As Disneyland Paris turns 25, Sarah Tucker relives all her magical yesterdays
Hernán Piñera
Forgive the pun, but right now fake is the real deal. It’s the media buzzword; the paradoxical successor to ‘authentic’; the fashionable taint on any dubious item of news.
Nor is the world of travel immune from this obsession with the illusory and the contrived. If anything, it has been in the vanguard, pioneering fantasy by means of the new virtual reality experiences now available from the comfort of the armchair. Tyger Tyger, burning bright, on our screens throughout the night...
And, of course, nobody does fake better than the Americans, as Donald Trump will only too willingly attest. Yet long before tetchy press conferences were all the presidential rage, another figure of global renown was busily creating perhaps the most attractive and potent fantasy of all. In the hands of Walt Disney, king of the happy ending, fake became a genuine joy.
Today Disney films continue to entrance, but what about the theme parks that bear the illustrious name? Recently, to mark the attraction’s 25th birthday, I took the Eurostar to the Gare du Nord, checked into the Vienna House Dream Castle Hotel and boarded the shuttle bus to Disneyland Paris.
My previous visit, a decade ago, had been with my eight-year-old son, who by then was tall enough to go on the more exciting rides in Frontierland, Discoveryland and Walt Disney Studios Park. We stayed on-site at the Disneyland Hotel, which enabled us to access the park an hour before everyone else. The time before that, Tom had been just four, and I revelled in his delight at riding on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups and the Pirates of the Caribbean. I bought the furry Mickey Mouse, the Winnie the Pooh swizzle stick and the chipmunk scrunchies. We visited the Haunted House thrice, It’s a Small World twice and Peter Pan’s Flight eight times. Tom was in fake nirvana.
But my very first visit was in 1992, the year it all opened, with Tom’s father. I don’t remember a thing about that.
So I had mixed feelings about venturing through those turnstyles, now patrolled by armed guards, 25 years after the French began selling an American concept to the English – something which, by all the laws of culture and reason, should have flopped as thoroughly as the defence of the Bastille. That it didn’t is largely due to the inherent ability of children to suspend their disbelief; to spy out magic in places where grown-ups see only cynical merchandising and crowds.
Anyway, I took the plunge. Toute seule, on this occasion, in the absence of a four-year-old with whom to share the wonder and joy. I went to see if I could still catch the mood, wear the Mickey Mouse ears and hum along to Whistle While You Work, Someday My Prince Will Come and
Jiminy Cricket urging me to ‘let my conscience be my guide’.
Perhaps it’s my age (52), but these days I tend to find irony where once I might have scented romance. Waiting for some obliging prince to turn up is strictly for the birds – in 2017 princesses are doing it for themselves. Like Princesses Elsa and Anna, of Frozen fame, doll versions of whom were much in evidence at Disneyland Paris. Mulan and Moana were there too, along with other Disney creations of relatively modern vintage whose identities somehow escaped me.
Gary Ullah
Disneyland Paris
But my sights were set elsewhere. Walking along Main Street, melting as the Fairytale Castle loomed on the horizon, I headed wistfully for the places I had targeted 14 years before. I remembered the crowds, swarming eagerly as if on a pilgrimage, searching for princess dresses and swizzle sticks – the ones that lit up and had Winnie the Pooh on them, back before the Snowman from Frozen made his belated entrance. I passed by Frontierland, headed for the Haunted House and continued on to It’s a Small World where everyone, of whatever nationality, gets on famously. Curiously, I always found this ride in Fantasyland more creepy than the Haunted House.
There were queues for Peter Pan’s Flight, my favourite, so I booked in via Fastpass, which got me on within five minutes of my return. It was just as I remembered, with its flying ship through the stars, and was as delightful as in 2003. Once was enough though – in the absence of Tom, eight rides seemed wildly excessive. So instead I went off to find a chipmunk scrunchy, only to be told that they no longer make them. Nor was there rain on the parade. The parade was cancelled – due to rain.
But 14 years ago the highlight of the whole visit had been the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show – and this time it was so again. Clever choreography, a brilliant and talented cast and a herd of wild buffalo and horses provided seamless entertainment as we shouted our ‘yee haws’, willing our team of cowboys to win. Buffalo and horses: real animals, not fake ones. And when Mickey and Minnie turned up, I found myself longing for the Longhorn cattle to stampede them off the stage.
That’s the problem with Disneyland: it does illusion so well that one can never quite tell the fact from the fake; the substantial from the tricks of the light. Gazing at a duck swimming happily in the lake around It’s a Small World, I found myself wondering if the creature was animatronic. It was a disconcerting moment.
Still, it reminded me of something important: that the province of fakes and fairytales ends sharply at the borders of maturity. When you are a child, Disneyland creates a wonderful dream. Come back as an adult and you realise just how important it is to live out a dream of your own.
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