Paris’s version of the Anaheim attraction “Pinocchio’s Daring Journey” is known as “Les Voyages de Pinocchio”, which translates literally into The Journeys of Pinocchio. Although the French name has never changed, in the early days of the Park, the attraction was known as “Pinocchio’s Fantastic Journey” for the benefit of English speakers, although now (as with several other attractions in the park) one name, in one language, is used for all Guests, regardless of their mother tongue.
For the sake of this article, I shall be abbreviating the name of the Anaheim attraction to PDJ and the Paris version to LVP.
Both are dark rides, which can be found in Fantasyland. Both last just over two minutes, although the woodcutter’s cart in which you travel, supposedly carved by Geppetto himself, seats four riders in PDJ and six in LVP.
The queue area for LVP is the bigger of the two, and bizarrely features a half carved duck, but has fewer details, flags or lights.
The attractions themselves are pretty similar experiences, going through the same scenes in the same order. PDJ has more Hidden Mickeys, such as in the spilt popcorn and in the carvings of the end scene; LVP has more hidden “donkeys”, thematically implying the true nature of “Pleasure Island”.
PDJ has a lot more dialogue throughout the attraction. What little dialogue LVP has is in French (including the lyrics to “An Actor’s Life for Me” in the opening Marionette scene). Even when Geppetto yells the sole word “Pinocchio”, it is done in a French accent rather than re-using the original audio.
On the whole though, I prefer PDJ. This is because LVP doesn’t use a hologram for the Lampwick scene, and has a slower, and thus less scary, emergence of Monstro.
Portions of this article first appeared in my musings for DLDHistory.com in December 2010.