Worst Theme Park Ever!

In a park in Casablanca stood a lone kiddie rollercoaster. It was filled with happy children, even though it didn’t go anywhere. Just sitting there was the ride. A hand-written sign tacked to a tree read “DISNEYLAND”.

Still, this isn’t the worst Disney park in the world, at least according to a Youtube. A video called “The World’s Worst Theme Park” gave the honor to “Parc Walt Disney Studios” in Paris, which adjoins the infamous Disneyland Paris. This was news to us: we’d been to France’s Disneyland twice and never even noticed another park there. But if it was the worst one in the world, we had to see it!

The first thing we noticed on entering the “Parc” (read that backwards!) was that Disney seems to hate it too. Fifty percent of the attractions were shuttered and hidden behind tall wooden walls. For long stretches, you are shunted through narrow lanes between these barricades, like a Mickey Mouse in a maze. Disney is in the process of rebranding the place as Disney Adventure Park, and, in a questionable move for a failing venture, doubling its size. It’s less a theme park than an active construction site.

So what’s still open? There’s the same Tower of Terror and Toy Story Playland that you can find at any Disney park. But they have two indoor rollercoasters I’d never seen anywhere else – “Avengers Assemble: Flight Force” and “Crush’s Coaster”. These seem to be the exact same ride, following the exact same tracks, with two different names. After a century people enjoying rollercoasters just the way they are, Disney decided to tinker with the formula. Now all their coasters have storylines, with pre-recorded characters chattering directly in your ears. And you can’t hear a word of it, because, you know, you’re on a rollercoaster. Avengers Assemble features some sort of bickering between an American Captain Marvel and a French-speaking Iron Man. Even the CGI version of Brie Larson looks unhappy to be there.

Crush’s Coaster!

And there’s the “Cars: Road Trip”, where you ride a giant tram like at Universal Studios. Two Cars characters I never heard of blather away throughout the adventure. You get to see a truck blow up (the last vestige of their Studios Tour Ride); then you pass a Great Wall of China made of Tires and a stunted Eiffel Tower made of junk. That’s it. I kept expecting the tram to take us somewhere, when suddenly the ride was over. There’s no there there.

If the rides suck, the sit-down attractions are just great. There are seven theater shows, including “Stitch: Live!” and “Mickey and the Magician”, that are better than anything I saw on Broadway this century. The French invented cabaret and they are still the masters.

We had dinner at “Walt’s – An American Restaurant”, which perfectly recreates a Midwestern café from the early 20th century. What they couldn’t recreate was the American food they promised. I ordered two of my favorites: chicken pot pie and chili con carne. The pot pie was more of a chicken paste smeared inside croissant. I hate croissants – you chomp into them and they immediately shatter into a billion greasy flakes that scatter around the room. You get maybe two good bites and sixty square feet of crumbs.

So they messed up the pot pie. Even the French couldn’t ruin chili con carne -- it’s too easy. I can cook it. Hoboes cook it. Even the canned versions are pretty great. But when the French waitress brought it to the table, I had no idea it was chili con carne. There was a tall tumbler filled with red paste, topped by a cracker shaped like Mickey Mouse. Beside it were a few squares of meat covered with a different red paste, some rice, some cheese, and something else I couldn’t quite identify. The waitress had clearly seen many Americans completely baffled by this concoction. “You must meex eet up,” she said. I did. Eet was awful.

And this is the kind of fearless, stupid observation you’ll only get in my Substack: French food is overrated. It’s like French ballet: it’s fancy and they clearly put a lot of work into it, but it’s not something you really enjoy. No one hosted a Super Bowl party and put on a tray of snails. No one ever smoked a joint and said, “I’m craving a crepe.”

To recap: Disney Studios Paris isn’t that bad, and French food isn’t that good.

PAID SUBSCRIBERS BONUS: Trapped on “The Pirates of the Caribbean”!