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For me Working Christmas morning at Disneyland Paris was always special. It was a time for the giving and receiving of gifts, making Disney dreams come true, natural disasters and being suspected of terrorism.

In the third part of my story of Disneyland Paris we bring the story up to the time I left the resort.

The first signs of the new development were a Planet Hollywood restaurant and a multiplex, Gaumont Cinema, were added to the Festival Disney entertainment complex located next to the Magic Kingdom. At the same time, a couple of miles down the road, closer to Paris and near the town of Serris, groundbreaking for the ambitious Val d’Europe project started. Disney worked with the town to build what would one day become a huge shopping mall, outlet shopping village, thousands of new housing units, and two partner hotels. These additions were built on the edges of the property. Years after the plans were laid, the property goals were coming through.

There were times in the early 1990s that the fledgling Euro Disney’s fortunes were looking as bleak as any Dickensian story. After the grand opening on April 12, 1992 was blighted by the French Press and the local labor unions the future was looking gloomy.

In part two of our look at the opening of Disneyland Paris, or Euro Disney as it was called in the early 1990s we’ll look at what went wrong.

A history of the Disneyland Paris resort - The Disney resort that nearly closed

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities:

This is one of…if not the very best, opening lines to a story ever, Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” it also echoes the early years of Disney’s European resort.

When Disney needed Cowboys for their new show they went west.

The small town of Cody, Wyoming, situated on the banks of the Shoshone River at the Eastern extreme of Yellowstone National Park has long been a symbol of the old American West. Every Independence Day holiday since 1919, Cody has hosted one of America’s largest rodeos, the “Cody Stampede Rodeo.” The stampede has long been a Mecca for many of the world's top cowboys and rodeo fans.  In 1991 Disney took a look too - after all the town is named for Buffalo Bill Cody.

How Disney brought Buffalo Bill & his Wild West Show back to Paris.

William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was born on February 26, 1846 in Iowa. During his lifetime he was a soldier, a bison hunter, showman, Medal of Honor winner and one of the most colorful figures of the Old American West. Still today he is known as the man who took the Old West to the rest of the world.

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