Adventureland: a tropical, pirate-filled land

Adventureland is one of the five lands of Disneyland Park. It opened on April 12, 1992, when the Disneyland Paris resort (then called Euro Disneyland) was inaugurated.

Four separate themed areas make up the land:

The main entrance, Adventureland Bazaar, recreates an Eastern town inspired by the Arabian Nights tales and by the movie Aladdin, released in 1992. The Imagineers designed this area while the film was still in production.

A second zone, mostly African in style, is home mainly to stores and restaurants.

The third recalls the jungles of Asia and houses Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril.

The last and largest part brings the Caribbean to life with Pirates of the Caribbean and Adventure Isle, a man-made island in the center.

The Paris-area climate forced the Imagineers to give up on Jungle Cruise, found in every other Adventureland in the world, because the animatronics couldn’t handle the harsh winters.

Here’s what you’ll find in the land: Pirates of the Caribbean, from 1992, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, which debuted on July 30, 1993, as the first Disney coaster to include a 360° loop (Esso sponsored it until 2017). Add to that Le Passage Enchanté d’Aladdin, open since December 9, 1993, Adventure Isle and its Skull Rock borrowed from Peter Pan, La Cabane des Robinson drawn from Swiss Family Robinson, and a whole web of caves.

Pirates’ Beach serves as a play area for kids.

When hunger strikes, a few spots are worth knowing. Captain Jack’s - Restaurant des Pirates, which used to be called Blue Lagoon, sits right inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Colonel Hathi’s Pizza Outpost took over from what was once Explorers Club Restaurant. Agrabah Café replaced the old covered Eastern market in 1999, and Hakuna Matata takes its theme from The Lion King.

The main stores are Les Trésors de Schéhérazade, La Girafe Curieuse, Le Coffre du Capitaine, and Indiana Jones Adventure Outpost.

Look closely and you’ll notice some striking design touches. The entry passage is lit by a golden chandelier that King Hassan II of Morocco gave the park. Atop the east tower sits a gilded egg, a reference to the Roc from Sinbad’s voyages. The letters WDI (Walt Disney Imagineering) are engraved in the mosaic archway, and the Indiana Jones temple takes its cues from South India’s Pallava-style architecture.

Think of the land as a journey of discovery across the world’s wildest, most far-flung places. As you walk, you move from one mini-world to the next: the pirate-filled Caribbean with its taverns, the African jungle where the Robinsons were shipwrecked, the Eastern desert of Agrabah, and the temple ruins Indiana Jones combs for relics.

Tying it all together is the idea of a nineteenth-century adventurer’s oversized travel diary. Every corner of the land describes its own expedition, and whoever wanders in finds a world that hangs together, full of waterfalls, rope bridges, and ruins.

The land by the numbers, pulled from across the site for a quick visual summary.

Adventureland welcomed its first guests alongside the rest of the park on April 12, 1992. At launch, it had Pirates of the Caribbean, La Cabane des Robinson, Adventure Isle, the Pirate Galleon, and Le Passage Enchanté d’Aladdin (although that one only arrived in 1993).

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril was added on July 30, 1993, to take pressure off Big Thunder Mountain. Pirates’ Beach was built in 1999. Since then, the land has stayed fairly stable, with no major makeover.

To dig deeper: all the secrets and fun facts about Adventureland

The land takes its cue from the Adventureland at Disneyland in Anaheim (1955) and the one at Magic Kingdom in Orlando (1971). What sets the Paris version apart is its Adventure Isle, which you can explore on foot, and its Pirates of the Caribbean (the longest version in the world), both found only at Disneyland Paris.