Disney Dish: Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, La Crêperie de Paris, and Haunted Mansion History

Remy's Ratatouille Adventure Review

• 🇫🇷 The exterior of the France pavilion and the Remy's Ratatouille Adventure ride building are praised for their intricate architectural detail and illusion of depth.
• 💡 The queue is described as highly detailed, featuring empire-style wallpaper with subtle rat and cheese motifs, and recreating scenes from the movie where Remy dreams of cooking.
• 🐭 The trackless ride vehicles offer a 3D experience, with bucket seats for coziness and stability during spins. The ride begins with Remy on a rooftop overlooking Paris, followed by a fall into the restaurant kitchen.
• 🍳 Key scenes include being chased through the kitchen, hiding in a gigantic refrigerator, and experiencing the chaos of the dining room from Remy's perspective.
• 🍽️ The ride concludes with Remy cooking, Linguini assisting, and a final scene with Remy's family eating outside, offering a beautiful and detailed finale.

La Crêperie de Paris Dining Experience

• 🥞 The new creperie in Epcot's France pavilion offers both savory galettes and sweet crepes, with a menu divided into four sections: entrees, galettes, crepes, and drinks.
• 💰 A $33 fixed-price menu includes a choice of soup or salad, one galette, a drink, and one dessert crepe, noted as a great value that may increase in price.
• 🇫🇷 The galettes feature options like ham, egg, and Swiss; chicken with béchamel; goat cheese with spinach and walnuts; salmon with crème fraîche; ratatouille; and raclette with onions and ham.
• 🍎 Sweet crepes include popular choices like apple caramel, pear with chocolate, banana, and hazelnut Nutella, with generous add-ons like whipped cream and ice cream.
• ✨ The restaurant's interior theming is noted as somewhat inconsistent, but the quality of the imported French flour for the crepes and the authentic French staff contribute to a solid dining addition to Epcot.

Haunted Mansion Development History

• 🏰 The early development of the Haunted Mansion involved plans for two side-by-side walkthrough attractions to increase hourly throughput, with each elevator serving one attraction.
• 🏙️ A significant early plan was for Walt Disney's Riverfront Square in St. Louis, a large indoor theme park that would have housed the Haunted Mansion as a ride, featuring a stretching room and a wheeled platform system.
• 💰 This St. Louis project, estimated at $20 million, ultimately fell apart due to financial disagreements, leading Walt to pivot towards developing Walt Disney World in Florida.
• 🎆 During a stay at a Polynesian bungalow, the speakers witnessed testing for the new Magic Kingdom fireworks show, Disney's Enchantment, noting advanced projections and new firework effects.
• 🔥 An unusual event observed was a significant amount of smoke rising from Adventureland late at night after the fireworks, suggesting a possible incident within the park.

Other Disney Dining and Resort Notes

• 🍤 Columbia Harbor House has reopened, with the lighthouse sandwich and hush puppies highlighted as delicious. The shrimp is also recommended, with the kids' meal offering a good value.
• 🌺 A stay at a Polynesian bungalow is described as a special, luxurious experience, with low park attendance noted during the visit.
• 🇨🇳 Nine Dragons restaurant in Epcot's China pavilion is highly recommended, particularly for its appetizers and a standout spicy chili oil sauce that one speaker was particularly enthusiastic about.