One of the things I most look forward to when visiting a Disney Park is the afternoon parade, and the Magic Kingdom parades have always been my favorite. So, naturally I was incredibly excited when I saw the Disney Parks Blog’s Friday post that Magic Kingdom is getting a fresh, new parade!
Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade is being designed to highlight the New Fantasyland, and bring that magic to Main Street, U.S.A. The floats feature a completely new design, and the renderings are just beautiful! Additionally the parade will feature an original soundtrack and new parade theme song.
According to the Disney Parks Blog, the parade will be designed to specifically highlight the stories of The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Dumbo, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Tangled and Brave.
Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade is set to replace the Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade in the spring of 2014. No official date yet, but I would speculate it will be launching in time for the bulk of the Spring Break season.
Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade has been in its current state since early 2009, but was originally introduced in October of 2001 as the Share a Dream Come True Parade, in celebration of Walt Disney. The original version of the parade debuted for the 100 Years of Magic Celebration, and featured a Walt Disney look-alike drawing Mickey Mouse, and all of the floats featured giant Snowglobes. I loved this parade. It was narrated by Julie Andrews, and told a beautiful story of Walt Disney. It ran in this manner until 2006 when the parade was renamed Disney Dreams Come True Parade when the snowglobes were removed and a few of the key characters had costume change, including the special Year of a Million Dreams costumes for Mickey and Minnie. It went through further changes in 2009 when many of the floats were repainted with bright, almost neon colors, and Fab Five were given costumes to match. The Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade will be the first completely new parade at Magic Kingdom in over 10 years.
What are your thoughts on this new parade? And what are your favorite Disney Parades of years past? We would love to hear your opinions!
**This blog was originally published on April 27th, 2013**
