In 1992, Disney decided to build upon the huge success of its Disneyland and Disney World theme parks by opening Euro Disney in a suburb of Paris. The company had previously licensed its name for a resort abroad just outside Tokyo, but the European version was a more ambitious project being handled by the company. It started out as a nightmare. Simply put, people didn’t go to it. And now you can avoid going to it from the comfort of your own home thanks to the magic of Google Earth.
Just as it did last year with Disney World, Google Earth now has Disneyland Paris (as it was rebranded to in 1995 following its thud of an opening) rendered in 3D. Disney has provided the program with some 85,000 photos — a huge 450GB worth — to make the renderings as realistic as possible. All the rides are there, the castle and even over 500 landscape elements.
Following its rebranding, and the opening of some new rides, Disneyland Paris was able to somewhat turn things around, but it remains far in debt. Having a virtual representation of your theme park in Google Earth isn’t going to help that. Is it going to convince more people to go visit the park? Unlikely. But it’s a cute distraction for me for about 15 minutes. And it shows how good some of these 3D renderings are getting.
The Disneyland Paris layer can be found in the “Gallery” folder of Google Earth 5.0.
Now that’s called a virtual poor man’s virtual theme park!
ya i don’t see how this will be relevant
This is racist !!!
Do you think that the Crunch guys hate Europe?
Yes, pointing out that Euro Disney isn’t very popular with Europeans …. that’s racist against, er, Europeans.
HA HA!
That just emphasizes the Europeans’ elegant taste (preferring the other attractions of Paris to Mickey Mouse costumes), so yes, you could think this as being somewhat racist towards people who considered it a good idea to build the theme park in the first place. But if idiotism of such person is a hard fact, then does it change anything?
I enjoyed Disneyland Paris alot more than the Florida one. The rides are more modern, most of the American ones are a bit dated at this stage. It’s smaller too so there’s less redundant stuff and you don’t have to walk nearly as far.
Of course you like Euro-Disney better, you narrow minded techie!
Here’s why:
DisneyWorld – Huge Castle
Euro-Disney – Land full of castles, one more makes no difference. Plus the new one has no pee in the corners and smells nice.
DisneyWorld – Tinkerbell is cute
Euro-Disney – Dressing up Pierre of Gustav with a one piece green bathing suite only makes sense if you shave his legs.
DisneyWorld – Fast Food is crap
Euro-Disney – Crap as food
DisneyWorld – Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride
Euro-Disney – The Great Prophet owned a rug, so it is an insult to Islam if you let women ride the thing. We will blow it up, because that’s what we do.
DisneyWorld – Alice Mad Tea Party Ride
Euro-Disney – Having a ride that glorifies those stinking Brittish pigs? We’re Frenchmen here!!! Why do you thing we talk with this outrageous accent?????
DisneyWorld – Ursula, the Octopus Witch from The Little Mermaid.
Euro-Disney – Carla Bruni
DisneyWorld – Funnel Cake
Euro-Disney – Cremme Brulett
DisneyWorld – FrontierLand
Euro-Disney – Oh, my, god! A bearded man with a gun and a weird head cover! We give up, we give up!!!!!!
DisneyWorld – WDW Raildroad
Euro-Disney – The Chunnel Line…chao!
I think most if not all credit for the turnaround in the 90s can be attributed to PY Gerbeau who is a great and fun guy (I attended a class he was co-teaching at London Business School). Funnily hs is known as the Gerbil in the UK where he now officiates.
poor journalist …
very poor content on TC that becomes slowly a place against european people, with a closed mind, very far from the internet spirit … maybe it’s time to change your job guys …
But they’re on our side here! Most Europeans would rather nuke Disney Land Paris than have it on our continent, and we know the French have history in nuking peaceful vessels – watch out Captain Hook’s Pirate Ship!
