Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure Ride Info: Opening Date & Previews
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is a family-friendly trackless dark ride opening in Fall 2021 at Walt Disney World. Epcot’s new attraction will debut as a Parisian expansion to France’s World Showcase pavilion. This covers everything you need to know: opening date, likelihood of previews & soft openings, construction photos, concept art, and answers to common questions. (Updated July 30, 2021.)
As background, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is the clone of Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy at Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris. Some differences between the two are possible; it’s common for Imagineering to tweak clones upon learning what works or doesn’t. The Disneyland Paris version includes the table service restaurant Bistrot Chez Remy, which will not be coming to Epcot.
Walt Disney World announced this version of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure a few years ago at the D23 Expo, following construction permits and rumors leaking. The attraction and Streets of Paris section is being built as an expansion to the France pavilion, using space behind the existing theater plus the vacant plot next to the Morocco pavilion. Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is a “pure” addition–nothing is being replaced by this expansion…
In terms of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure’s substance, speculation is not required given that Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy debuted ~7 years ago. The concept is guests shrinking to the size of a rat, scurrying through a restaurant in a trackless dark ride. It’s a frenetic, high energy experience with some oversized kitchen items as physical props, plus 3D film on a series of giant screens.
When announced, the ride system was first of its kind for Walt Disney World. Since then, both Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway have debuted with similar trackless dark ride components. In terms of a comparison, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is more similar to Runaway Railway–except with more dimensional props, but also more ‘flat’ screens.
Above is a look at the Streets of Paris concept art released for the expansion. While elements of this (such as the Remy character fountain) are similar to the area added to the Walt Disney Studios Park, the layout is different as are the specific dining and shopping options. Only the attraction itself is a clone.
We’ve experienced the attraction many times over the last 7 years at Disneyland Paris, and you can read our comprehensive thoughts in Is Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure Overhyped? Our goal with this post is not to rain on the parade of anyone who is brimming with excitement for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. Given the state of the world for the last year, our general view is “let people enjoy/be happy about/excited for things!” Instead, we’re hoping to diminish disappointment and maybe reset expectations a little bit.
Aside from Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, the big addition to the Streets of Paris expansion will be La Crêperie de Paris. This new crêperie will feature the cuisine of celebrity chef Jérôme Bocuse, the son of Paul Bocuse and operator of the pavilion’s Chefs de France and Monsieur Paul restaurants.
La Crêperie de Paris will feature a menu inspired by the Brittany region of France, and will offer both table service and a quick-service window. The restaurant will serve both sweet crepes and savory galettes. If this crêperie is on par with the other dining options in the France pavilion, it’ll be a winner!
Originally, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure was slated to open last summer. (Meaning its opening has been delayed by over one year at this point.)
This was officially announced by Walt Disney World, and banners were added to the construction site. Due to the multi-month closure, that plan was scrapped.
In Spring 2021, Walt Disney World opened a portion of the Streets of Paris area, but it’s basically just the restrooms. If you want to see the first ‘phase’ of this area, check out our photos of the France expansion.
Additionally, Walt Disney World added a new “Opening 2021” banner to the iconic Art Nouveau Métro marquee.
In terms of construction updates, there are none as of July 2021.
The entire Streets of Paris expansion has been finished since early this year. Most work was finished late last year. Construction crews have literally not been on site in months. The new ride and entire area is 100% finished.
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure Opening Date & Previews
Walt Disney World will officially open Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure on October 1, 2021. While this is over a year after its planned debut date, it makes sense to debut it on the start of Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary.
On this same date, the Harmonious nighttime spectacular will also debut in Epcot’s World Showcase Lagoon. This is good “counter-programming” that should help draw some crowds away from Magic Kingdom, which will launch the Disney Enchantment fireworks that evening.
As we’ve stated repeatedly, the timeline for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure has not been dictated by construction progress, but by when it’s most logical to debut the blockbuster new attraction. It’s more about waiting until operational normalcy has returned and attendance caps are lifted.
The attraction is totally finished, and has been since late last year. While Walt Disney World still needs to test & adjust and train Cast Members on the ride, which normally takes about 6-8 weeks. Speaking of which, here’s the latest from Walt Disney World President, Jeff Vahle:
View this post on Instagram
What caught our attention there is the line: “And if you’re not a Cast Member, there may still be a way for you to see this attraction before it opens. More details to come!”
