Last week Bob Iger himself announced a 2 billion Euro investments into Disneyland Paris and more specific into the Walt Disney Studios Park. The office of President Macron uploaded a video of the Disney CEO announcing the investments and confirming a long term investment into France and Disneyland Paris.
With that announcement, a concept art of the expansion plans for the Walt Disney Studios was released. In another article, Iger confirmed the new additions to the park will open between 2021 and 2025.
Here’s a breakdown of some changes that will be made to the Walt Disney Studios Park.
Marvel
A few weeks before the news of the 2 billion investment, Disney confirmed the transformation of the Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith into an Iron Man-themed ride. This ride with a new Marvel themed show coming to the Cinemagique theatre this summer, will be the very first pieces of the park’s Marvel land.
Other than that, there are no new rides or new experiences announced for the area, and it looks like the Avengers E-Ticket coming to Hong Kong is not in the plans. We do see that “Armageddon” and the “Moteurs, Action Stunt-Show Spectacular” will be closing permanently in the months ahead though. The building of the Armageddon special effects will be transforming into a modern style building, but for this time without any indication of a new attraction. Rumors hint it will become a stable of Marvel character meet and greet experiences.
For the Moteurs, Action Stunt-Show location, we see that most of the structures are staying, so we can only imagine that a new stunt-show coming. As the airplane in front of the structure indicates, chances are that the Avengers will take over this spot.
The Marvel-land is surprisingly the only new addition that is being built in an already existing part of the park (this area being the backlot). This leads us to believe that this land will be finished first and see an opening date close to 2021.
Toy Story Playland
With this concept art, we could see that the “Alien Swirling Saucers” will be added to the already existing Toy Story Playland. This ride will be a much welcomed experience to the very small Toy Story Playland area. As this is just one ride, it would be a quick fix, but we’ll have to wait until the “Studio Tram Tour” closes for the needed land to be cleared.
The Lake
One of the most exciting things on these plans is the addition of a big lake. The long path to that lake runs through the present Studio Tram Tour route.
Through the years the Studio Tram Tour saw changes, and more specifically some downgrades, so the loss won’t be lamented by many. Instead the Walt Disney Studios Park is getting a lake which can accommodate watercrafts and can be a nice opportunity for some new evening entertainment.
Also on the artwork, we notice a little parade going around that lake, which will provide a nice, new parade route as well. A big water feature was definitely something missing at this park.
Star Wars
On the left side of that lake, we find a miniature version of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
Although we can only see positive things in the new concept art, this land is proving to be the least popular addition with Disney fans in Europe. This is probably due to the lack of size of the Star Wars land, as it appears to be lacking at least one of the two major attractions opening in 2019 at Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resorts.
With only the concept art being available at this time, we’ll have to await more announcements to have more details on this land.
Frozen
By far the most popular addition with fans is the Frozen land, or as most are calling it already, the Kingdom of Arendelle.
This land will feature the village of Arendelle, the icy North Mountain, and Queen Elsa’s Ice Palace. This looks a lot like the artwork we haver seen for Hong Kong Disneyland’s expansion.
Based on the size of the land, it is expected to hold at least one E-Ticket attraction and a rather large table service restaurant.
Timing
We’ve mentioned earlier that Bob Iger suggested that all the new additions would open between 2021 and 2025. There’s a lot of demolition work and land clearing to be done for the lake, as well as the Frozen and Star Wars lands, so these will probably open in a later stage of this big expansion. Let’s also remember that Disney’s Hollywood Studios didn’t even begin demolition until almost a year after the initial announcement of their park expansion.
Also there a few key dates that we need to take in account being the 20th anniversary of the Walt Disney Studios Park in 2022 and the Olympics coming to Paris in 2024. Anyway, the coming 7 (yeah, 7) years promise to be very exciting time for the Walt Disney Studios Park and Disneyland Paris.
We’ll of course keep you updated along the way.
You will be surprised that galaxy’s edge WILL be quite the same as the US versions ;)
Sure :)
This addition is well overdue, although disneyland parc is an amazingly beautiful park the studios is,by far, the worst disney park on our beautiful planet.
Hoping the tot gets a makeover as well. So within 1 yrs of disney buying out the french parks we come under the umbrella of disney and money get spent, lovely….
After going to DLP in 2015, I have to say that the “Studios” park was defiantly lacking in a lot of ways. This is a much needed upgrade for sure. The only thing in that park that we truly loved was the (then new) ratatouille ride and themed area. BTW I think that it will make a great addition to Epcot. The Toy Story Land Paris version was very “meh.” It reminded me of Dino-Land at DAK. We literally walked right through it without really stopping. I’m guessing & hoping that Disney has learned from the Paris version and implemented its upgrades to the new one at DHS in Florida…fingers crossed. Both parks at DLP are fun to see for sure but these upgrades give it a much needed boost. Thanks for the update!