ORLANDO, Fla. — Future trips to Epcot may have more joie de vivre after Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure opens. Walt Disney World is introducing the dark ride to the theme park’s France pavilion, and it uses giant sets, smooth moves and a pack of rats to transport visitors over the Atlantic and under the feet of chefs.
Disney annual passholders who signed up for previews had a chance to see the Remy ride in action during Labor Day weekend. Employees checked out the attraction for several days, and members of the media took several spins, too. It officially opens to the public on Oct. 1, the 50th anniversary of Disney World.
The storyline uses a tried-and-true Disney concept, shrinking the audience. While aboard the six-person ride vehicle — which is fronted by a set of whiskers — passengers watch Remy plan a meal, zip into the pantry, dodge the feet of kitchen workers and mops and get a whiff of a French bakery.
“We have the ability to kind of shape the ride profile, to make the rat vehicle move in a way that we want you to feel like you’re moving like a rat,” Matt Beiler, a producer with Walt Disney Imagineering, said Friday. “So when we want to dance around the rooftops of Paris, it moves slowly and calmly. But when you’re being chased by Skinner through the Gusteau’s restaurant, the rat scurries.”
When the action takes the turn near a glass skylight, “the vehicle tips a little bit making you feel like you’re going to fall into that kitchen scene,” Beiler said. “That’s what’s really amazing about this type of ride system.”
Other recent trackless rides at Disney World include two attractions at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance inside Galaxy’s Edge. Each is smooth and unpredictable, but the Remy ride is less intense than its Studios sisters. Runaway Railway has more spinning, and the manufactured danger is less cartoonish on the Rise ride.
“This is another opportunity to have a family-friendly experience for our guests,” said Kartika Rodriguez, vice president for Epcot. “All ages can enjoy it; there’s no height restriction. So everyone can do it. No matter how old or young at heart you are.”
The ride is preceded by the winding queue, which sets the scene and includes the down-to-rat-size moment. Visitors walk under a theater marquee, onto a rooftop (where we see the Gusteau’s sign as seen in the 2009 film “Ratatouille”), through an artist’s loft, where a magical painting comes to life. Then they pick up the 3-D glasses.
“You’ll see immediately that tile beneath your feet, the lights that are human scale will go to rat scale once you’ve crossed that threshold into that load area” for the vehicles, Beiler said.
“We have to ensure that every part of that experience matches up to that scale,” he said. He used the pantry scene to demonstrate.
“When you enter into that scene where there’s all this giant physical set work. ... There’s a two-ton ham, there’s a giant fish, all these bottles of food help to reinforce the fact that you have been shrunk down to the scale of chef Remy,” he said.
For a ride that begins with twists, turns, dramatic drops and scurrying, the finale is relatively sedate.
“It’s sort of a kiss goodbye,” Beiler said. After the chase scenes, riders make it to Remy’s kitchen, where he’s making a meal for them. Remy’s friends and family are there too.
“It’s one of my favorite scenes. It ends with Remy wishing you goodbye, and you’re seeing these little baby rats that are in that scene that are adorable,” he said. “It’s those scenes that leave you on a good note, on a happy note and, you know, something that I think everyone needs at this time.”
The new ride is a twin to one the opened at the Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris in 2014. At Epcot, it was built in an area that was previously considered backstage. There’s also a new restaurant there called La Creperie de Paris. The established true-to-France architecture of the pavilion becomes more relaxed, curved and tilted as one approaches Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. It’s a style that Pixar people coined as “crookedology,” Beiler said.
“You see it expressed in the downspouts and how all the windows don’t necessarily line up,” he said. “It’s a Paris that’s been lived. It’s a Paris that’s settled a bit. ... Even the theater itself, sort of tilted a little bit.”
“I just love the fact that it’s very immersive,” Rodriguez said. “When you look at this space, you come in, it feels like you’re transported to France. The architecture is absolutely beautiful and stunning in this space, the bold palettes and colors.”
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