“My biggest fear is that we’ll be too successful.” – Robert Fitzpatrick, Euro Disney chairman

It’s that time of year – les vacances! Oh, wait, you’re stuck at home? No big international trips? Global pandemic got you grounded? Yeah, me too. My favorite summer destination, Disneyland, is closed for COVID, and it’ll be a long time until it reopens. When it does, it won’t be the same. It’ll be an uncanny valley effect, where everything seems like the Disneyland you know and love, but when you look at it long enough, it’s not quite right. It will be a little off-center. It will be a little sad. And it’ll be empty, way too empty for Disneyland.
In other words, it’ll be just like…Euro Disney.
Episode 61: “Euro Disney”

The Sad Tale of Euro Disney:

 

 

 
Sources:

* “Euro Disney: The First 100 Days”, Gary W. Loveman, Leonard A. Schlesigner, Robert T. Anthony, Harvard Business Review, 1992.
* “Threat of Strike in Euro Disney Debut”, Roger Cohen, The New York Times, 1992.
* “Mickey’s Trip to Trouble”, Newsweek, 1994.
* France and the Construction of Europe, 144 to 2007: The Geopolitical Imperative, Michael Sutton, 2007.
* “Michael Eisner Reveals The Magic Touch That Gave A Glow To Disneyland Paris”, Christian Sylt, Forbes, 2019.
* “Playing Disney in the Parisian Fields”, Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, 1991.
* “Saudi prince to invest in Euro Disney”, UPI, 1994.
* Philippe Askenazy, Working time regulation in France from 1996 to 2012, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 37, Issue 2, March 2013, Pages 323–347, https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bes084
* “Disneyland Paris returns to profit for the first time in more than a decade”, Christian Sylt, The Telegraph, 2019.
* “Disney to buy most of Euro Disney”, BBC, 2017.
* “Walt Disney to invest 2 billion euros in Disneyland Paris”, Reuters, 2018.
* “Euro Disney Loss Is Up, Despite Rise in Visitors”, David Jolly, The New York Times, 2009.
* “Disney Hopes Eisner Can Wake Sleeping Beauty”, Aljean Harmetz, The New York Times, 1984.
* “Protesters Block Euro Disneyland”, Rone Tempest, The LA Times, 1992.
* “Only the French Elite Scorn Mickey’s Debut”,