It isn’t every day that a theme park rebrands itself. Today, we’re bringing you a review of Disney Adventure World at the Disneyland Paris Resort, which officially opens to guests under its new name on March 29th, 2026. The newly expanded park replaces the former Walt Disney Studios Park, a long-troubled second gate that never quite met Disney standards. This reimagining is part of a major investment to transform the park into a more immersive, full-day destination.
We’ll walk through the strengths and shortcomings of this ambitious project, which is clearly designed to elevate the guest experience. Does it improve on the old Studios park? Let’s take a look at what works… and what’s still missing…
What immediately stands out is the level of detail and craftsmanship. The use of high-quality, durable materials gives the impression that this expansion is closer in spirit to Disneyland Park than to the former Walt Disney Studios Park. And that’s where our tour begins.
While the slopes of the North Mountain in World of Frozen remain eternally snow-covered, spring blooms across Disney Adventure World reveal an increasingly rich and carefully designed landscape.
Let’s work our way through the new areas of the park…
Adventure Way – A Garden “Main Street”
This verdant journey begins at the entrance to Adventure Way. This plant-lined promenade serves as a kind of “Main Street,” offering a calm, seamless transition between the show-heavy World Premiere Plaza (home to Mickey and the Magician and Together) and a series of landscaped gardens.
Nature acts as the connective tissue between the different spaces along the avenue. A double row of trees, illuminated each evening with thousands of lights, shelters a collection of themed gardens:
Toy Story Garden, featuring geometric topiaries inspired by toys
Gazebo Garden, with a refined pavilion and bronze Disney character statues
The Gazebo itself is more than just a scenic space. It hosts musical sets, and one of the liveliest additions to Adventure Way is the Disney marching band, led by Minnie Mouse. It’s a strong concept, with arrangements tailored to the surrounding lands as the band moves along the street.
That said, we have concerns about capacity and crowd flow. Following the band makes navigation difficult, and we wouldn’t be surprised if this eventually becomes a stationary show near Regal View.
Adventure Way finally connects Toy Story Playland to Avengers Campus and is expected to significantly ease congestion caused by the previous dead ends in the park.
Tangled Garden & Raiponce Tangled Spin
The Tangled Garden centers on a reflective pond inspired by the film’s lantern scene, and visually, it’s one of the park’s more charming areas. The layout feels organic and intimate, offering a welcome contrast to the more rigid design of the older Studios areas.
Raiponce Tangled Spin fits the setting perfectly… at least visually. The ride itself is essentially a teacup attraction. It looks great and photographs even better, but the experience is limited. The vehicles are stiff and difficult to spin, which undercuts the fun.
Like Shanghai’s Winnie the Pooh ride, this feels designed more for social media moments than for ride quality. In the end, what stays with you is the atmosphere, not the attraction.
But, if atmosphere is the goal here… it works…
Adventure Bay – Beauty vs. Function
Beyond Adventure Way, the park opens up dramatically into Adventure Bay, a large lake that serves as the central hub of Disney Adventure World.
Despite the official name, it already feels like an extension of Adventure Way. Even the park’s own packaging leans in that direction.
The nearly three-hectare lake is impressive, offering wide, cinematic views that are undeniably beautiful. But this design choice comes with trade-offs. Unlike a traditional hub-and-spoke layout, this space prioritizes scenery over density, meaning guests must cover significant distances to reach major attractions.
Imagine taking that long walk only to find that the new Frozen ride is temporarily down.
We’ll get back to Adventure Bay in a bit. Its real superpower is an impressive nighttime spectacular.
Regal View Restaurant & Lounge
The Regal View Restaurant at the juncture of Adventure Way and Adventure Bay offers a refined setting, but the headline feature is clearly the Disney Princess meet-and-greet, not the view itself. (Surprisingly, the terrace wasn’t even used for nighttime viewing during the preview period when we visited.)
The fixed-price menu sits at €100 for three courses (if you’re trying to convert that to US dollars in your head, you’d be paying about $115), including character interactions. That’s a high price to pay for theme park fare. We’ll have to wait and see if guests will fill this beautiful spot at that high price point.
The adjacent Regal View Lounge is a notable addition, the first permanent lounge inside a Disneyland Paris park. The decor is meticulous, and the service is very good, but again, the layout doesn’t fully capitalize on the view, and the price is still high.
Pricing is steep: €14 for a mocktail, €18 for a cocktail.
That said, the Enchanted Carriage mocktail stands out—apple, almond, and a hint of cinnamon combine into something that feels almost seasonal.
Food – A Major Win
On the culinary front, Adventure Way and World of Frozen finally bring Disneyland Paris closer to the standards of the American parks.
Options include hot dogs, cinnamon rolls, potato pancakes, gelato, lobster rolls, and bread bowls filled with salmon or onion soup. The verdict here is simple: strong variety, solid execution, and options across price points.
