Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is a family friendly, trackless dark ride under construction at EPCOT, being added to the World Showcase expansion in the France pavilion. The expansion will include a Streets of Paris section with new dining and shopping to anchor the new attraction to the current landscape. Inspired by the 2007 Disney-Pixar film, this 3-D attraction will reside just past the Eiffel Tower. But when can guests expect this new attraction to make it’s debut?
First, let’s get a little back-story on the expansion. Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is basically a clone of Ratatouille: L’ Aventure Totalement Toquee de Remy at Disneyland Paris Resort. During the ride, guests shrink down to the size of Remy and scurry to safety in a chase through the sights, sounds, and smells of Gasteau’s busy Paris restaurant. The Paris version includes a table service restaurant Bistro Chez Remy, which will not be part of the EPCOT expansion. Aside from Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, the big addition to the Streets of Paris expansion will be La Crêperie de Paris. La Crêperie de Paris will feature a menu inspired by the Brittany region of France, and will offer both table service and a quick-service window. The restaurant will serve both sweet crepes and savory galettes.
As originally announced by Disney, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure was set to open in Summer 2020. Walt Disney World has now been silent as to when the expansion will actually debut. Assuming the shut down of construction delayed the project by a few months, that would put the possible opening of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure around October 2020. It is safe to assume that Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure could be ready to open now, but it’s more about when it would be responsible to open the attraction. Disney may choose to postpone the debut of this attraction out of caution and a desire to minimize the negative press the opening could generate.
Walt Disney World was recently criticized and received a load of bad PR for what many believed was a poorly-timed reopening. Therefore, Disney is going to be more proactive with the timing of this opening, and will be cautious when announcing an opening date for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. It may be beneficial to wait until we see a decline in case numbers of Covid-19. Disney may have anticipated that time to be late November or early December 2020, but that no longer seems to be the case. At this point, Disney might need to go ahead with the opening and hope the crowds work in their favor.
Walt Disney World already has crowd control measures in place with the Park Reservation system. Even if they announced the opening day, the number of people could not exceed capacity. The problem would be the distribution of guests throughout the park, as they would all most likely concentrate in the new area. Walt Disney World could silently ‘soft open’ Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in early fall and operate it for months while postponing the media event and public promotion for a later time. Although such low crowds would be safer during the pandemic, it would be marketing suicide for resort bookings and merchandise sales.
Disney relies on these elaborate openings and media events to pull people into the parks and profit on the sale of attraction specific merchandise and food. They will want to pick a date that allows for maximum guest attendance. The middle of a national health pandemic and economic crisis would not be the right time. Now it seems that time might be in 2021, at which point it might be more pragmatic to wait for the 50th Anniversary to get underway.
No matter the opening date, adding another ride to World Showcase is genius. We have been skeptical about the addition of intellectual properties and characters to World Showcase. The concern is that it takes away from the authenticity of the countries and their pavilions. But if it is to happen, there’s no better choice than this movie. Ratatouille is such a great movie with brilliant scenery and music. It should fit in the France pavilion well, as the movie itself is a love letter to Paris. That combined with the Streets of Paris as an expansion and not as a refurbishment has us very excited to see the final product.