The official (Italian) guide to DLRP
I’m Italian, I love Disney, live in the country which provides 75% of Disney comics worldwide and now comics are taking over the themeparks! HURRAY!
If that sentence had no sense to you let me clear this out; the Italian Disneyland Resort Paris office had the idea for the team up of a life time; a guidebook of Disneyland Resort Paris made by the publishing division with comic versions of the Disney characters guiding guests through the themepark, giving advices on what to do, where to eat, where to stay and so on!
Sure it might not be the equivalent of the “Imagineering field guides” we Disney fans worship so much but it sure is a nice way to give the first time guests which venture in the Paris resort a way of knowing what to do, how to do it and so on.
I’ve always been very critical about the whole idea of Disney needing to speak to guests in Paris in 200 plus languages! I have always been of the crazy (and never lickely) idea that Disney should just decide where to stand on it’s feet ; if all French or all English and stick to it without needing to play word game so to have characters state one sentence in English and then another character states a similar reply with the sense of the question in French.
Or still those word games on the names of rides; such as Hong Kong’s “Stitch Encounter” becoming “Stitch Live” , Buzz Lightyears Astroblaster becoming officially “Buzz Lightyears Lazerblast” (and non officially in French common speak “Buzz lightyear battaile laser”. Why “Bougillumination” “Candelabration” and so on
I.e. Disney tries to use the English words which have the clearest meanings in most foreign languages so that people immediately get it!
You see my friends unfortunately some European countries have a very good knowledge of English (thinking about Germans , Dutch, Belgians and Scandinavians here) whilst some others (my own Italy as well as Spain not to mention the French) have a very basic average knowledge of the English language (not to mention French).
This is why park wide announcements are made in 6 plus languages (French, English, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch are normal in DLRP) ; so that all guests can have a sense and knowledge of what is going to happen. Taking just so much time so each guests could fall a sleep while hearing them 
And this is also where the Italian idea of a specific guidebook to the resort, with the well known comic versions of the characters acting as guides is pure Disney magic!
You see in this guide it is comic versions of Minnie, Goofy and Donald which act for the readers as guides to the resort each one of them with a specific well defined role which , combined with a clever system of traffic lights, clearly identifies to the reader which rides are for the whole family (represented by the ever sweet Minnie Mouse), which are for the more adventurous souls (obviously Goofy here steps in) and which are pure Adrenaline (and who better than Donald Duck can represent Adrenaline?).
Oh sure the guide is much more than just “ride this if you can handle it etc” but it has a whole starting section which introduces the guests to the resort, Walt Disney’s dream and manages to also place here and there some (very light mind you) Imagineering titbits so to give readers a sense of what lies a head if they wish to know more about the Disney magic as well as not ruining the magic for those who simply want to be amazed.
And if as all this wasn’t enough a whole section of the book is devoted to restaurants, hotels and leisure activities so to really give the guests a sense of how to tackle the resort (which is not that small for all you Disney fans who have never yet been!).
As much as there are tons of guides which are written in English I do believe that this time the Italian Disney company tackled the matter with a sense of logic so to guide the family from the moment of check in right till checkout!
I do hope to see this guide published in more countries soon enough; the idea of having an official guide to Disneyland Resort Paris (something lacking for now mind you) with a unique European twist surely is something I would like and I’m sure all the first time guests would have a much easier time if this Italian creation was to be published in more languages!
Plus…the characters are drawn so well
June 20th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I was under the impression that no one went to the euro disney. I thought it was basically closed since it lost so much money.