Lava Lagoon

[Kristof]

:arrow:  http://membres.lycos.fr/conceptartdlp/

Concept art for the indoor swimming paradise which was planned for 2005:

[disneyfreak90]

it reminds me a little bit on typhoon lagoon at walt disney world florida...

[david]

Wow! great find that looks amazing- i hope they get round to building it

[luke85]

Looks cool! I think Lava Lagoon would be such a good concept for a new park, or even a hotel?

[Magic M]

Correct me if I'm wrong but this was originally going to be the other side of the road to Hotel Santa Fe right?

[Anthony]

Yes it was, between the road outside Santa Fe and the main access road to the parking lot.

There's an excellent new article about it all online here today, very much worth reading: http://progresscityusa.com/archives/nev ... ava-lagoon

[experiment627]

There's an excellent new article about it all online here today, very much worth reading: http://progresscityusa.com/archives/nev ... ava-lagoon

The most fascinating bit is the timetable that Disney seemed to have in mind:
1994 for Disney-MGM
1995 for Lave Lagoon
1999 for a 3rd Gate
+ numerous new attractions - and we can assume an extension of "Festival Disney" and new hotels.

I would love to see the business plan they were working with. Starting with the construction of the resort in 1988 right to the planned opening of a 3rd gate in 1999 it would mean that Disney was going to invest a sum way over 10 billion dollars for Euro Disney's first three phases. Amazing. Even by today's standards.
They shot too high.

That said, I'd still love to swim in "The Great Pacific" and plunge down from the top of "The Big Kahuna" one day...

[lil-shawn]

this is all a game with the luck that they have too much
and have won nothing.

I think not only the high amount and the few visitors of the reason was why they never were able to make profitable right.
in the 80s and early 90s the french not wanted that their land is getting
too much Americanized, and left the park just and simply ignored.

The rest of the Europeans thought it far too expensive to make a vacation
in euro disney. Today is not different, disney will always be more expensive and
fewer and fewer people want and can´t afford.

it is really a pity that not much was being built, now we can only hope that disneyland paris recovered. lava lagoon is really something that is missing in this resort.
I also think that they should build this water park, befor they stuff more attractions into the studios park who make not realy sense. in the school, it would mean that subjects missed ...

[experiment627]

in the 80s and early 90s the french not wanted that their land is getting
too much Americanized, and left the park just and simply ignored.

That's a myth. True, during the first years they didn't get as many guests from the local area as expected. Still, they made up for almost half of the visitors. So, about 5 million guests came from France in 1992. Already that would have made Euro Disney the most visited theme park in Europe...

Trouble was: people didn't stay as long as Disney had thought. And they didn't spend as much. While the theme park was packing them in, the whole concept of a "destination resort" just fell flat. Euro Disney / Disneyland Paris never really recovered from that misconception.

[lil-shawn]

it´s not really a mith, there is a little truth behind...
a few days ago i saw a little reportage on youtube, from a
tv station in the uk... they were asking the french peeps,
and most of them said, its not they´re mentality to visit such
entertainment thing, also they said it is to american..

i will look out if i find this again, it was taken few month
befor the opening of eurodisney...
sure it is not the only thing that was brining dlp those trubles,
just a little one.. i don´t wanna upset any french person...

but thats all offtopic, am still having hope that someone, really knows what
to do, and recover this park, and make it a real destination resort thats worth
visiting.. but right now they´re far far away with all this stuff going on....
they really should think about building this water park, and stop building rides
to the studios till they really have any plan how to make this park interesting,
and a real disney park.... thats just my thought...

[experiment627]

it´s not really a mith, there is a little truth behind...
a few days ago i saw a little reportage on youtube, from a
tv station in the uk... they were asking the french peeps,
and most of them said, its not they´re mentality to visit such
entertainment thing, also they said it is to american.

True, there was a lot of bad press for Euro Disney. But if you look for people that are against a certain project, you will always find them. Just look around for reports about Olympic Games or other theme park or tourism projects.

Two things to think about:
1.) McDonald's is amazingly popular in France and has been so for decades. (Though, strangely enough, not Burger King)

2.) The one Disney project that really got killed by opposition from the locals was not in France, but ... near Washington. Disney's America theme park project was shelved mainly due to massive protests by the locals.


Disney has always been very popular in France. But I suppose they did some rather big PR mistakes before opening Euro Disney, turning off quite a number of people.

But - to get this back on topic - I still think that Lava Lagoon and all the other great dreams and ideas were not killed by lacking support of the local visitor base, but by Disney's mistake to overestimate the Europeans' demand for a full-blown-destination-resort.