How can it be anti-European? It’s an American theme park dumped here because it’s so bad. I’m pretty sure the French only accepted it because then they’d be even with America for saving zem in ze war. America might owe France now.
ok, so let’s forget about my quick words … but title is a bad choice …
I personnally visited several times the Eurodisney park and I like it, better than a lot of american parks or smaller european parks
Hey, this Californian has been to EuroDisney and it’s a nice place, alright? Lay off it.
I am European, and I can only recommend to everybody NEVER, EVER go to EuroDisney.
It has the worst service of ANY theme parts I visited so far.
Did I mention the staff is rude and unfriendly? Did I mention the horrible, expensive food?
Sorry for venting, but whenever I only hear the word Eurodisney it reminds me of a really bad weekend and disappointed kids and adults.
Go to Europapark Rust instead ….
Unfriendly and rude? Well, forgive them, they are French!
*gets coat, and leaves …*
The reason the staff at Disneyland Paris are so rude is because THEY ARE MOSTLY FRENCH who are the most ignorant, selfish, smelly people in the world.
Seems like the ethos within Tech Crunch are Europeans at second rate level and incapable,
Even though the article is written by a (Belgian) European.
It was not to long ago that Mr Arrington was in trouble insulting the Europeans whilst attending in France.
You’re reading waaaaay too far into this. Is it in any way a stretch to say Euro Disney was a failure when it launched? No, it’s not.
Don’t we only read what has been published within the content of the Twitter articles of Tech Crunch,
Slander and derogatory articles don’t usually welcome any real Journalistic reporting, it usually finds the stiff wrist of a court case and apologies on behalf of the organization.
Assuming the outlet would have editorial in the first place, as demonstrated it seems that their is no real credibility with reading the articles at Tech Crunch.
As the reader is accused of reading “waaaaay” too far into the text published.
Yes, insulting Europeans … like the good old European corporation Disney, run from the European city of Burbank, then run by the European entrepreneur (or whatever the French word for that is) Michael Eisner!
If TechCrunch wanted to annoy Europeans they’d suggest having one of these in each European capital, staffed by people imported from South Carolina, that double as a US airbase.
It’s funny, because entrepreneur is a French word
Wow. What a non story. Slow news day?
Why you putting on us these posts?
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http://good-bik...de.blogspot.com
JustMe: The food and pricing at the US Disney parks aren’t much better honestly.
Americans and Europeans. We just love each others, don’t we? No other two continents could have a serious (sic!) conversation over the quality of Disney parks in their suburbs. Let’s keep it real…
I’m taking my children to Euro Disney this year I’m sure they will enjoy what’s available
According to Wikipedia, Disneyland Paris had 15.3 million visitors in fiscal year 2008…
Even if *every one* of these visitors got a children’s ticket (children’s tickets are 34 euro in 2009 which is $47.54), that’s $727M dollars in revenue.
Yep, sounds like a complete failure to me.
Provided they spend absolutely nothing, of course. Your figures are off, yo.
I think the problem with Euro Disney (better name than current “Disneyland Resort Paris” imho) was occupation rate of the hotels was low (you could and still can do the park in one day) and people didn’t spend enough € in the shops. Stupids europeans just wanted to do the rides.
For the unfriendly staff, yep, I think we french can’t smile with the minimum wage. It’s a genetic disease.
Most businesses with “Euro” in the brand name have failed.
EuroDisney – EuroTunnel – Euro….
Racist? No, the French are cheap! Disneyland is expensive. You do the math.
Anybody that still thinks Disneyland Paris is a failure clearly hasn’t done their research.
Disneyland Park is the 4th most popular theme park in the entire World. It had 12.6 million visitors in 2008 alone, beating parks like Epcot, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and all of the Universal Studios parks.
Since opening in 1992, the resort has had over 200 million visitors, the equivalent of the populations of the UK, France and Germany combined!
While the long queues and tacky parades can be off-putting, Disneyland Park is a beautifully designed, richly themed, and highly detailed tourist attraction, that a staggering amount of money and man hours went into creating.