Wondrous Journeys
| Wondrous Journeys | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disneyland Park |
| Land / area | Sleeping Beauty Castle / Main Street, U.S.A. |
| Type | Fireworks and projection mapping show |
| Opened | January 27, 2023 |
| Designer | Disney Live Entertainment
|
| Status | Operating |
Wondrous Journeys is a nighttime fireworks and projection-mapping show at Disneyland Park at the Disneyland Resort in California. It premiered on January 27, 2023, as one of the two anchor spectaculars of the Disney100 celebration marking the centenary of The Walt Disney Company, alongside World of Color – ONE at Disney California Adventure. The show surveys the history of Walt Disney Animation Studios, with references to every animated feature the studio had released, and it later returned as part of Disneyland's 70th anniversary programming.
History
The show was announced at the D23 Expo on September 11, 2022, and was developed by Disney Live Entertainment in collaboration with Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose artists contributed to the projected imagery. Its first run lasted from January 27 to August 31, 2023. After the Disney100 celebration wound down, the show was brought back for a short engagement from March 22 to April 14, 2024, and then again from May 16, 2025, as part of the Disneyland 70th anniversary celebration, a run that was subsequently extended into 2026.
Unlike a conventional fireworks show, Wondrous Journeys was designed to work at two scales: on select nights, typically weekends and peak periods, it is performed with a full pyrotechnic element above the park; on other nights it is presented as a projection and lighting show without fireworks. The runtime is about 13 minutes.
Show summary
The production follows the path of an artist's work from a blank page to a finished film. It opens with the original song "It's Wondrous" and images suggesting sketches and early animation, honouring the studio's beginnings with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the features that followed.
The middle of the show moves quickly through the studio's catalogue. Disney stated at launch that the programme nods to all 60 of the studio's animated features released to that point, and scenes drawn from Peter Pan, Hercules, The Princess and the Frog, Treasure Planet, Big Hero 6, Frozen, Moana and Encanto, among many others, are woven into a continuous montage rather than presented as separate set pieces. A quieter passage built on "Dos Oruguitas" from Encanto gives way to a climax in which Baymax, from Big Hero 6, is projected flying over Sleeping Beauty Castle — a counterpart to the traditional flight of Tinker Bell. The show closes by returning to the image of the blank page, now filled.
Presentation
Projections are not confined to the castle. The facades of Main Street, U.S.A., the front of It's a small world in Fantasyland and the surfaces along the Rivers of America all serve as projection screens, so the show can be followed from several areas of the park, each with a different combination of imagery, lighting and — on fireworks nights — pyrotechnics. The artwork leans on hand-drawn styles, with pencil lines and paint textures visible in the projected sequences, in keeping with the show's theme of the animation process itself.