‘Happily Ever After’ Replacing Wishes! Fireworks at Magic Kingdom
Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom will debut “Happily Ever After,” a new nighttime spectacular featuring fireworks, pyrotechnics, lasers, projection mapping, original animation, and an all-new original score on May 12, 2017. (We have an update on the original song for the fireworks below…)
‘Happily Ever After’ will inspire guests to seek out and fulfill their own dreams and adventures by showcasing those of Disney animated classics who achieved their own happily ever afters. The show will feature more Disney characters than ever before, including those from Moana, Brave, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, The Princess & The Frog, Aladdin, and many more.
While Walt Disney World does not indicate as much in its release, the Happily Ever After nighttime spectacular will replace Wishes! A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams as the Magic Kingdom’s nightly fireworks spectacular. It is unknown whether Once Upon a Time will continue to run once Happily Ever After debuts, or if it was meant as a temporary stopgap. (We are guessing it will continue on select nights.)
March 24, 2017 Update: Walt Disney World has announced that the fireworks will feature a new theme song titled “Happily Ever After,” which will be a duet sung by country music artist Angie Keilhauer and singer Jordan Fisher (from the Moana soundtrack!) Disney released a behind-the-scenes video from the recording session and is providing a first listen via the video below. Personally, we are not going to listen to this because we’d rather have our ‘first-listen’ be when we see the show for the first time, but if you want a preview, here it is…
While we enjoy Wishes and the nostalgics in us will miss the show, it has a good, long run. Moreover, Disney Creative Entertainment has demonstrated what it is capable of in the intervening years, fully harnessing technological innovations to create an entire new generation of nighttime spectaculars. If Wishes was Disney Fireworks 2.0, these new shows (starting with Disney Dreams in Disneyland Paris) are Disney Fireworks 3.0.
Given this, we are pretty excited to see what Walt Disney World has in store with Happily Ever After. Magic Kingdom deserves a “3.0” show like Paris and Shanghai, and we are really rooting for this to be a worthy successor to Wishes! The big question is whether it will deliver on an emotional level, because all the technology in the world is meaningless if it doesn’t have heart.
We suspect Disney will deliver. They no doubt realize the stakes are high: fans love Wishes and many are going to be predisposed to favoring their nostalgic favorite over anything new, no matter how good.
It’s reassuring to watch the video Disney has released (above) and see all of the names involved at Disney Creative Entertainment, Walt Disney Imagineering, and Walt Disney Animation Studios. (The involvement of all 3 is a positive sign that this is a big-budget addition.) It’s also good to see that effort has gone into recording an original score.
A couple of things are cause for concern, though. First, there’s no indication that Happily Ever After will utilize mist screens or fountains, and it seems unlikely that such a detail would’ve been omitted by mistake. This is disappointing, as those elements at Disneyland Paris are one of the highlights of their Fireworks 3.0 show.
Second, the mention of more characters than ever before is also concerning. More is not necessarily better when it comes to characters in a nighttime spectacular. To the contrary, we’ve found that fewer characters chosen more judiciously for their fit into the story of a show works far better than parading out ‘the whole gang’ to check off every box and ensure that everyone’s favorite makes an appearance. The latter approach can result in an overwhelming, disjointed, and overtly montage vibe, whereas the former approach seems to serve the flow of shows better.
With that said, we remain cautiously optimistic and hope you will keep an open mind, as well. Nostalgia is powerful, especially with something that tugs at your heart-strings like Wishes! However, Disney entertainment is meant to change (I’d argue that Wishes! has overstayed its welcome with a 14-year run). Resisting change and clinging to the past is how you end up with the Main Street Electrical Parade continuing to wobble the parade route decades after it should have been retired. Now we can only hope that Disney realizes exactly how attached many fans are to Wishes!, and pulls out all of the stops in delivering a worthy emotional successor. What do you think?
We have our first ever WDW trip planned in early May. Do you think the new show, Happily Ever After, will have a soft opening, or singular grand debut on the 12th? I kinda hope we get to see the iconic Wishes.
Loved Wishes and will miss it but am looking forward to the Happily Ever After. What we are really going to miss is the Electrical Light Parade. We are going in November and are hoping there is a new nighttime parade outside of Mickey’s Christmas Party.
Oh man! I’ve been reading all the updates the last few days with some mounting regrets about the timing of our late-March trip, which we chose for a good rate and Flower and Garden. But this totally changes things for me. I’m excited for the new show, but have never seen Wishes, and am really looking forward to it on this trip. Thanks for giving me a reason to be glad I’m missing the big opening dates!
It seems like they’re setting up a story arching throughout the day. With the new welcome show “Let the Memories Begin” The day parade, “Festival of Fantasy” “Once Upon A Time”, and now “Happily Ever After”. One might wonder if (and hope) a new night parade may be on the way? That would be amazing!! Also, do HalloWishes and Holiday Wishes get replaced? This could be huge!!
Then, what happens with the 50th in 2021? This is all quite exciting!
From what I read on the Disney Parks Blog website, HalloWishes and Holiday Wishes are staying.
I like that they are keeping the projection show “Once Upon a Time…” and then have the new firework show “…Happily Ever After”
I’ve always been a huge fan of Wishes, and I’m a self-aware nostalgia-ridden Disney fan, so usually I really despise changes like this. However, despite my very fond memories of and associated with Wishes, I am excited for this new show. As long as there are fireworks, I’m usually not disappointed. I think it’ll be nice to getting something fresh and new to Magic Kingdom.