The Critical Flaw of Disney Adventure World: Lack of High-Capacity Attractions
Here’s where the problems become harder to ignore.
From the park entrance to Regal View (a stretch of roughly 1,475 feet), there is not a single indoor family-friendly attraction. Nearby options are all over 1,000 feet away.
The absence of a high-capacity, indoor ride (something like The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure at Disney California Adventure) is a major oversight. Such an attraction would help anchor the area, absorb crowds more efficiently, provide climate-controlled relief, and better balance the experience around the lake.
Instead, Disney Adventure World leans heavily on flat rides (basically carnival-style attractions). In fact, the park will feature seven of them, more than all four Walt Disney World parks combined.
That’s a mismatch. Disney guests expect high-capacity, immersive experiences, not long waits for low-throughput attractions. This feels less like a creative limitation and more like a budgetary one.
The Star of Disney Adventure World: World of Frozen
World of Frozen is accessible via the harbor or fountain approach, with the harbor route offering the most dramatic reveal. Once you arrive, you are greeted by the charming village of Arendelle. And it all feels alive. You can visit the little shops and restaurants. And even the queue for the ride is well-themed to further the story.
But while the land itself is gorgeous… it also feels overly compact… too much so for Paris-level attendance. The main street through Arendelle is only about 165 feet long, comparable to the Emporium shop at Disneyland Paris. For Hong Kong’s attendance levels, this scale works. For Paris, with roughly 16 million annual visitors pre-expansion, it raises serious concerns.
Guests will likely face a “double wait,” first to enter the land, then for the attraction itself. That is not likely to go over well with guests.
Frozen Ever After
The main attraction of World of Frozen is excellent.
It improves on the U.S. version at Epcot with larger-scale scenes, better pacing, and a stronger queue and loading area. It earns a solid 8/10 from us and is sure to be the top draw in the park… at least until the Lion King ride arrives.
But even here, there’s a lingering issue: scale. For Disney’s most profitable franchise, this could have been a more ambitious land… and probably should have been. A second attraction in this land would have made it all feel more worth the long walk from the front of the park.
Celebration of Arendelle – A Standout Show
For us, this was a real highlight of the land. Featuring Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and an animatronic Olaf, the show combines strong choreography, impressive floats, and nighttime effects including fountains, lighting, fireworks, and even snowfall.
It’s visually spectacular.
Unfortunately, only front-row guests get a clear view of the lagoon. Add in limited showtimes (just four per day), and accessibility becomes a real issue.
Scale vs. Expectation
Adventure Bay’s design prioritizes open space and scenic beauty, but that comes at the cost of density and capacity.
The lake is impressive, but it’s surrounded by noticeable emptiness. Guests walking significant distances only to be turned away due to capacity limits will feel it immediately. The sooner Disney can fill those empty spaces, the better.
Had one more mini-land opened around the lagoon at the same time as World of Frozen, it all would have felt more complete.
World of Frozen Retail
Retail leans heavily on Olaf merchandise, with multiple small shops scattered throughout the land.
While increasing points of sale is smart in theory, the execution falls short. These are essentially micro-boutiques with limited capacity and inventory, leading to immediate congestion, especially in bad weather, when they double as shelter.
“Cascade of Lights” Nighttime Spectacular
The nighttime show is ambitious, with a wealth of technology poured into the experience. Fountains, lights, drones, and projections, with lots of viewing locations all the way around the lagoon.
The show offers excellent synchronization of pyrotechnics and lighting, with some strong segments (notably Hercules and Finding Nemo). Overall, it’s an improvement over the Tales of Magic show at Disneyland Paris.
But, for all the technology, the show isn’t without flaws.
Key issues:
- Runtime: At just 14 minutes, it feels truncated.
- Narration: Breaks immersion and excludes non-native speakers in a multilingual park.
- Art Direction: Some projections feel artificial, even resembling AI-generated visuals.
- Tech vs. Story: The show relies heavily on technology (boats, drones) but lacks a strong narrative backbone.
- Audio: The soundtrack feels fragmented, and the choice to project sound from lake barges results in questionable audio quality.
And while the show’s technology may outweigh its heart, it is well worth your time to stake out a viewing spot. But, for now, you can take a look at our video below… and please let us know what you think:
Final Verdict on Disney Adventure World
Disney Adventure World is a visually impressive re-think of a park that has desperately needed this level of Disney theming. The craftsmanship is strong, the atmosphere works, and the ambition is evident.
But it’s not finished.
The lack of high-capacity attractions, limited indoor space, concerns about crowd flow, and the small scale of its headline land all hold it back.
With the Lion King expansion still two years away, Disney Adventure World feels like a project still in transition, rather than a fully realized destination.
It’s a promising start. But we’re still years away from this park feeling complete.
Let us know YOUR thoughts. Do you like what you see so far? Aside from The Lion King, which is already confirmed, what else would you like to see added to Disney Adventure World?