‘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?
This was my first time to Disney. I honeslty had no desire to go but boy was I wrong! The Happily Ever After” show was the most magical thing I have ever witnessed in my 43 years. I have a new found love of Mickey AND Disney after my day at Magic Kingdom in Orlando. A day my family will never forget
Did anyone see a Beauty and the Beast montage in the new show? I didn’t see any!
My family and I are annual passholders to Disney and have been for years. I was sad to hear that Wishes was going to be replaced, but cautiously optimistic about what they would bring about. I was a little disappointed in the first half of the show…it felt disjointed and kind of underwhelming. Then the second half was just the opposite. They were trying to cram every character, song and pyrotechnic/projection trick into a few minutes of performance. The music was good…I think it needed more purely instrumental pieces. That would have helped with it feeling chaotic. It also REALLY limits where you can stand/sit to watch the show since you need to be able to see the whole castle for the projections. We were halfway down Main street and could barely see the top. Hopefully it will grow on me:)
JUSt watched the live stream of the new show…WOW! Definitely different from Wishes but I really enjoyed it. We can not wait to see it in person in November.
Do they still play when you wish upon a star?
This will be a worthy successor to Wishes. This show is gonna knock your socks off!!
HEA Technical Manager
The fireworks are arguably larger, tinkerbell still flies across, and from the testruns I believe Jiminy Cricket is still announcer but has less dialogue than wishes. I could barely hear as they seemed to have the audio down lower than normal when rehearsing. Also HalloWishes, July 4th special, Holiday Wishes, and New Year’s special all remain. My question is why haven’t they incorporated Main Street into the projection mapping like in Disneyland during the Forever fireworks run?!
Lets hope they put the same effort into a parade (if there is one) though, SpectroMagic was far better score but Tokyo Disney’s DreamLights are superior floats both better than MSEP!
I’ll definitely have to see this new show in a non test run format to see if it hits you in the “feels” first before I’d say it’s a worthy wishes successor though. If it bombs we’ll likely see it changed for MK’s 50th anniversary.
Your gonna love it….I promise.
HEA Techincal Manager
my family and I were just there a week ago.The fireworks still happen first at 9pm, Jimminy crickets il voice is heard,but I did not see him,same with tinkerbell. then at 930 the ” happily ever after ” show begins. projections of disney movies, happily ever after are shown on the castle with a song in the back round. Not the one above tho,something different. star light star bright I believe. That was my first time at disney so I’ve never seen what happend before that,it’s a preaty breathtaking show tho! I will be honest and say I got the chills and MIGHT have got teary-eyed at 29yo…it’s a magical place!
Hi Amanda, the castle projection show you have seen is the “once Upon A time” show. It has a similar concept to the new show (Happily Ever After) in that it is a castle projection show but the new show starting in May will be different imagery and musical score coupled with fireworks (not just the odd burst that you get in Once upon a Time.)
Promises to be spectacular!
Are they getting rid of wishes forever because for as long as i have been to disney my whole life it has been wishes and the opening song star light star bright is my favorite song and i look forward to it every time. Do you think they will still play that song because i will be so upset if they dont play it anymore because it is apart of me and will always be. Also is jimminy cricket still gonna be the voice cause also that is what makes me feel like i am at disney is him and the wishes song. I really hope they still play that song if you could let me know that would be great.
While I’m not emotionally attached to Wishes in general, I’m a little worried that with it disappearing, Jiminy Cricket will have very little presence in the Florida parks. To my mind Jiminy is a prime Disney character right up there with Tinkerbell and Winnie the Pooh. Only somebody like Mickey or Donald is more important for the history of the company. Hopefully Walt Disney World will find a way to bring him back into other parts of the parks so he is represented appropriately.
Agree 100%. Wishes is literally the only place in Disney World where Jiminy Cricket shows up any most. It’s a shame.
Frankly, I’m thrilled they’re replacing Wishes. Maybe I saw it too late to fully appreciate it (2014), but IMO it doesn’t hold a candle to Remember, Dreams, or even Magical.
I’m honestly not attached to Wishes at all. But I’m not crazy about these newfangled fireworks + projection shows where the projections are too prominent. I like my spectaculars to be loud, with bone-shaking bursts and deep orchestral John Williams-esque music. Wishes, and its narration that you can’t hear half of, misses the mark for me. There was a show at the Studios that blew me away just watching it online – was it Villainy in the Sky? The holiday tag to Illuminations is also great.
I am so sad. Wishes was one of the few last ties to WALT Disney. Jiminy Cricket and Tinkerbell and When you wish Upon a Star are at the heart of WDW. I feel like they are bulldozing the castle. I have memories of watching The Wonderful World of Disney on tv and when Tinkerbell flew across the castle i felt the magic. Wishes brings back my childhood sense of wonder and was truly a work of art. I am not looking for a technical show, I am looking for heart and pixie dust. Very very sad.
I absolutely agree with you! I can’t remember a great deal of detail with Wishes, but I do remember Jiminy Cricket, the When you wish upon a star song, and of course nothing cooler than tinkerbell flying over!
And I would like to add my 2 cents on the main street electrical parade,, I loved that parade and as recently as last year when I was chaperoning a bunch of band kids who had never been to Disney, we were on our way out of the park and caught the very beginning of the parade and I literally couldn’t drag these teenagers away they were so impressed. So, just because a lot of us go all the time, these things are still quite magical to newcomers and not dated.
I have to comment as well….I so love Wishes. My daughter and I would sing it at night sometimes and just dream. I can’t imagine Disney without it but….I learned to live without the parade at Hollywood Studios and we are still going. So, I will learn to love this new nighttime show 🙂
Oh man. I’m sure this will be good too, but Wishes… If I can be sentimental for a half sec (it is a Disney site after all), three weeks ago today we saw Wishes for the last time. I’ve always loved the music. I held my five year old for most of the show, who’s getting too big to pick up. I’ll never forget watching him with the fireworks reflecting off his eyes, while he looked up and sang “We’ll make a wish and do as dreamers do… And all my wishes will come true.”
We’re going back in May and we’ll see the new show, but it’s never going to compare.
Same thing here. We will be going in May as well and I am curious to see how it will compare 🙂
Bring back Spectro!
I wonder if this means tinkerbell will no longer come out of the castle?
She will. The organizers of the new show have stated that Tinkerbell will stay and continue to fly out from the castle.
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. Our MK days are planned to be May 9&10.
I’d say you will very likely see Wishes. They are calling the 11th the last night of wishes, and they won’t want to anger people expecting to still it before change on the 12th. That’s how they did the switch from celebrate the magic in the fall. It’ll be extra busy the last few nights of wishes and the first few nights of the new show.