Adventures in the Magic Kingdom 2: Electrical Parade Boogaloo

[maryryanbogard]

For the nighttime entertainment, we found a place at the main hub. You think the castle at night is cool/pretty now...

...this was nothing compared to "Celebrate the Magic", the "new light show" I mentioned earlier. Now I wasn't able to get good pictures of it the first showing, but it turned out they ran it again between the main fireworks show and the second parade of lights, at which point Mom and I had moved to a slightly better spot anyway. So the following photos are actually from that second showing, as is the video my mom got of it (which I might upload somewhere at a later time; they're the wrong file type to just put on Photobucket).

It started with Tinker Bell enchanting the castle, giving it gold trimmings before turning it into a sketch drawing, which became a sketch of Walt animating Mickey, "kaleidoscope" images of the classic characters and a few quick scenes of Pinocchio being brought to life, Cinderella getting her ballgown, and the titular "Princess and the Frog" regaining their human forms. Then it went into bigger and slightly longer segments, like the appearance of the Cheshire Cat:

Which became a tea party to the tune of "The Unbirthday Song":

This later sequence was certainly a pleasant surprise:

Yes, a "live" game of Fix-It Felix Jr right on the castle. Later scenes included swordfighting pirates (as in "of the Caribbean"):

And yes, Elsa singing (a shortened version of) "Let It Go":

These last couple pics are the only others from this show I'll share here lest this get too image-heavy:

For the "Wishes" fireworks show, Tinker Bell flies past to kick things off (it's actually her in a light-studded costume, but my camera only picked up this image, which was probably the intended effect anyway):

Which led to a pyrotechincal spectacular narrated by Jiminy Cricket and the Blue Fairy, with various other characters chiming in at various points (this was all audio only, no character physically appeared besides Tink and no characters were projected onto the castle):

Again, this was followed by an encore performance of "Celebrate the Magic", then the second run of the famous Main Street Electrical Parade, now led by Tinker Bell (she didn't have a float before):

Followed by Casey Junior with Goofy driving:

And hauling the drum bearing the parade's name:

Other floats included Alice on a mushroom with a disappearing/reappearing Cheshire Cat:

Cinderella in her pumpkin coach followed by a ballroom entourage:

Captain Hook's ship:

And Pete with his (occasional smoke breathing) Dragon:

And yes, the parade still ends with a bicentennial float, proof that it's been around since the '70s:

While the the crowd had thinned a bit by that point, we still waited a little while before trying to leave so as not to get too caught up in the crush of everyone else trying to leave. So I got one more in-park photo:

We'd be in that building in a matter of hours. Then, as we were leaving I at least heard the audio for the so-called "kiss goodnight", a special "goodbye" show they play for those still in the park a little past official closing time (not so much a "go away" vibe as a sincere "thank you for coming" vibe).

Getting back to the hotel was difficult, but when we did get back I found all the plushies I'd brought arranged like so:

(FYI there were actually two beds; some were on one and the others were on the other.) Yes, these are all the official Disney plushies with the exception of Sergeant Calhoun who for lack of an official plushie was custom-made by StichyButton on Etsy. I actually own all the (other) Sugar Rush kids' dolls, too, and wanted to bring all of them on this trip but even without Anna and Elsa there wasn't enough luggage space to do that (and do remember I orginally thought I'd be flying down). So only these guys came along for the ride.

In any case, thus ended a busy yet fun day in the Magic Kingdom.

( Continued... )