Review: Disney Enchantment Fireworks at Magic Kingdom
My favorite current TV show is Ted Lasso. Every episode brings a smile to my face with its warmth, wholesomeness, and heart. For me, it’s above reproach because it brings so much joy and happiness to my life–while I have favorites, every episode is some degree of good. As it has blown up in popularity, more criticism has entered the discourse. I couldn’t care less about any of that. It’s the rare piece of art or entertainment about which I’m not interested in reading reviews or hearing critique, just enjoying the magic of Ted Lasso.
For many people, Magic Kingdom fireworks shows are a similar story. All of them have the same core qualities, with pyro exploding over Cinderella Castle to conclude a long, memory-filled day at Walt Disney World. The music is pulled from sentimental moments in memorable Disney movies and the visuals are dazzling. The whole production tugs at the heartstrings, overwhelming the senses and emotions in the best way possible.
Consequently, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a bad nighttime spectacular at Magic Kingdom or any other castle park in the world. Those foundational qualities outweigh any perceived flaws, and always manage to win me over. Basically, there’s a minimum baseline for any Magic Kingdom nighttime spectacular, and even an arguably “bad” one is still “good” in the grand scheme of things. I know the same is true for a lot of Disney fans, many of whom may not even be interested in fireworks critique. If that’s you, it might be time to close out this review, because Disney Enchantment is pretty close to that minimum baseline for me.
I’ve held off on publishing this review of Disney Enchantment until well after its debut because I want to like the new Magic Kingdom nighttime spectacular. We’ve revisited it numerous times from an array of angles and vantages in an effort to give it a fair shake. I truly want to see in it what its defenders do.
In response to the backlash over Disney Enchantment, some have suggested that Walt Disney World fans are resistant to change, never satisfied with new offerings at first, and have opinions colored by nostalgia. Generally speaking, these are all fair points. Some have pointed to the outrage over Wishes being replaced by Happily Ever After, which quickly became beloved.
Just for the record, we were always on board with Happily Ever After. From our commentary to its original announcement: “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…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.”
Then there was our Happily Ever After Review published immediately after that show’s debut, which put it bluntly: “Happily Ever After is the best regular fireworks show to ever grace the skies above Magic Kingdom.” Moreover, “it’s better than Wishes, and also better than the nighttime spectaculars in Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.”
The point is that at no time were we against Happily Ever After replacing Wishes, despite our nostalgia for the latter. Likewise, in the lead-up to Disney Enchantment, you won’t find any feet-dragging on our part about the change. We went into this new nighttime spectacular with an open mind, assuming that Walt Disney World was pretty confident in it if they already announced it would not just be a temporary replacement for Happily Ever After.
The above review is potentially worth revisiting now, as it compares Happily Ever After to other castle park nighttime spectaculars. Much of the review revolves around how Happily Ever After avoided common pitfalls of those montage shows.
In part, I think the backlash to Disney Enchantment stems from many Walt Disney World fans never experiencing one of those choppy and uneven shows. Many of us–even fans of Happily Ever After–didn’t realize how good we had it with that nighttime spectacular.
There’s also undoubtedly the matter of expectations. I’ll be the first to admit that for Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary, I wanted a show that was a love letter to the park itself. The Vacation Kingdom of the World turning 50 is a big deal, and one worth proudly celebrating with explosions.
In several posts, we expressed hope that the new Magic Kingdom fireworks would be like Celebrate Tokyo Disneyland or Remember… Dreams Come True. That fizzled over the summer when Disney began releasing details and the new fireworks were clearly going to focus on films.
No matter, as I assumed Enchantment would go the direction of Disneyland Forever, the 60th Anniversary fireworks that bookended dazzling animated film segments with sentimentality and Walt Disney.
Despite it not being my beloved Remember… Dreams Come True, I loved Disneyland Forever. (Sorry for the prior post callbacks, just trying to “prove” I have an open mind when it comes to nighttime spectaculars and am not blinded by nostalgia.)
Disney Enchantment is unlike even that.
Rather than trying to balance the nostalgia of longtime fans with the expectations of casual guests, the new Magic Kingdom nighttime spectacular seems to actively repudiate sentimentality. It leans heavily on animated movies from the last decade, including many that are far from classics. It’s essentially the antithesis of an anniversary show.
Why Walt Disney World so steadfastly refuses to lean into its own history (except when there’s food or merchandise to be monetized) will forever confound me.
The place has thrived for five decades on its inherent sentimentality, and now has a loyal army of APs, DVC members, and other regulars who are wistful for the past. It becomes more like Disneyland with each year, and even first-timers will either buy into that nostalgia and become repeat visitors…or won’t and won’t. But all of that is another lengthy topic for another day.