Walt Disney World is very deliberate with its words, and this suggests to us that there will be previews for select groups. Disney Vacation Club, Golden Oak, Club 33, and possibly Annual Passholders would be the most likely candidates. Soft openings are not announced or publicly mentioned in any way, so he’s almost certainly not hinting at those.
However, this does not means that Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure won’t have a soft opening. If Cast Member previews are next month, that means they’re in August 2021. Typically, these would last a few days and other previews for select guests would occur immediately thereafter, spanning another week or so.
Depending upon when these previews begin, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure could still have an extended soft opening period before October 1, 2021. If the previews start in mid-August, they’d be finished by early September 2021 at the latest. That could leave nearly a full month for soft openings.
It’s also possible Cast Member previews won’t occur until late August, select guest previews won’t occur until September 2021, and the ride will sit after that–and no soft openings will occur. That’s also a definite possibility. After all, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure has been sitting finished for this long already. However, if Walt Disney World wants to boost attendance at Epcot, opening the ride quietly to all guests for at least part of September makes sense.
As discussed in our recent Epcot July 2021 Crowd & Construction Report, while other parks are seeing soaring attendance, Epcot has been languishing numbers since the capacity caps increased. This is because guests aren’t being “forced” to visit Epcot, as it’s now less common for the other parks to be fully booked. Accordingly, it would make sense for Walt Disney World to buoy attendance at a time of year that’s normally slow for Epcot.
Ultimately, we’re looking forward to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and the Streets of Paris expansion at Epcot. The attraction is not the pinnacle of Imagineering–and it would’ve been more impressive before Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Runaway Railaway when the technology was more of a novelty to Walt Disney World fans. Nevertheless, it’s a reasonably solid family-friendly ride that’ll improve the attraction lineup in Epcot.
Adding another ride to World Showcase is the biggest upside to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, in our view. If intellectual property and characters are going to be added to World Showcase (and they are), there’s literally no better choice than this movie. Ratatouille is a great as the movie itself is a love letter to Paris and should fit the pavilion well–much better than Frozen in Norway. That coupled with the Streets of Paris being a pure expansion without losing anything makes it a winner. If Imagineering iterates on the ride itself to improve some of our quibbles with it, even better!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you excited for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure? If you’ve experienced the version in the Walt Disney Studios Park, what did you think of it? If you’re an EPCOT Center purist, are you apprehensive that this will fit the France pavilion, or do you think it’s inappropriate IP for World Showcase? When do you predict that Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure will open? Do you agree or disagree with any of our thoughts? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I’m hoping for some crêpe reviews by Labor Day, myself; France is the best Disney area for food. (You heard me, New Orleans Square!)
If you were in Vegas, odds of a soft open in the first 10 days of September?
My grandson insisted I watch Ratatouille (the film) with him because he loves it so much. I did and enjoyed it. My grandson is 26.
Tom – it’s okay to take a victory lap on this one. You call yourself out when your predictions are wrong, but while other outlets have been predicting this to open as early as last month, and well before summer, you’ve been pointing out the likelihood of Disney waiting a while for strategic/business reasons to open this. Because of your logical and well-explained rationale, I’ve not been trying to not put much stock in these predictions (we are going to be at WDW at the beginning of May). While certainly hopeful that it would open, I’ve been able to recognize that the smarter and more prudent decision for Disney was to wait. So thanks – and go ahead and toot your own horn on this one.
I think this makes good sense for WDW’s 50th anniversary and serves to give a new attraction to counterprogram the extra swarming that Magic Kingdom will rightfull get at that time, a time when, hopefully, we’ll be back to full and unrestricted park hopping.
But there’s no way I see this opening months ahead of October 1.
I think we all realize and know that the ride is finished and that it could open the moment that they have cast members fully trained for the ride. At best I’d see this as an unannounced soft opening in the last week or 2 of September. There are so many information sources out there that if they started soft openings early, everyone will immediately know. I don’t see them spoiling the “grand opening” that way, but with an irregular pattern of soft openings in the last 2 weeks, with a constant soft opening a few days before the anniversary to work out the kinks.
Or we could see no public soft openings but lots of afterhours rides for Cast Members and their families and friends in the weeks before the grand opening.
I sure hope so, because we booked for the last week of September the day before they announced this grand opening. Lol ♀️
Can we get an update on when the dining plan will be returning? It’s a great part of the Disney package and looking forward to it’s return SOON.