Image captions and credits * Queue [Caption] Tired feet? Visitors to Disney California Adventure wait in line at the Longevity Noodle Co during the Lunar New Year celebration in Anaheim, CA, 23 January 2026
[Credit] Jeff Gritchen · Medianews Group · Orange County Register · Getty

Little girls dressed as Elsa, the heroine of the Disney film Frozen, were making their way in sparkly sequinned dresses towards a snow-covered mountain reminiscent of the Matterhorn. A recording of seagull cries was playing on loudspeakers, mingling with the cooing of real pigeons. The kingdom of Arendelle, opened this spring at the heart of Disneyland Paris, promises an escape from reality. And on a sweltering Saturday in June, around 50,000 people had come to treat themselves to a few hours away from it all. But everyone was keeping a close eye on the time.

Outside Frozen Ever After, one of the star attractions in this new ‘land’, a sign informed visitors there was a 70-minute wait for a five-minute trip in a small Viking longship – meaning they would spend 14 times longer queuing than on the ride. The wait for other attractions was scarcely shorter. Yet in spite of this, families patiently snaked their way through the queue barriers.

Nearby, there was another entrance with almost no queue. I watched as someone held a QR code on their smartphone up to a scanner; it beeped and a small group disappeared down a parallel lane reserved for holders of Disney’s paid Premier Access fast-track pass. The whole process took them less than five minutes.

Theme parks have grown to a size unimaginable 30 years ago. Disneyland Paris, now Europe’s leading paid tourist destination, has received more than 445 million visits since opening in 1992. Yet no self-respecting theme park will ever say it is full: as visitor numbers grow, congestion has simply been channelled into the queues.

Ten hours to meet Mickey Mouse

In the summer, and during other school and public holidays, (…)

Full article: 1 693 words.

(1) See Michael J Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2012.

(2) See Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity, Columbia University Press, 2015.