I understand that the company really wants to push Disney+ and whatever is hot on there, but I think it’s a mistake to insert the latest new thing into shows unless the nighttime spectacular is not intended to be long-term or it’s done as a pre- or post-show tag (World of Color used to do this exceptionally).
Maybe this is “old man yells at cloud” territory–a blind spot because I don’t have kids who love the latest movies–but if a show is going to run for several years, it should only include movies with a certain timelessness. Onward does not have that standard (yet?). It would’ve been equally misguided to insert Brother Bear, Treasure Planet, Chicken Little, or Meet the Robinsons into Wishes back in the day (sorry, fans of those, but they’re not classics).
There’s also a lot of overlap between Enchantment and Harmonious. As much as I love Moana and think it’s already a modern classic (see, not totally an old man!), it’s overkill to have it featured heavily in both.
Same goes for Aladdin, Hercules, Brave, and others. When the announcement came that Happily Ever After was being retired, it seemed potentially driven by the overlap between that and Harmonious. Guess not.
Speaking of which, Enchantment also includes songs and properties that were present in Happily Ever After, inviting direct comparisons. None of those are favorable.
The musical renditions, pyro arrangements, and even the projections were superior in Happily Ever After (how is that last one even possible–technology has progressed since then!). I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that, at points, Disney Enchantment feels like a bootleg Happily Ever After.
Sticking with the Happily Ever After comparisons, that show had great cadence, flowing from scene to scene with smooth transitions and, to the extent possible for a montage nighttime spectacular, compelling storytelling. All of this is absent from Enchantment.
Paradoxically, Enchantment is both slow and fast. If you’re focusing primarily on the music, it’s the former. The show never develops a rhythm–and don’t even get me started on that lengthy instrumental segment. (I’ve never said this about a castle fireworks show before, but the middle of Disney Enchantment drags.)
By contrast, the projections are moving at lightning speed, bouncing among various sets of characters with little rhyme or reason, often divorced from the tone of the accompanying music. There’s the vague sense that Enchantment is building to something towards the end of the core show, but I couldn’t tell you what.
There’s no through-line whatsoever, not even the vague one offered by Disney of going on a journey or adventure. It’s just a bunch of songs and characters, popping up at random.
We’re not entirely negative on Disney Enchantment. I genuinely like “You Are The Magic,” which does a good job presenting positivity and inviting introspection. I’d even say that song meets the moment, and is the perfect choice for this time, something that might become more apparent with the benefit of hindsight.
That song is one aspect of the show about which opinions will soften over time. It might be a bit schmaltzy, but the same could be said for almost any parks’ theme song. Once “You Are The Magic” has its own nostalgia formed from visits during the show’s run, it’ll become beloved by fans.
Same goes for Angela Bassett’s narration. She sets the perfect tone for “You Are The Magic” and its underlying message, and her commanding voice gives those lyrics even more resonance.
The problem is not her or what she says, but that there’s absolutely no support from the show in between. On top of that, there’s the matter of who doesn’t speak at the show’s opening or closing. No Walt Disney or Mickey Mouse was certainly “a choice” by the show’s creative team–how is even that too much nostalgia? Nevertheless, the conspicuous omission of Walt and Mickey shouldn’t be taken out on Ms. Bassett or her otherwise strong narration.
There’s also mesmerizing pyro, pretty arrangements of innovative and unique bursts (even if they’re sometimes discordant with the music), and great lighting effects. While some technical aspects are a downgrade as compared to Happily Ever After, there are enhancements, too.
The projections on Main Street are one such feature. However, and maybe this is unfair, but as someone who has seen these for years at Disneyland, it’s hard to shower Walt Disney World with praise here for bringing a rudimentary version of what has been done there for a while. If anything, this is overdue–and so too is adding projections elsewhere in Magic Kingdom to help spread out the crowds.
Ultimately, neither of us care for Disney Enchantment. I truly hope you disagree, and love it as much as Happily Ever After. Emotion is a funny thing, and different entertainment hits differently for different people. Disney Enchantment might be your perfect nighttime spectacular. We’ve tried to give it a fair shake, watching from several viewpoints to see if any of them offered that “special” perspective that does the trick.
None did, and the nighttime spectacular hasn’t grown on us in the least even after multiple in-person viewings. Even attempting to be as objective as possible and removing all expectations about what a Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary fireworks show should entail, it falls short for both of us. Disney Enchantment is lacking in emotion, heart, and the flow necessary to make for a truly transcendent fireworks show.
