Timeline - Dates in Disneyland Paris history

[Anthony]

The next land to open at Euro Souvenirland will be the Timeline.

But before then, here's a special new feature page: What's in a Name? - a complete history of Disneyland name changes and logos, including timelines for the resort, parks and entertainment complex and some old logos you've maybe never seen before. Take a look...

If anyone has the exact date of the Disney Village change (or confirmation of the Euro Disneyland and Euro Disneyland Paris dates) let me know!

[dagobert]

Well done, Anthony.
That's a great article about the name changes. I didn't know that Disney was considering to name the first park "Magic Kingdom". I'm glad they didn't do it.

Can't wait when the Timeline site is fully opened.

[luke85]

Great article Anthony! Loved the huge collection of logos and the bottom of the page. I really like the "Disneyland Paris" logo with purple font and blue castle, I've never seen that before!

I aslo never knew that DLP once toyed with the name "Disneyland Paris Resort", I guess you learn something new every day

[bigrossco]

love it and what a great idea, looking for more timelines maybe rides?

[Anthony]

That's a great article about the name changes. I didn't know that Disney was considering to name the first park "Magic Kingdom". I'm glad they didn't do it.

Thanks dagobert!

Yes, everything switched around before the place even opened. Notice that the En Coulisse magazines up until as late as September 1991 were known as "Euro Disneyland En Coulisse" before dropping the EDL, and of course names like EDL-I, Euro Disneyland Imagineering, remained (maybe that's DLP-I now?).

I believe the "MKP" on park tickets indicated Magic Kingdom Park:



And of course Disneyland Hotel was also going to be Magic Kingdom Hotel.

Great article Anthony! Loved the huge collection of logos and the bottom of the page. I really like the "Disneyland Paris" logo with purple font and blue castle, I've never seen that before!

Thanks Luke! I'm not sure if that logo was ever used as an "official" design, but it was taken from this sugar packet sent in by pussinboots: http://www.eurosouvenirland.com/memorab ... cket-logo/

I aslo never knew that DLP once toyed with the name "Disneyland Paris Resort", I guess you learn something new every day

I'm pretty sure they did, but of course now I can't find anything to prove it... The logo was just the 1994 Disneyland Paris logo with "Resort" added on, sticking out. They switched the two words around and then finally came up with the logo with the arc across the top in very late 2001/early 2002. I could do with adding both of those to the gallery.

love it and what a great idea, looking for more timelines maybe rides?

Yep, the menu options across the top there will be the pages within this section - including a Lands & Attractions dates archive!

[bigrossco]

that is great Ant loving it and cant wait to see even more!

[Anthony]

Yesterday's special date spurred me to finally start working on the Timeline, and terrifically geeky it will be too. Here's a first (very incomplete) look: http://www.eurosouvenirland.com/timeline/year-by-year/

I've been stuck before as to how to compile all these dates. I didn't want to just create a static page, it needed to be easy to manage and browse through. Well the obvious answer: just post each one like a blog post, in WordPress, and change the "published" date to the date itself. This means you'll be able to easily skip through time from date to date, view all the dates in a specific year, and so on. Each date gets its own page and I'll add a summary text to each one (up to around 1993 I've completed so far).

This means I can do other wonderfully nerdy stuff like attach images from the Gallery or items of Memorabilia to a specific date. For example, the opening date of Space Mountain could show "related images" linking to photos of the opening ceremony. I'll also be able to pick out "key events" to create a more concise year-by-year listing. By adding tags to specific dates, I could create a list specifically of attraction opening dates, or entertainment premiere dates.

Watch this space.

[Anthony]

A little update on Timeline progress.

Latest Progress

• Now exactly 99 dates already added!
• Images from the Gallery section are being "attached" to dates where available. For example, on 12th April 1992 itself. You can click the image to see it full-size in the Gallery.
• New year-by-year menu added on the homepage so you can browse through the years - 1993, for example.
• First steps to categorising dates - Lands & Attractions and Shows, Parades & Events pages list only attraction and entertainment-related dates respectively. This will be expanded much more (with proper menus) in future so you can easily see everything from the complete changeover list of Euro Disney SCA CEOs to a complete timeline of the ever-changing Official Partners.
• In addition to categories, dates are being tagged so you can, for example, see all the dates in Discoveryland or Disney Village history at once!

As the Timeline grows with even more dates I'll also mark some dates as a "Key Event". This means we can have a more concise year-by-year timeline that only lists major events like attraction openings, and not minor things like sponsors.

Future Ideas

• Being able to attach Gallery photos and even Memorabilia items to each date, so you can create a "Related photos/memorabilia" section next to the date summary. For example you could attach a Honey, I Shrunk the Audience badge to the opening date of that attraction.
• On this Day in Disneyland Paris History. We all love these kind of features and I've always wanted to do one for DLP. I even began to write a month-by-month list of dates a while back. Well now I don't need to - since all these dates are stored in a database it should be no problem to call up any matching dates and perhaps display them automatically as a feature on the homepages of DLRP Magic! or DLRP Today.

I'll also bring back that "history of Disneyland Paris name changes" page soon!

How you can help!

You'll see there are several dates where I've only been able to find a month and year, no exact date. If you happen to know the exact date for any of those - please let me know! Either post here, send me a private message, email or twitter.

Also, if you think I've got any of dates wrong, don't hesitate to say so. In some cases I've found more than one date and had to just make an executive decision between them (there's also the old problem of a public opening date vs. an "inauguration" date for attractions and so on). I won't ask for suggestions of dates to add just yet, as I've still got a list waiting and lots of old Cast Member magazines to scour!

[Anthony]

Since my last post there are now another 50 dates on the Timeline!

This is one of my favourite, with a strange twist at the end: 1st April 1986 - Le Parisien April Fool causes brief outrage by reporting relocation of Eiffel Tower to Euro Disneyland

I've also improved the year-by-year menu at the top and am just beginning to sort out a proper homepage. The key events (up to about 5) from each year will be grouped together with a link through to each year for the full listing. The sidebar will link to grouped/categorised timelines like official partners, CEOs, attraction opening dates, ambassadors.

I'm trying to make executive decisions about which dates should be included -- I almost added 1st April 1993, as the date when "all park restaurants now have vegetarian food options", but maybe that's going too far for now.