The description in the Disneyland Paris park map for Big Thunder Mountain tells you that riders will “Hurl through an abandoned gold mine at breathtaking speed aboard a runaway mine train!” Although I do not agree that the mine is supposed to be abandoned (especially as you can clearly hear a miner call out “Fire in the hole”) this is still a fair description of all four versions of the attraction (Paris, Anaheim, Orlando and Tokyo) and—to a lesser extent—Hong Kong’s Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars.
For the sake of completeness, I should point out that whereas the attractions in Florida and California are called “Big Thunder Mountain Railroad”, the word “Railroad” is missing from the official titles in Paris and Tokyo. Of these four versions, the one in Paris is the fastest, tallest and longest although this doesn’t necessarily make it the best.
The Paris attraction has a much shorter exterior queue area than Florida, mainly due to the weather but also because less space here is needed: Queues tend to not be as excessive in France, the area to be traversed is not as steep, and the surrounding area has already immersed you in the world of the Big Thunder Mining Company.
Whereas Fastpass users have the same exterior scenery as regular riders in Florida, in Paris the two have very different sets to look at prior to entering the main building. Also, Fastpass users in Paris enter the building much nearer the load station than in WDW.
The interior queue areas of the two are very similar in layout, but different in terms of style. In essence, this is because Paris hasn’t got the interactive attractions which were added to WDW’s BTM queue earlier this year. However, the tone is more serious in Paris—the signs are less jokey and the sound effects are less over the top.
Once one gets to the ground floor (via stairs in Paris or a ramp in Florida) the décor is much the same. The start of the ride is pretty different though, seeing as it features an outdoor section in Paris, and a section with bats in Florida. In Paris, the bats come later.
Paris riders have a slightly longer darkened section here, because the track needs to take them under the Rivers of the Far West and onto the island where the majority of the attraction takes place.
The scenery of the next section in Paris—the first ascent—is very similar to that of its Floridian cousin, with very little on the left and the beautiful rainbow caverns on the right. Both ought to then take you through a stylized waterfall, although this effect in France rarely works.
The attraction continues being similar until just after the opossums. In Paris, this next portion doesn’t have the trip through Dave V. Jones Mine or the storage shed, although it does feature a dip into water—where you have your photograph taken—as well as an animatronic goat trying to pull Jeans off a clothes line.
This takes us to the second ascent. It is usually about here that one realizes the differences in sightlines. For example, in Paris, riders can see many other attractions (such as Tower of Terror or PanoraMagique) which ruin the theming, spoil the magic and remind you that you are not really in the American West.
Conversely though, riders in WDW can often see at least one of the other four trains, thus making the experience feel less unique. This rarely occurs in DLP, not least because more of the attraction is covered and fewer trains usually run in one go.
From this point onwards—with the exception of health-and-safety measures and the positioning of some of the props—the two attractions are very similar until exiting the third ascent, where in DLP you are almost instantly brought back under the water to the load/unload area.