Disneyland Paris “is an absolutely beautiful park, one of the most beautiful in the world.” That’s what Jay Rasulo told me during an interview in 2009.

Rasulo, then the Walt Disney Company’s Parks and Resorts Chairman who was about to become the company’s Chief Financial Officer, had perhaps his most career-defining moment years earlier when he was tasked with reversing the fortunes of Disney’s one and only European theme park, located 20 miles east of Paris in the town of Marne-la-Vallee.

If truth be told, Disneyland Paris stumbled out of the gate when it opened in 1992 as Euro Disneyland.

Attendance was dismal and French citizens’ overall perception of the park was decidedly negative. It seemed as if Disney had made a billion-dollar blunder.

Rasulo, then a rising star within Disney’s corporate ranks, was sent to France with a simple mandate: Fix it!

After months of painstaking research, Rasulo came to the conclusion that “what we probably didn’t understand very well was that Disneyland Paris is an incredibly diverse environment and very different from the American environment.”

Simply put, Disney tried to push an American product on a foreign audience. Enter Jay Rasulo.

“Even though the product looked the same and the attractions had to same names, translated … it was very different from the American model. And how the French behaved when they came to the park – really devoting important time to meals and wanting wine, having different preferences in the hotels – it’s something that took us a good five years to appreciate.

“I was really determined to reverse that and really embrace that. Instead of fighting it and trying to make it fit the American model, it was really about embracing the European model.”

Rasulo’s strategy worked. Disneyland Paris became Europe’s No. 1 travel destination, which is saying a lot, considering the ample tourist attractions available throughout the continent.

I’ve been fortunate to have visited Disneyland Paris on two occasions, first in 2015 and again in 2023.

What I discovered was, just as Jay Rasulo said, Disneyland Paris’ Magic Kingdom is a beautiful park … similar to Disneyland and Walt Disney World in design, but with enough differences to make it a compelling, enjoyable adventure.

The nearby Walt Disney Studios, however, remains a work in progress, although the addition of several Marvel-themed attractions has been a step in the right direction … and the park was the birthplace of the wonderful Ratatouille attraction.

All that encompasses Disneyland Paris – the Magic Kingdom, the Walt Disney Studios and the Disney Village shopping/dining area – are within walking distance of one another. The main transportation hub – which includes hotel bus stops, taxi stands and the Marne-la-Vallee/Chessy train station – also can be reached on foot.

Guests in England can take the Eurostar train through the Channel Tunnel and arrive at Disneyland Paris in a few hours. And guests staying in Paris can ride the RER train to the Marne-la-Vallee/Chessy station in about 45 minutes.

We’d like to share some more of our favorite photos from our visits to Disneyland Paris in this latest installment of Still Goofy About Disney.

Enjoy … or should we say apprecier?

Chuck Schmidt is an award-winning journalist and retired Disney cast member who has covered all things Disney since 1984 in both print and on-line. He has authored or co-authored seven books on Disney, including his On the Disney Beat and Disney’s Dream Weavers for Theme Park Press. He has written a regular blog for AllEars.Net, called Still Goofy About Disney, since 2015.

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