Hello everyone, here is the return of the 2022 Halloween and Christmas season of Disneyland Paris.
With the Halloween and Christmas season, the 30th anniversary program is slightly modified. The show “Dream… and Shine Brighter!” is stopped until January.
While waiting for its return, it is a light version that replaces it with “It’s Time to Shine” performed from october 2022 to january 2023. This is not a show or a parade, but a Happening.
The Happening is too short and need more characters.
Now…
Halloween 2022
This year, we have once again seen decreases everywhere : decorations, meet and greet, show and candy!
Parade
No noticeable changes except the sunflower women whose costumes have been updated.
Once again, the parade makes a stop on Central Plaza, this ShowStop is, as for the Christmas parade, is an element that looks good, but that actually reduces the global experience of the visitors.
The parade is not big, it is divided into 2 groups of 2 on Central Plaza and the floats are positioned on each side and stop 7 minutes for a 4-minute show.
Problem, visitors cannot see all the floats and characters at the same time on Central Plaza. Also, visitors on Main Street do not understand that the parade stops and eventually they go to the parade route to see and lose their places.
With 7 minutes stop on central Plaza, this is 7 minutes less parade. And when a parade has only 4 floats. 7 minutes is huge! 7 minutes it allows more visitors to take the time to see the details of the costumes, of the floats, to see the characters and the interactions between them.
Halloween like Christmas, the Central Plaza ShowStop that partially benefits some visitors, it is not ideal. For no one.
If you want to see the comparison between the first edition of this parade in 2013 and today, all the original costumes of the dancers have now been updated.
Also, you can see with the Parade of 2016 (with 3 floats) is longer than the 2018 parade (with 4 floats) whose ShowStop started that year.
Castle Stage
This year, it’s disappointment! Halloween is known to be a season of show on paris. But this year, it’s very simple, there’s nothing!
The characters are put on stage to simply introduce them before the meet and greet. And don’t look for the sweets (Candy), they are no longer distributed
Decorations
This year, decorations are fewer, less pumpkin on Main Street facades, ghosts are above all limited to Town Square, and frontierland is stripped of decoration outside the Coco area.
The only novelties are the arrangement of glass pumpkins that lights up at night! The effect is super beautiful, but limited than Town Square.
Night Show
This year, the only novelty is a pre-show that is played before Disney D-Light. Disney D-Light is also a pre-show of “Disney Illuminations!”.
So here we are a Pre-Pre-Show 15-20 minutes before the main show. The animations are nice, the light effects around the castle also, but the absence of drones or fireworks, makes everything uninteresting. The music comes from an old Halloween season of Hong Kong Disneyland, it’s a shame when we had an original production only exploited in 2019 “Are you brave enough?”.
As you can see, this year is not the best, far from it with less villains and a recession at all levels. And the Christmas Season ?
Christmas Season 2022-23
Do you think that the Christmas season 2022 is as poor as Halloween? The answer is Yes !
This year, we are counting 3 activities (show, entertainment, parade) over Christmas and not 9 as in 2019 and 2018! And among the biggest losses, the “Mickey Christmas Big Band” show or the “Goofy’s Incredible Christmas” night show.
Forget the Christmas season at Walt Disney Studios Park. “Mickey and the magician” is still in performance.
Direction le parc Disneyland !
So…. go to Disneyland Park!
Like Halloween, there are few season-specific decorations. And on Town Square, we no longer have any “snowy” scenery.
Show
The first Christmas activity is at Videopolis, Let’s Sing Christmas. This show is made up of 4 singers and Disney characters. If you’re lucky, a non-Disney choir accompanies the singers. This show exists since previous seasons and is a much less ambitious revival of Christmas Wishes (2011) by Tokyo DisneySea.
Parade
This year the Christmas parade is back. For its second year, it is still wonderfull!
One of the standout things is that compared to the critical of the Halloween season. During the ShowStop the floats all make a full turn of the square in addition to their parade pass. You therefore have the chance to see each of the tanks pass twice. It’s a great idea, but the Central plaza show stop is uninteresting, where on Town Square on Main Street USA it’s just brilliant and justified with the illumination of the christmas tree.
Removing the ShowStop in Central Plaza would allow for more time to view the parade and the entire parade route. We are not going to repeat what has been said about the Halloween parade and the lack of interest in the scenes on Centra Plaza.
Night Show
One of the novelties of this year is the creation of new lightning roofs of the castle. If the latter are discreet and have a magnificent light program. It should be noted that there are many roofs without light installations. The feeling of unfinished business is present at every glance
The roofs are used during “Disney D-Light”, but also “Disney Dreams! of Christmas”.
“Disney Dreams! Of Christmas” is back while its last performance was in 2016.
It’s a real pleasure to find a show that offers a narration. And it is confirmed, after Disney D-Light, visitors stay to see the show. If the management of Disneyland Paris wants its visitors to stay and likes to stay and see a quality nighttime show, it can do as at Walt Disney World. Put back its old shows and make back the classic “Disney Dreams!”.
Anyway, it’s nice to find this show even if it has many flaws. Quality of projections, variety of fireworks used and even the number of rockets which are obviously less numerous than in 2016.
At the very end of “Disney Dreams! Of Christmas”, a new sequence for the 30 years was created for the 30th celebration.
Conclusion
Halloween or Christmas 2022, Disneyland Paris has 2 very poor seasons which, with such a meager offer, concentrates visitors on the few activities, creating more of a mass effect among visitors and can’t disperse them with a varied offer. No need to tell you that the visitor does not come out a winner. In 2018 and 2019, it was impossible to do all the Christmas activities in one day, in 2022, in a constraining afternoon waiting for the activities, we can see everything. Howover, this christmas season the restaurant prices have all evolved. With the withdrawal of desserts from fast-food menus, it is on average an increase of 25% that the consumer suffers. Table services increase from €42 to €55 for “Walt’s – An American Restaurant” and Chez Remy” for example, and Buffets from €38 to €45. The bottle or the fountain soda is €4! Noted that “Auberge de Cendrillon” the menu increase by €16 to be sold at €95. Remember, it’s just an increase price. This decision is simply shameful, because the restaurant offer is among the worst in the European Theme Parks both in terms of quality (overall throughout the Resort) and service (Fast Food in particular). The company relies on its image and captive visitors to force them to spend. The reputation will only be degraded over time. Staying in a Disney hotel to discover Christmas and revisit the parks seems much less interesting and justified this year.
Let’s hope that Halloween and Christmas 2023 is not on this model. As much in 2021, it was understood that the recovery was difficult after the closures due to the COVID, but not in 2022. We clearly see on the parks that there are no more restrictions on the number of visitors (except for passports annual) and especially that the employees are in minimum numbers to manage uninterrupted flows of visitors. The Cast find themselves in the midst of this corporate policy which pulls too tightly and whose weekend jobs no longer exist to strengthen the teams during peak visits, for example. This policy has direct consequences on the visitor, 45 minutes of waiting for a “Fast” Food meal, 10 minutes at the cashier in shops, queues that overflow at attractions… And now Halloween and Christmas seasons poor in their offer of entertainment, not helping to reduces the visitor of the shops, restaurants and attractions of the Resort. Is it good to visit Disneyland Paris in its these conditions? Anyway, with the return of the new CEO, Bob IGER, on November 21, we will see if in the next few months things will change in the parks. Whether for the health of the Casts and the quality of the offer for visitors. And what could change easily, without financial impact and could satisfy everyone, is the shutdown of the reservation system. But without announcement, we can only hope.
Thank you for your loyalty.
See ya real soon !
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