list of approximately 1,200 possible European locations for the park. By March 1985, the number of possible locations for the park had been reduced to four; two in France and two in Spain. Both nations saw the potential economic advantages of a Disney theme park and offered competing financing deals to Disney.
Both Spanish sites were located near the Mediterranean and offered a subtropical climate similar to Disney's parks in California and Florida. Disney had also shown interest in a site near Toulon in southern France, not far from Marseille. The pleasing landscape of that region, as well as its climate, made the location a top competitor for what would be called Euro Disneyland.
More information: Disneyland Paris News
However, shallow bedrock was encountered beneath the site, which would have rendered construction too difficult. Finally, a site in the rural town of Marne-la-Vallée was chosen because of its proximity to Paris and its central location in Western Europe. This location was estimated to be no more than a four-hour drive for 68 million people and no more than a two-hour flight for a further 300 million.
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| Silvia & Cris Jones in Mad Hatter's Tea Cups |
Michael Eisner, Disney's CEO at the time, signed the first letter of agreement with the French government for the 20-square-kilometre site on 18 December 1985, and the first financial contracts were drawn up during the following spring.
The final contract was signed by the leaders of the Walt Disney Company and the French government and territorial collectivities on 24 March 1987. Construction began in August 1988, and in December 1990, an information centre named Espace Euro Disney was opened to show the public what was being constructed.
In order to provide lodging to patrons, it was decided that 5,200 Disney-owned hotel rooms would be built within the complex. An entertainment, shopping and dining complex based on Walt Disney World's Downtown Disney was designed by Frank Gehry.
More information: BuzzFeed
With its towers of oxidised silver and bronze-coloured stainless steel under a canopy of lights, it opened as Festival Disney. For a projected daily attendance of 55,000, Euro Disney planned to serve an estimated 14,000 people per hour inside the Euro Disneyland park. In order to accomplish this, 29 restaurants were built inside the park, with a further 11 restaurants built at the Euro Disney resort hotels and five at Festival Disney.
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| The Grandma with Mary Poppins and Peter Pan |
Unlike Disney's American theme parks, Euro Disney aimed for permanent employees, an estimated requirement of 12,000 for the theme park itself, as opposed to seasonal and temporary part-time employees. Casting centres were set up in Paris, London and Amsterdam.
However, it was understood by the French government and Disney that a concentrated effort would be made to tap into the local French labour market.
Disney sought workers with sufficient communication skills, who spoke two European languages, French and one other, and were socially outgoing. Following precedent, Euro Disney set up its own Disney University to train workers. 24,000 people had applied by November 1991.
The prospect of a Disney park in France was a subject of debate and controversy. Critics, who included prominent French intellectuals, denounced what they considered to be the cultural imperialism of Euro Disney and felt it would encourage an unhealthy American type of consumerism in France. For others, Euro Disney became a symbol of America within France. On 28 June 1992, a group of French farmers blockaded Euro Disney in protest of farm policies supported at the time by the United States.
More information: Theme Park Touristic
A journalist at the centre-right French newspaper Le Figaro wrote, I wish with all my heart that the rebels would set fire to Euro Disneyland. Ariane Mnouchkine, a Parisian stage director, named the concept a cultural Chernobyl, a phrase which would be echoed in the media during Euro Disney's initial years.
In response, French philosopher Michel Serres noted, It is not America that is invading us. It is we who adore it, who adopt its fashions and above all, its words. Euro Disney S.C.A.'s then-chairman Robert Fitzpatrick responded, We didn't come in and say O.K., we're going to put a beret and a baguette on Mickey Mouse. We are who we are.
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| Susana & Ana Jones are enjoying the attractions |
Topics of controversy also included Disney's American managers requiring English to be spoken at all meetings and Disney's appearance code for members of staff, which listed regulations and limitations for the use of makeup, facial hair, tattoos, jewellery and more.
French labour unions mounted protests against the appearance code, which they saw as an attack on individual liberty. Others criticised Disney as being insensitive to French culture, individualism and privacy, because restrictions on individual or collective liberties were illegal under French law, unless it could be demonstrated that the restrictions are requisite to the job and do not exceed what is necessary.
Disney countered by saying that a ruling that barred them from imposing such an employment standard could threaten the image and long-term success of the park. For us, the appearance code has a great effect from a product identification standpoint, said Thor Degelmann, Euro Disney's personnel director. Without it we couldn't be presenting the Disney product that people would be expecting.
More information: The Telegraph
According to the Disneyland Paris website the theme park's top five attractions are It's a Small World, Space Mountain: Mission 2, Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. It's a Small World, located in Fantasyland, takes visitors on a musical tour of world attractions; Space Mountain: Mission 2 is a roller coaster in Discoveryland; Big Thunder Mountain is a mine train roller coaster in Frontierland; Pirates of the Caribbean is located in Adventureland; and Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, located in Discoveryland, was inspired by the Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 2 and features people shooting lasers at targets to earn points.
The park is approximately 1,942 ha, and is divided into two main parks that each hold separate attraction areas within them. The park receives around twelve million visitors a year which makes it the most visited place in Europe.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Mary Poppins
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