20 Days to 20 Years- 1995

It’s 1995 at 20 Days to 20 Years, and today, Beth, @disneymom2jhe, Manda @mandadisneyblog, and I are thrilled to invite another great friend and longtime Disney blogging pro Diane of CanDoItMom (aka Mouse Fan Diane) to the series!

 
I welcome you to 20 Days to 20 Years Celebration and the year I’m going to talk about is 1995. Since, I have never been to Disneyland Paris before, this post will be mostly facts about the park. I will be learning more about it along the way and this in turn will make me want to visit it even more.

One of the biggest changes happens in 1995 the name changes from Euro Disney to DisneyLand Paris.

On May 31, 1995, a new attraction opened at the theme park, Space Mountain: De la Terre à la Lune. It had been planned since the inception of Euro Disneyland under the name Discovery Mountain, but was reserved for a revival of public interest. With a redesign of the attraction (which had premiered as Space Mountain at the Walt Disney World Resort’s Magic Kingdom in 1975) it would be slightly different in Paris, including a “cannon launch” system, inversions, and an on-ride soundtrack.  The $100 million (US dollars) attraction was dedicated in a ceremony attended by celebrities such as Elton John, Claudia Schiffer and Buzz Aldrin.

On July 25, 1995, Euro Disney S.C.A. reported its first ever quarterly profit of $35.3 million (US dollars). On November 15, the results for the fiscal year ending September 30 were released; in one year the theme park’s attendance had climbed from 8.8 million to 10.7 million — an increase of 21%. Hotel occupancy had also climbed from 60 to 68.5%. After debt payments, Disneyland Paris ended the year with a net profit of $22.8 million (US dollars).

Disneyland Paris and its assets have been subject to a number of name changes, initially an effort to overcome the negative publicity that followed the inception of Euro Disney.

 Michael Eisner noted,

“

As Americans, the word ‘Euro’ is believed to mean glamorous or exciting. For Europeans it turned out to be a term they associated with business, currency, and commerce. Renaming the park ‘Disneyland Paris’ was a way of identifying it with one of the most romantic and exciting cities in the world.

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And thank you, Diane, (@MouseFanDiane, Diane Maguire on Facebook and Pinterest), for insight into significant Disney Parks history and the origins of one of Disneyland Paris’s anchor attractions!




Tomorrow, our co-host Beth takes the lead with the year 1996.