Weather Smiles on Opening Day at Euro Disney

MARNE-LA-VALLEE, France —  Under a sunny azure sky that looked as if it had been imported from California, Euro Disney, a $4.4-billion gamble that Europeans will love the Magic Kingdom as much as Americans and Japanese do, opened officially Sunday in this former sugar-beet growing region 20 miles east of Paris.

A one-day suburban railroad strike by Communist-led transport unions kept the crowds down on the initial day of operations. An apparent sabotage of a high-tension power line feeding the resort knocked out electricity briefly Saturday night. But the massive traffic jam feared by police officials never materialized, and motorists arrived unimpeded on highways cleared by squadrons of motorcycle police.

Hours before dawn Sunday, several hundred Disney enthusiasts had already lined up outside the theme park’s 95 ticket booths. To relieve the crowd pressure, Disney officials opened the park one hour earlier than the announced 9:01 a.m. official starting time.

“There are lots of happy families here,” beamed Euro Disney President Robert Fitzpatrick. “We couldn’t have programmed it better.”

Strolling down the circa-1900 Americana “Main Street” with his French-born wife, Sylvie, and a handful of security guards, Fitzpatrick described the rail strike, which shut down a major line leading from Paris and the western Parisian suburbs to the site, as “part of the simple, fundamental reality of living in (strike-prone) France.”

Disney officials did not comment on police reports of the apparent sabotage of the electric line leading into the park, which briefly extinguished the resort’s festive Saturday night lighting.

After its business triumphs in Anaheim, Orlando, Fla., and Tokyo, the Burbank-based Walt Disney Co. had long dreamed of opening one of its patented resort-amusement park complexes in the heart of Europe. Paris, centrally located and only two hours by air from a potential market population of 310 million, was the logical choice. The main drawback was the Paris region’s often dreary and damp weather.

The sunny skies and warm weather for the inauguration ceremonies, which were preceded by two days of welcoming festivities for press and Disney business partners under equally balmy conditions, were welcomed by Disney officials as a good omen. “In five years living in France, I’ve never seen weather like this,” Fitzpatrick said.

Only later Sunday morning, after the new park had been launched with fireworks and speeches, did a typical bank of European clouds move across the horizon, dropping temperatures and putting a chill on the opening day crowd. But by that time, most of the world’s press, including many reporters and television crews flown in at Disney expense and housed in the six Disney resort hotels to record the opening, had already departed.

In their opening day speeches Sunday, Walt Disney Co. officials took excruciating care to soothe French sensitivities about the implantation of the quintessentially American project on their soil. In the months before the opening, Euro Disney had sparked an active debate in the press and intellectual community about its potential impact on French culture.

In his speech, Disney executive Roy Disney, nephew of the late Walt Disney, traced the family history back to a seacoast village in Normandy, Isigny-sur-Mer, from where he said Disney ancestors Hughes and Robert d’Isigny took part in the Norman invasion of England in 1066.

He mentioned that Walt Disney had been a decorated World War I ambulance driver “only a few miles away from here on the Marne River.” He attributed his late uncle’s affection for French culture and stories to the “more than a few drops of French blood” in his veins.

Likewise, Disney Chairman Michael Eisner quoted from French literature and mentioned the European sources as the basis of the famous Disney animated features Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Germany); Pinocchio (Italy); Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (France); Mary Poppins and Peter Pan (England), and the Little Mermaid (Denmark).

Then, speaking in halting but faultless French from a balcony on Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at the entrance to Fantasyland, Eisner declared the 5,000-acre resort “officially open.”

Earlier, Eisner awarded the traditional Disney “lifetime passport” to the first family in line to buy tickets for entrance into the park: clothing store manager Serge Gallier, 39, his wife, Maissa, 40, and son Gorkase, 8. The Galliers, from the northern Parisian working-class suburb of Villepinte, were at the Disney ticket counter at 5:45 a.m. to buy their tickets.

Sold at the equivalent of $40 for adults and $27 for children, Euro Disney tickets are the most expensive of all the Disney theme parks. Prices for meals inside the park are also high by American standards. A luncheon for two adults and two children of hot dogs and potato chips at Casey’s Corner, a Disney fast-food cafe on Main Street, cost the equivalent of $35, including soft drinks and ice cream. Vendors on Main Street were charging $3.65 for simple Mickey Mouse helium-filled balloons.

Prices in the Disney resort hotels outside the theme park are even higher. A buffet breakfast for one adult and two children at the Newport Bay Club Hotel cost 360 francs--$65 at current exchange rates, even with half-price rates for children.

Supervising first-day operations were hundreds of Disney executives and managers brought in from other resorts and offices. The ever-prepared Disney executives were ready for the worst, having stocked several thousand umbrellas and ponchos for use in case of rain or even snow.

With the good weather, the focus of their attention was turned to minor problems of food service and lines for popular attractions.

“We’ve had a little trouble in the restaurants getting the French employees to work as a team,” said Tony Altobelli, a Germany-based marketing manager for Walt Disney Attractions.

The opening of the newest Disney resort was prominent in newspapers and television news reports all over Europe on the weekend. Even French President Francois Mitterrand, appearing before television journalists Sunday night to discuss European Community unification, was asked his opinion of Euro Disney.

“I respect the expressions of other cultures,” the 75-year-old Mitterrand responded, smiling, “But that (Euro Disney) is not exactly my cup of tea.”