If the rumours are true, please Disneyland Paris, let me buy my stone

In the last 24 hours information has come from those fine folk over at ED92 via their Facebook page, that the personalised paving stones in Fantasia Gardens in front of the Disneyland Hotel, are to be removed and not replaced. It has been said that at the time of purchase these were rental agreements, and in fact at the time I purchased ours, they did say it would last 10 years. The subject of what would happen to it after those 10 years never actually came up, from what I can remember. I bought one for my wife and I back in December 2003, when we were in Disneyland Paris on our honeymoon, and as such our stone is inscribed with our name, wedding date and place of our wedding, where we lived at the time. We actually took advantage of a promotional 2 stone offer, one for Disneyland Park and one for Walt Disney Studios, but we have never been able to locate our stone in the Studios Park.

Now into the subject at hand, and my desire to own my paving stone. Yes, you read that right, I want to have in my possession that pink hexagon of concrete you can see in the photo above. I want to hire a asphalt paving company to make me a custom driveway with it embedded. Not only is it a great memento of our wedding day, but it’s an actual piece of Disneyland Paris that has been there for over a decade, seen by thousands and walked over by even more. It’s not quite a brick from Sleeping Beauty Castle, and as an aside I’m not condoning attempting to remove such bricks, but it’s my own piece of one of my favourite places in the entire world, or at least it could be.

Now I’m not sure how the logistics would work, as this is an idea that has only popped into my head after reading the rumour a number of minutes ago. But let’s say that they could rip up these stones and store them somewhere for a number of months, say three, and then people could pay for them and collect them from the agreed location. Alternatively they could be shipped, which would cost a fair amount, but for unique items of such sentimental value I’m sure many would agree to that. If they were to offer me my paving stone for €100 plus shipping I’d probably take them up on it, and if 999 others did the same, that’s €100,000 in their pocket. Now that’s not going to build the next Ratatouille, but it might pay for a couple of PhotoPass+ photographers to roam the parks, or pay for some marketing to gain some more awareness. So really this isn’t about me, it’s an altruistic suggestion on my part to benefit Disneyland Paris.

Of course this is all very theoretical – there may only be 200 paving stones, I may be one of only a few people that want to buy them, they may break into pieces when removed and Disneyland Paris may balk at the idea of going to the bother of removing, storing and then selling and distributing said stones. If it is possible though, I would rather like mine.