One thing to think about when you travel to a Disney park is that even the worst Disney park is going to be a lot of fun. While it’s impossible for every single person that ever steps into any Disney park to have an amazing time, it’s safe to say that most people who visit any Disney park will have a good time. This is actually a pretty amazing claim that I would say can’t be said about most theme park chains, with the exception of maybe Universal’s collection of theme parks.
How is a Bad Park Evaluated?
While we can agree that all Disney theme parks are going to be pretty amazing, not every park is the same. Even parks with similar themes, like castle parks and studio parks offer different attractions and have different variations on the theme. So using that logic, we would have to say that there must be a best and a worst Disney park… right? I think the main thing to think about is that better and worse are very subjective. It can depend on the person visiting, as well as the situation or time that one might visit.
A better or worse park might be measured by the number of people who visit as well. I think there’s some truth to that, however I feel like more people are willing to travel to Florida to experience the massive multi-theme park experience that is Walt Disney World. Getting to Hong Kong to go to a small single park might not be something as many people are as interested in doing. In this case, popularity doesn’t make for a better park.
Why is DisneyLand Paris Consistently Rated the Worst?
There is however one park that seems to fall prey to every single claim of being the worse Disney park, and that’s Parc Walt Disney Studios in France. It’s the second gate at the Disney resort in France, opening after Disneyland Paris (or at the time Euro Disney). It’s a studio park, which means the theme of this park is that you’re visiting a movie studio in the heyday of film. The attractions, restaurants and shows are almost all couched in large buildings designed to resemble film studios. In some cases, the attractions are designed to various popular movies, and there’s less feeling of separate lands, and more of a feeling that you’re travelling from film set to film set.
The creation of this kind of park originated in California, when Universal decided to extend their studio tour into a full theme park. At that time the concept was to allow people to visit these working movie sets, but also experience some theme park attractions. Later, Disney also opened a similar type of theme park called MGM Studios in Florida (it’s now called Disney Hollywood Studios). This was also a working film and animation studio with theme park attractions.
The problem with this park is that it became unprofitable to actually make movies at the Disney Florida theme park. Eventually the actual film and animation production facilities shut down, and you were left with a movie making theme park only. This is where the Paris studio theme park gets even weirder, as far as I can tell, no movie or animated film has ever been made at Parc Walt Disney Studios.
When the studio shut down at the Disney Hollywood Studios, there were several adjustments made to make the park more entertaining. Some worked, and some didn’t, but eventually they built up a park enough to hold its own. It also doesn’t hurt that Disney Hollywood Studio has 3 other huge and popular theme parks around it. Parc Walt Disney Studios has one other park near it, and as far as updates go, it’s fairly slim pickings. There is always talk of updating this park, but not much is done.
Because of these problems, Parc Walt Disney Studios is generally regarded as the worst Disney park. Travel sites tend to give it a lower rating than other Disney parks and Disney bloggers tend to rate it very low. The attendance is also never that high less than 2 million people a year are said to visit Parc Walt Disney Studios, in comparison more than 12 million visit the Magic Kingdom in Florida every year.
Are these Bad Ratings Justified?
The signs point to this being not a great theme park, but in the opinion of this Disney blogger, it’s really a place not to miss. I’ve been in this park several times and never really had a bad time. The shows in this park are very entertaining and it even has some of the best rides in all of the Disney parks. While some might not be a fan of the film set theme, I actually enjoy it, and I think they pull it off really well. I also think that this park has one of the most unique entrances of any Disney park. Instead of a large street that takes you to a hub, they have a giant indoor studio set that opens up into the park.
I also find that this park is easy to walk around, there aren’t too many twists and turns that might make you miss out on an attraction. While there have been a few updates on some of the attractions, they also have a great collection of classic rides that are gone from the Disney studio in Florida.
One advantage to this park being rated the least popular is that it solves one of the biggest problems at many of the other parks, overcrowding. Other than a few new rides, this park rarely fills up that much, so wait times can be pretty amazing for rides and shows. If you’ve ever experienced the Magic Kingdom on a holiday weekend, just imagine the opposite.
What I’m getting at is you shouldn’t skip this park. It’s not the perfect park, but it’s still pretty great. Disney hasn’t given up on this park either, and continually adds upgrades that could make your trip even better. So don’t give up on this park either, and if you do go for a visit, why not stop at Paris Disneyland as well.
4 fun facts about this studio park:
– Parc Walt Disney Studios is one of the smallest Disney parks at only acres.
– This park was also the first to have the Ratatouille ride L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy, which later opened in Florida at Epcot.
– If you’ve ever wanted to ride a Saving Nemo themed roller coaster, this is the place to do it.
– The Disney resort is actually not in Paris, it’s in an area known as Chessy.