So far this week, we’ve discussed ride refurbishments, updates, and out-of-this-world, all-inclusive resort hotel experiences coming to Walt Disney World Resort for its 50th anniversary and beyond. But now, let’s talk entertainment. After all, it wouldn’t be right to celebrate an anniversary this big without some proper merrymaking.
We’ll begin at the park that started it all for the Vacation Kingdom of the World: The Magic Kingdom.
As is customary for big anniversary celebrations at most Disney Parks, the Magic Kingdom will be receiving a new fireworks spectacular for the 50th. For all of you “Happily Ever After” fans out there, there’s always the chance the show will come back after the anniversary celebrations have finished, as it’s typically done in Disneyland. However, according to internal sources, there’s definitely a new nighttime show already in production for the anniversary and Happily Ever After will not perform alongside it come 2021.
Speaking of nighttime shows, it’s also possible that the fan-favorite “Once Upon A Time” castle projections show will also be replaced with a new show for the 50th anniversary. Much like “Happily Ever After”, it might also make a comeback post-anniversary celebrations.
Over on Main Street, U.S.A., we’ll finally get to see the addition of projection mapping implemented onto the buildings there, just like in Disneyland, where we most recently saw that technology used in “Mickey’s Mix Magic”.
To the East, yeah! Rock it to the West, yeah! Celebrate, yeah! Party with the best, yeah! Another fan-favorite, the “Move It! Shake It! MousekeDance It!” Street Party will get yet another update for the 50th anniversary. This should come as less of a surprise as this street party regularly gets updated every couple of years.
At Epcot, the park has increasingly been returning to its retro-futuristic roots. It too will receive new entertainment, albeit in the form of a new daytime lagoon show, the first of its kind since the 1990’s, when the park debuted its “Surprise in the Skies” daytime spectacular for Walt Disney World’s 20th anniversary in 1991.
Even Disney’s Animal Kingdom park is getting in on the 50th anniversary fun, with a new version of “Rivers of Light” replacing the current one.
This new version of Rivers of Light will borrow from the upcoming “Epcot Forever” show and feature the same “special effects” kite technology once the show concludes in May 2020 to make way for the (more) permanent addition, “A Celebration of Disney Music.”
Of course that’s not all that’s in the works for Disney’s Animal Kingdom… but you’ll just have to stay tuned for more.
I hope the new castle show is just as good or better than Happily Ever After because I love the soundtrack!!!
I hope that some of the Animal Kingdom topics teased at the end of this article includes new rides. It’ll become the park with the least stuff to do once everything opens in MK, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios, and Kali River Rapids and Na’vi River Journey aren’t even that good and not worth the long lines. They’re not even utilizing their IPs properly. They have Asia, but don’t do anything with Jungle Book. They have Africa, but don’t do anything with Black Panther and barely anything with Lion King. And why is a Finding Nemo show in Dinoland? That’s like if someone did Mary Poppins in the Italian pavilion at Epcot.
Me, I still have the home videos of Skyleidescope(sp?) from the 80s!