What we saw during a walk inside Epcot’s Ratatouille ride

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It's big: What we saw inside Disney World's Ratatouille ride at Epcot

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From  Orlando Sentinel

Oversized foods are part of the atmosphere of Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, a dark, trackless ride scheduled to open at Epcot on Oct. 1. (Walt Disney Co. / Courtesy photo)

 

When Epcot visitors ride Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure later this year, they’ll eyeball giant portions of food, feel the heat of an oven and top it off with (virtual) champagne.

The attraction opens Oct. 1 in the theme park’s France pavilion, Disney announced Tuesday, but Imagineers showed off details during a walk-through on the ride’s floor this week.  “It’s really all those little things that are happening around us that really bring that story to life,” says Matt Beiler, senior producer.

The little things in Ratatouille Adventure sure look big, though. In the pantry scene, huge links of sausage and other meats loom overhead. On a nearby shelf there’s a container labeled “Fromage de Gusteau.” A 25-foot-long fish dangles. At the end of that room is a big vertical screen representing a freezer.

The attraction is proportioned so that riders are sized like Remy, the lead rat/aspiring chef see in the 2007 Disney-Pixar film “Ratatouille.”

“Everything seems big to you so that transition between 3-D media and then into these humongous shows sets. You know, the big fish … the oversized mop … all of it to really make you feel like you are Remy,” says Veronica Hebbard, project controls specialist.

That mop, with dangling strings that are more than 6 feet long, may sprinkle riders along the way, which also includes a stint beneath a dining cart and into an oven and Remy and friends attempt to prepare a trademark dish. (Photography was not permitted during the tour.)

The company may have been started by a mouse, but rats are making their mark. Remy-inspired designs can be seen in the fencing, the wallpaper in the ride queue, atop a manhole cover near the entrance, in a decorative fountain and subtlely blinking back at riders in the pantry.

Passengers will board rat-inspired vehicles (fronted by whiskers) that can hold six people. These ratmobiles will leave the boarding station and travel through the attraction in packs of three. They’ll move through fairly tight quarters, up near big screen 3-D projections, which are flanked by oversized set pieces such as the pantry foods.

The physical sets, projections and ride vehicles are designed to work together on the illusion. Underneath the cart, the big wheels turn.

“That does give you the perspective that you’re moving. You already know you’re moving because the ride vehicle makes you feel like you are. But that’s an added touch,” Hebbard says.

A Remy ride opened in the Walt Disney Studios theme park at Disneyland Paris in 2014. Epcot’s attraction was announced in 2017.

There’s no track on the ground a la Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, two relatively recent additions at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Imagineers say that freedom gives the vehicle some personality.

“We’re able to tell the story through the vehicle. It is, in a sense, a character within the story because it can scurry around like a rat would,” Beiler says. “We can dart fast or it can sort of go slow and really enjoy the scene that you’re in. … it really helps us to feel the emotion that we want you to feel while in this attraction.”

The ride ends with a successful meal in a cozy setting around a jelly jar lid and other found objects, ambiance provided by Christmas lights and punctuated by popping bubbly.

Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is new construction added in a former backstage area of the park. With the entrance and the adjacent restaurant named La Creperie de Paris that also opens Oct. 1 and a bathroom, the size of the France pavilion has doubled, Disney says. Weeks ago, a walkway opened in the area that allows park visitors a peek at the ride entrance, which can also be spied from the Disney Skyliner which passes nearby.

Email me at dbevil@orlandosentinel.com.