Disneyland Paris opens a new adventure under the sea

July 1, 2023, 2:33 PM · One of Disneyland Paris' unique attractions has reopened to guests.

The Les Mystères du Nautilus walk-through has been closed for years in the park's Discoveryland. But today it has reopened to guests, allowing them once again to explore the submarine from Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas" - and the 1954 Walt Disney live-action film.

Nautilus exterior
Photos courtesy Walt Disney Imagineering

Don't be fooled by the size of the Nautilus on the lagoon. Inside scoop here - when you enter this attraction, you're not actually walking into that ship. Instead, a winding staircase will turn you around and send you into a show building hidden behind the bushes lining Discoveryland, allowing Imagineers to present the "mysteries of the Nautilus" in a much larger space.

Guests will find some changes when they board this revamped Nautilus experience, however.

Grand Salon organ

"We completely refurbished the attraction while also bringing a new story where our guests will experience the wonders of the oceans," WDI Show Producer Louise Doré said. "To deliver that message, we recorded a new soundtrack specially orchestrated for the attraction as well as a new narration."

Grand Salon window

"We wanted to tell a conservation story that would be more relevant today to our guests, so now, as Louise mentioned, new encounters are happening in the Grand Salon scene," Principal Illusion Integrator Daniel Joseph said. "The cool thing was that with that project, we worked with our Disney marine biologists, animal keepers, and all kinds of talented and amazing people within the company who work with marine life. These scientific resources helped give a sense of realism to the Nautilus attraction that wasn’t possible before."

Translation - the giant squid animatronic is gone, replaced by screen media of more realistic ocean life. It's less Jules Verne and more Jacques Cousteau. But is that what Disney fans actually want?

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Replies (7)

July 1, 2023 at 3:23 PM

Was the AA too expensive to keep up? There's few reasons why you'd remove an AA unless it was necessary - especially for screens. Even the narration seems to be putting a message ahead of the storytelling of the land itself...

July 1, 2023 at 3:45 PM

That’s the problem, realism just means budget cuts. We go to Disney for fantasy. I knew the squid would be 86’d by how Disney is moving lately, but I’m also hearing many of the sounds & lightening effects that gave it mystery & depth are now gone (no more Capt. Nemo, organ music, can’t hear the crew working below you now). It’s essentially a National Geographic walkthrough now.

July 1, 2023 at 6:14 PM

Oh brother! When will Disney learn. I go to amusement parks and movies to escape reality. I don't want a conservation lesson at 100's of dollars admission. Same with their movies lately. I just want to be entertained!

July 1, 2023 at 10:16 PM

Awful. The squid was *the* reason to do the attraction!

July 3, 2023 at 8:33 AM

So they took the mystery out of The Mysteries of the Nautilus attraction? Lighting effects, the soundtrack, and of course the Giant Squid animatronic are all gone now…And it took them two years to do it. What a shame…

July 5, 2023 at 5:25 PM

It was difficult to lure in "many visitors" , into this attraction, and that came from more then one reason.
STATIC. Whatever the descriptions go, the walktrough was detailed, BUT very static. A squid animatronic didn't help that general impression.
NOT INTERACTIVE. What you could expect from an "exploration walk through", is a myriad of subtle interactives (nothing 'push this button here'..lol) but there was nothing of the kind, and when I read this article, the renovation didn't change that.
FAILING ENTRANCE. The entrance to the attraction is the most 'unreveiling' of the whole park. From a distance, the only impression it gets to the visitor it that of a loose Ice Cream or Hot Dog selling point. (The whole theming, landscaping and structural planning concept of Discoveryland, is on the same LOW level, as the original 'Studios' park. Bland. (RIGHT of Main Street, it clearly has been a completely different spacial planning & landscaping team that delivered this misery, then left from Main Street, which is a marvel. An attraction will fail, if seen from a distance, there even isn't an attraction at all....

July 5, 2023 at 5:38 PM

Sidenote >
I always considered this attraction as the film-set 'decor',
for the visitor adventure that never came.
(Imagine a Nemo film, that consists of a suite of great decor sets, WITHOUT an adventure story taking place in it..?? ...would you agree that is a movie ???..... )
lol

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