Festival of Fantasy Parade
| Festival of Fantasy Parade | |
|---|---|
| Park | Magic Kingdom |
| Land / area | Parade route |
| Type | Daytime parade |
| Opened | March 9, 2014 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Operating |
Festival of Fantasy Parade, officially the Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade, is the daytime parade at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. It debuted on March 9, 2014, as the park's first entirely new afternoon parade in more than a decade, replacing Celebrate a Dream Come True, which had ended its run on January 4, 2014. Built to carry the stories of New Fantasyland out across the whole park, the parade follows the Magic Kingdom parade route from Frontierland through Liberty Square and past Cinderella Castle to Main Street, U.S.A., with large, highly detailed floats, nearly 100 performers and an original musical score by Mark Hammond.
History
Magic Kingdom's afternoon parade before 2014 was a long-lived one. Celebrate a Dream Come True, performed from 2009 to 2014, was itself the last of three versions of a parade first introduced in 2001 for the park's 30th anniversary. When New Fantasyland — the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom's history — was completed, Disney chose to retire the old parade altogether rather than revise it again, and to build a new one themed to Fantasyland's stories.
Festival of Fantasy was created under show director Steve Davison. Its score was composed by Mark Hammond, whose earlier Disney work included World of Color at Disney California Adventure and Hong Kong Disneyland's Flights of Fantasy Parade. Hammond wrote an original theme song, "Away We Go," and wove arrangements of songs from the featured films into each unit, so that the music changes as each float passes. Costumes and floats drew on designers from across the United States, and two floats were adapted from Tokyo Disneyland's former Jubilation! parade.
The parade paused with the rest of Walt Disney World in March 2020. A shortened version returned in 2022, and the full parade was progressively restored, marking its tenth anniversary on March 9, 2024.
Show
The parade is organised into themed units, each built around a film or group of characters. It opens with the Princess Garden, carrying Belle and the Beast, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Tiana and Naveen, and Anna and Elsa, among others. Later units cover Tangled, with Rapunzel and Flynn Rider on a swinging, pendulum-like float; The Little Mermaid, with Ariel on a seashell throne amid a musical seascape; Peter Pan, with Captain Hook standing on an anchor and Peter Pan and Wendy aboard the pirate ship Jolly Roger, trailed by Tinker Bell; and Brave, presented with bagpipers and Scottish dancers around Merida.
The best-known float is the Sleeping Beauty unit. Prince Phillip, flanked by the three good fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, does battle with Maleficent in the form of a steampunk-inspired dragon. The float is about 53 feet long and 26 feet tall, built on an articulated chassis so that it bends as it moves, and the dragon breathes real fire. It was designed in partnership with Michael Curry, the Tony Award-winning puppet and production designer. A finale unit led by Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse in a hot-air balloon closes the parade.
On May 11, 2018, the Maleficent dragon's head caught fire during a performance in Liberty Square. No one was injured, but the float was withdrawn and replaced for a time by a gazebo float carrying Aurora and Prince Phillip. The repaired dragon, rebuilt with less flammable materials, returned to the parade on January 25, 2019, and has performed since.