My husband on the other hand would like to riot. Haha
Hehe, our fortnight in the world ends on 6th May, so everything in your posts from the last few days has read as ‘new, shiny stuff is being launched that you won’t get to see!’
Fingers crossed for soft launches! I’m overall a fan of change, but I am glad I’ll get to see Wishes for a final time from the Cali Grill.
This news makes me so sad. It’s my favourite night time show. We are taking our parents for the first time to WDW in June, its sad to think they’ll never see it.
Im not a huge fan of the Star Wars display at Hollywood Studios either so it worries me slightly what the new display will be.
Fingers crossed the score won’t be forgotten over projections. It’s the music that really makes Wishes so special.
We’re there in April, so will get to see it one last time before it comes to an end.
Speaking of parades. Has anything been said yet if a night time parade will be coming to MK anytime soon?
Ok, I just watched the clip, and it made me feel better about what they are doing. It looks like they are not looking to cut corners at all, and that is encouraging.
Wow. I hope they do a good job and don’t rely too much on projectors. One of my favorite things about Wishes is the amount of places you can see it. It will be sad if the next incarnation isn’t as conductive to the many vantage points, although with the firework draw of the resorts around bay lake I’m hopeful. The latest projection show isn’t nearly as good from the bridges to bridges off the hub as the previous one, so they don’t always take viewing angles into account.
I’m gutted !!
Wishes makes me cry every time I see it. Thank goodness we’ll be there in May for the final days :0(
Will not feel the same when we go back again in October and it’s gone.
I’m happy to hear this, but with trepidation (seems to be a common response).
I also agree that WDW has to continue to change and grow if they don’t want to become stale. They have to give us reasons to come back year after year, and that can’t be keeping the same shows and attractions forever. Sooner or later the regulars will move on if they do.
However, I think they must keep the classics prominent. In my opinion shows like that need to continue to stress the Jiminy Crickets, Snow Whites, Sleeping Beauty etc. One of the reasons we love WDW is because it is that escape from real world concerns like Walt wanted and that harkening back to simpler times and Truth, Beauty, and Goodness is so refreshing. It’s countercultural and trying to fit in every character, especially the ones that just go along with the current zeitgeist are not so effective in my opinion, but I know they are hugely popular, so I may be wrong.
I’m guessing that the fireworks portion of the show will be greatly reduced since it is a nightly expense and instead this show will rely too heavily on the Castle projection element: (reference the “more characters than ever” remark). With the recent track record of poor decisions coming from Disney management these days I am not holding out hope that this will be an improvement. Lately it’s only about the profit margin and ‘show’ is taking more of a back seat. The limited and uninspiring fireworks in Star Wars, A Galactic Spectacular is an example of this cheaper and unfortunate direction.
It could have a reduction of pyro, but I doubt it’ll be significant. Guests expect a *fireworks* show to end the day at Magic Kingdom. A glorified projection show won’t do.
Given that Pandora is over budget to the tune of HUNDREDS of millions of dollars and a billion-plus is being spent on DHS, I can’t get behind the ‘cost-savings’ angle of your comment. If this were 5 years ago, I’d agree, but WDW is currently receiving significant investment. It’s just a bit late…
I’m really greatful we’ll be there in March and able to see it again. I like Wishes but Celebrate the Magic was my heartthrob. I’ll definitely give this new show a chance and I’m looking forward to it.
I’m excited for this. I love Wishes but have seen it more times than I can keep track of. I will be sad watching it for the last time but I know it’s time to move on from it. I thought Disneyland Forever was a decent upgrade when compared to Wishes so even if the new show is just as good as that I’d be happy.
I’m sad to hear this. The nostalgic in me will miss this show very much! I too also hope that Happily Ever After, will be something that pulls on the heartstrings just like Wishes. I’m glad that we made a point to see it 3 times on our recent trip in January, as we won’t be back before its last run 🙁
I, too, am nostalgic about Wishes even though it’ snot my favorite nighttime show and I agree it’s had a good run and I hope the next show can be even better (lasers!). I also worry about it being too much of a clip show, however, as I felt that even Dreams in DLP had a bit of this. But I’m sure I will enjoy whatever the show ends up being.
I can’t say I saw this coming. Wishes is really emotional for my family, because after years of struggling with infertility we were blessed to adopt our beautiful son the day of his birth. When we used to watch the show, we would wish for a child. When he was about six months old we took him to the magic kingdom and watched wishes together and cried our eyes out. Anyhow, I’m sure this will be a spectacular replacement- I just hope it is heavy on sappy nostalgia and shys away from anything reminiscent of “jingle bell, jingle BAM”
That’s really touching, and I’ve heard other stories about Wishes! over the years that similarly make my eyes well up. For you and those people, there’s probably nothing that can touch Wishes on a personal level.
I wouldn’t expect anything like Jingle Bell/BAM here. That was thrown together to boost lagging attendance; I would expect this to be carefully crafted and done at a very high level.
I am so sad to hear about Wishes! It is my favorite show! But I am so excited to see Happily Ever After in the Fall! I also hope it can have the emotional aspect that Wishes! has.