Disney 100 : A day of desolation

On Monday 16 October 2023, The Walt Disney Company celebrated its 100th birthday. This is our chance to take a look back at the celebration desolation that was this day. Unlike other resorts, Disneyland Paris only chose one day. But as they say: sometimes it’s better not to… We’ll tell you all about it, and we won’t mince our words.

Opening ceremony :

Announced months ago, this unique day was eagerly awaited by all enthusiasts. All the more so after the many occasions when the destination had managed to pleasantly surprise us, such as last 14 July and the last day of the 30-year anniversary celebrations.

It all starts with a speech by Natacha Rafalski… the speech sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Her speech was quickly consigned to the dustbin of history, as she was unable to come up with an outstanding speech – on the contrary, it was rather awkward.

“The smiles are the best reward for the Cast Members who make the destination shine” Seriously? We could easily go back to the strikes that took place a few months ago. What about wages and working conditions? Guests’ smiles don’t fill Cast Members’ fridges at the end of the month.

You can’t take away the desire to offer something for this day! The first appearance of Mirabel, seeing characters we’re not used to seeing in the park such as Volt and many others. It was a playground with 100 characters (99 to be exact).

But in the event, things were so short and so badly organised that it was more a waste of budget than a day to remember!

At that point, we should have realised that the rest of the day wasn’t going to go in the right direction.

The remake of Dream… and Shine Brighter :

The pre-parade (express) took place at 12.30pm, and Guest Flow didn’t know whether it was going to take the parade route around Town Square or not. Once again we see the lack of communication. In spite of everything, they managed to manage and give us the answer that no: the pre-parade will not go round Town Square.

The float arrived and there was a big surprise: we found the ‘Dream …. and Shine Brighter’ float in the 100th anniversary colours. There were no small savings, because even the outfits worn by some of the dancers were the same as for the 30th anniversary show. Patches were added to camouflage the pretty 30 logo! What’s the point of spending the budget for just one day?

The good thing about Dream… and Shine Brighter is that the plastics on the float weren’t opaque, whereas Mickey and Minnie were simply hidden!

Poor organisation :

There were two photo opportunities on the day:

• Selfie Spot at Castle Stage in Disneyland Park
• Meet the characters at Production Courtyard in Walt Disney Studios Park

Why am I telling you this? You’ll soon understand!

We arrived at Walt Disney Studios Park (1.45pm – 4.45pm) hoping to meet Mickey and/or Minnie in their 100th birthday suit. During the first set Mickey & Minnie are present, 30 minutes later Pluto arrives. That’s when things got out of hand. Some guests gave up their place in the queue because they wanted to wait for Mickey and Minnie’s next set.

The Cast Members saw that the queue was holding up and that everyone was waiting for the stars of the day!

It was at this point that a Cast Member in charge appeared to threaten the guests! Telling us “I can’t promise you the return of Mickey & Minnie in conditions like this” “We never said you could meet them and you can’t choose who to see”.

It’s pretty ridiculous to put two characters together and then propose one. If Pluto had been accompanied by Goofy, things would surely have worked out differently.

Conclusion: Pluto’s set was shortened from 30 minutes to 20 minutes. After that, Mickey and Minnie alternated and Pluto disappeared.

In the evening, they put things right as Minnie was accompanied by Goofy and Mickey by Pluto.

As for Castle Stage, Donald and Daisy and Tic and Tac were on hand for the selfie spot.

Where’s the tribute?

For the 100th anniversary, instead of having a show with a hundred drones, we had a show without drones. Let me explain: the post-show offered in both parks was simply soporific. We’re still waiting for the drones and/or at least the Disney 100 logo.

The fact is that habits die hard at Disneyland Paris. Eventually, it will have to be accepted that the more Disneyland Paris “raises the hype”, the lower the quality of the offer.

At the very least, we would have liked to see a tribute to Walt Disney in this post-show.

What’s more, for New Year’s Eve 2023, Disneyland Paris put on an anniversary show for the 100th anniversary year. It was much better quality and more in keeping with the anniversary than this post-show.

If you’re going to recycle a float, why not recycle a show rather than present us with something that’s clearly inferior in quality?

The icing on the cake is that the New Year’s show has the same soundtrack as the post-show on 16 October!

It’s worth noting that the Partners statue in Walt Disney Studios Park was removed a few days earlier, which is a real shame.

NB: if you want to see a real tribute to Walt Disney, we recommend ‘Once Upon a Studio’, available on Disney+.

Disney 100: our reviews :

On Monday, some of the ED92 team got together to enjoy the day together. And it’s a good thing we were together. It was the same for all the members of the team! Some people think it was a desolate day and I tend to agree with that.

We all have a rather negative opinion of this day, which was announced months ago.

Come on, let’s meet up in 2055 for Disneyland’s 100th anniversary – it can’t get any worse, and if it does, we might as well do nothing!