History
21 milestones tracing the story of La Mer de Sable.
Jean Richard opens a zoo at Ermenonville, close to the dune that will later form the heart of the park. The combination of circus, animals and live entertainment on this first site directly feeds the project that becomes La Mer de Sable.
Following a widely attended inauguration on 6 June, the first visitors enter the park on 8 June 1963. Jean Richard turns Ermenonville’s natural dune into a journey across several continents, built around scenery, animals and live shows.
ArticleThe Enchanted Forest opens beyond the dune with animated scenes inspired by fairy tales. A trans-Saharan train links the new area to the entrance and makes the railway a lasting part of the park’s identity.
Scenes from La Course à l’échalote, starring Pierre Richard and Jane Birkin, are filmed in the park’s western scenery. La Mer de Sable extends its links with entertainment and cinema beyond its own live performances.
Jean Richard entrusts the park’s daily management to his daughter Élisabeth. La Mer de Sable remains in the founder’s family while continuing to modernise and adapt to a rapidly changing leisure industry.
The first rafts of La Rivière Sauvage travel through a torrent integrated into the American West scenery. The water ride marks the arrival of more ambitious installations at the end of the 1980s.
The park opens a scenic journey populated by around one hundred plush animals animated through simple and ingenious mechanisms. First explored on foot, the experience later receives boats and becomes the direct ancestor of Le Bayou des Chikapas.
Cheyenne River brings a twenty-metre water drop to the park, built into the terrain without an obvious supporting structure. Its view across the dune and spectacular finale quickly make it one of La Mer de Sable’s defining attractions.
The Chinese pagoda receives an experience created by Gérard Majax around his Hallucinoscope, an optical illusion using no electronics. The same season also introduces the small Chika’tchou train and educational material for school groups.
The sale signed on 25 July ends more than forty years of family ownership. La Mer de Sable joins the group that also operates Parc Astérix while retaining its own location and identity.
The redevelopment led by Compagnie des Alpes brings ten new attractions and five renewed shows. The park adopts a clearer family focus and recentres its world around adventure, desert, jungle and pioneer themes.
The Wild Mouse transferred from Walibi Holland opens in scenery combining the American frontier with Chinese influences. It offers stronger sensations to growing children without moving the park away from its family positioning.
Looping completes the acquisition of La Mer de Sable from Compagnie des Alpes. The park joins a European network specialising in regional destinations and begins a new period of regular investment.
Simoun, Aquasouk and Bandidos arrive during the season with three very different experiences: spinning motion, a water battle and a small roller coaster. This first major package of the Looping era brings ride investment back to the foreground.
For the first time, the park extends its season with a Halloween programme designed for families. Reworked rides and shows, characters and scenery establish an autumn event that becomes a lasting part of the calendar.
The entrance area gradually leaves behind its former eastern identity for a Mexican world more consistent with the Wild West. El Condor and Tornado open, while several rides receive new names and scenery, including Simoun becoming Disco Loco and Aquasouk becoming Chiquit’O.
The health crisis delays the start of the season by almost three months. La Mer de Sable resumes operations with limited capacity and new safety measures, while the Silver Mountain project is postponed to the following year.
The new family mine train opens at the park’s highest point one year after its original schedule. Its layout, mining buildings and sound design reaffirm the ambition to integrate rides into the western story.
The park passes the threshold of 400,000 visitors in a season for the first time. The result accompanies the leisure industry’s rebound after health-related closures and confirms the renewed momentum around Silver Mountain.
The anniversary season reopens the Ranch in the historical continuation of the Enchanted Forest, places the real Train des Sables back at the heart of its staged attack and gives the entrance a stronger Wild West identity. The park uses the anniversary to connect heritage with new uses.
The large family wooden roller coaster welcomes its first visitors after construction began the previous summer. With a five-hundred-metre course and a twenty-metre elevation change, Wild Buffalo becomes the largest ride investment in the park’s history.
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