Let's Rock!

Continuing on with our 'Ticket To' series, I thought we should have a wee wander about Walt Disney Studios. So, let's enter and head over to one of the 'E ticket' attractions the park houses. And while we're there, we can grab a fastpass and then head on into Rock n' Roller Coaster avec Aerosmith!

The ride has the same premise as it's sister ride in Disney's Hollywood Studios, over in Orlando, Florida. You enter into a record company's building - Tour de Force records - and snake through it into a recording studio, where you find Aerosmith. They're talking about this amazing ride that Steve Tyler has just been on, and he's talking about the G-Forces that happen as the car rides off a loop.

During the queue line, the announcements are in French, but once you meet Aerosmith in the recording studio, they are speaking in English. The pre-show is slightly different to that of Disney's Hollywood Studios - apart from it being a different scene, the pre-show itself is shorter, allowing a quicker processing of guests. This is probably due to the large amount of non-English speaking tourists that will experience the attraction, and to save them standing impatiently watching something they can't understand.

Another difference between the two attractions is that this ride puts the guests in the situation of a music video (not the travel through the LA freeways to the Aerosmith concert); and instead of road signs throughout the ride itself, there are hundreds of lasers and flashing lights. The music is the exact same, though, but the 'limos' are SoundTrackers.

Construction for the ride began in May 2000, with the building itself constructed around the roller-coaster's steel supports and tracks. The finished attraction officially opened on March 16th 2002. Interestingly, the large and shiny CD disc 'prop' on the outside of the building was originally destined to be the entrance to the attraction, but ended up being place on the side. There was also talk of the attraction's exterior having a superb light and laser-show, similar to that inside, but this never happened.

It's one of my favourite attractions at the Walt Disney Studios in Paris, and on a quiet evening it's very easy to go on the ride at least 12 times in a row (that's what I could do - 16 in a day). It's possibly not as story based as the Florida attraction, but if you look for the story you can see it, and sometimes those are the best rides. The ones that have a story but it's not spelled out for you.

So what are we waiting for - do we all have our fastpasses? Let's go!