Edition: U.S. / Global

Visiting Disney's French Kingdom

Published: May 24, 1992

SOMEWHERE deep inside the pirate's cave, beneath a jagged ceiling of simulated stalactites, we were marooned. After plunging down pitch-black flumes and dodging grapeshot and curses from angry French sea rovers, the little parade of mechanical boats curling through Euro Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean had thumped, quite suddenly, to a stop.

On one side of us, a pirate's skull, covered in cobwebs, grinned wickedly. On the other, a ghostly harpsichord played over and over and over again the opening bars of the same agonizingly familiar Disney shanty. "Yo ho, yo ho, it's a pirate's life for me," we hummed along helplessly, as the seconds stretched to minutes and Euro Disneyland's French technicians plotted our rescue from a mechanical failure.

My wife, Margo, our three children and I had arrived at the park, near Marne-la-Vallee, about 20 miles east of Paris, only a half hour earlier, having set out from our small hotel near the Eiffel Tower at an ambitious 7:30 A.M. At the turnstiles, the cheerful young attendants had wished us all "a Disney Day." Now, in the five minutes our boat bobbed helplessly inside the cave, I turned to Lindsay, my 12-year-old daughter, and remarked, with fatherly irony, "This is just great, isn't it?" She looked past me, at the dripping stone walls and pirate's skeleton spookily straddling a mound of golden coins and plundered booty. "Un-unh," she corrected me. "This place is awesome."

For 13 hours that first day, and 5 the next, we encountered a lot of other bumps and bugs at Disney's new European resort: ice cream bars that cost nearly $3 apiece, unruly lines, moving sidewalks that did not move and attractions and rides plagued by what attendants always politedly described as "technical difficulties." Twice, we were turned out of line at the Pinocchio ride in Fantasyland because it was not working. Later, we arrived at Star Tours, the spectacular George Lucas attraction imported from Disney's M-G-M Studios in Florida, to find staff members waving people away. Over their shoulders we could see water streaming from a concrete planter and forming a growing pool across the entrance.

It was barely a month after Euro Disney's opening in mid-April, and the park had the feel of a work in progress: its stringy trees and fresh landscaping give it the look of a new subdivision, and its young staff is still trying to master the demands of its multilingual audience (the young French woman on duty at the Frontierland petting zoo only shrugged when we asked her about the hog-calling contest, advertised on the park sign only a few feet away from her. Clearly, this was one arcane bit of English she had not yet mastered).

But for all that, our children -- Lindsay, her 15-year-old sister, Jordan, and their 7-year-old brother, Peter --were untroubled. For them, Euro Disney is an unqualified hit: Big Thunder Mountain, the roller coaster-like railroad that dips and dives through the middle of Frontierland, was pronounced faster and more daring than the one in Orlando, and Alice's Curious Labyrinth, the Alice in Wonderland maze at the heart of Fantasyland, was so wonderfully confusing it demanded a return visit, at night, when the hedges are illuminated in tiny blue lights.

Alice's Labyrinth is one of only a few attractions designed especially for Euro Disney; most of the others are old standbys from the American parks, such as the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, where riders whirl about inside giant tea cups, or Peter Pan's Flight, a gentle adventure that soars above sets of moonlit London and Never-Never Land.

If the special appeal of these attractions is their simplicity, the problem with Le Visionarium, one of Euro Disney's centerpieces, is that is too long, too cluttered and too ambitious. It begins with a basic idea: a 360-degree movie theater, identical to exhibitions in Walt Disney World and Disneyland, where visitors stand and watch a spectacular and sometimes dizzying odyssey across America, photographed from the air. Le Visionarium also takes you on a sky tour of Europe, but those few sweeping moments get lost in a choppy storyline about Jules Verne and time travel. One tip: even if you don't understand a word of French, do not bother with the telephone handsets broadcasting the dialogue in English, German or Spanish. Not only is it barely audible, the story isn't worth the trouble anyway.

ON the other hand, don't pass Sleeping Beauty's castle, Euro Disney's recast version of Disney's most recognizable landmark, without looking in on the dragon's cavern underneath. The great green beast, with leathery wings and a long, curled tail, is a triumph of both engineering and imagination. When we first saw it, it appeared to be dozing alongside its dark pool, its chest heaving as it breathed, deadly claws absently kneading the rock ledge. As it began to stir, it slowly lifted it head, blinked its baleful red eyes and, without warning, suddenly roared, baring rows of needle teeth while plumes of smoke billowed from its nostrils. Be careful around this one: it makes small children cry.