With all of that said, we have heard plenty of cheering and clapping at the end of each scene in Disney Enchantment every single time we’ve watched it, and the crowd going wild following the finale. Plenty of guests seem to be enjoying it, and like me with reviews of Ted Lasso, couldn’t care less about online criticism.
The fact of the matter is, it’s still fireworks in Magic Kingdom. It still offers pyro exploding over Cinderella Castle to conclude the evening in the park. It still features nostalgic and sentimental music that tugs at the heartstrings. At the end of the day, fireworks shows in Magic Kingdom are inherently enchanting (lowercase “e”), so Disney Enchantment at least delivers in part on its name.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you excited to see Disney Enchantment in person? If you’ve watched video, what’s your first impression of Magic Kingdom’s new nighttime spectacular? Does Enchantment “work” for you, or is it a misfire that fails to evoke emotion? Is Enchantment a worthy replacement to Happily Ever After? Is this an appropriate fireworks show for Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary? Do you agree or disagree with our review? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
It was great for music and animation…but missed fireworks. It seemed stingy on the pyro.
I’ve been waiting for this review to finally be able to post my own thoughts on the appropriate forum. And waiting, and waiting, realizing: “OMG, Tom isn’t posting yet because he and Sarah are watching it as much as possible to see if they can actually like it.” If only I were this prescient at casinos….
With the theme of “Happily Ever After” running through my brain, I tuned in hopefully for Disney Parks live broadcasts, first of Harmonious (mostly positive comments for another day) and then Disney Enchantment.
I’ve seen WDW fireworks at the Magic Kingdom in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, ’10s, and ’20s. Indeed on our recent July/August trip, while we liked a lot of things at Universal, WDW got an easy win in the fireworks category. I’ve loved and enjoyed every single WDW fireworks show I’ve ever seen. We LOVED Wishes. Our first time taking our then 6-year old to WDW (oh, for the days of unrestrained park hopping!) we made sure to take him to the MK so he could see Wishes (and Tinker Bell!). I still have (very bad and dark) video of that first viewing.
I heard the buzz about Happily Ever After, and was blown away by the various YouTube videos I saw of it before I was even more blown away by seeing it live.
I should’ve known when Joe Gardner from Soul was picked as one of the Fab50 statues, and ditto the dog from Coco: Disney was using the 50th anniversary as a promotion, first and an anniversary 2nd.
Which I could’ve lived with if Disney Enchantment was good.
It’s not.
I’m glad you liked Angela Bassett telling you that “You are the Magic”, I type as the strains from the high notes of Happily Ever After chime merrily through my mind.
However, I didn’t hear Ms. Bassett; I heard Bob Chapek singing “You are the money”, before it shifted over to “You are MY money”.
I’ve never been disappointed by a WDW fireworks show, until now. It doesn’t mean that they have to be perfect (I thought HEA’s fireworks show was weaker than Wishes, for example, and as wonderful and perfect as Wishes was, HEA’s projections was a game changer).
But this was a failure on ever single level: A Failure as a Disney Fireworks show and a failure as an anniversary fireworks show. Expectations were high, but all it needed to do was an expanded version of HEA, and it didn’t even manage that. This is the WORST fireworks show in the history of WDW, IMHO. They need the hook from the Muppets show; yank this flop and fast. Give me a workstation and weekend and I could design a better show…but that’s true for many of us.
I have to say that I’ve been waiting for your review to see if you guys took something away from it that I wasn’t seeing, but sadly that’s not the case. I do like “You are the Magic’ and was happy to see Tinkerbell still flying, but yeah it’s a baseline fireworks show to end a memorable day at MK. I love Moana and that segment was one of my favorites from “Happily Evet After”, but I also think it’s too much between Harmonious and Disney Enchantment. Same with Aladdin, Brave and Hercules and I also miss the original versions of the songs. It’s hard for me to accept that this is what replaced my favorite show ever.
Disneyland forever was 6 years ago, and I see no improvement in the projections for enchantment. Some scenes look like copy and paste gifs on repeat. It’s kind of a spit in the face to put this out and make people think they’ve done really well with this show. At Disneyland it “snowed” during frozen and had inflatable underwater plants on the roofs of Main Street during the little mermaid scene. It’s hard to believe that Disney saw this final product and thought it was ok to put out, especially for the 50th!!
I arrived early in the week so I could see the last nighttime spectaculars at EPCOT and the MK. That made it easier for me to compare the old with the new. I had great hopes for the new shows and in the MK the new was not better. But it has it’s moments and if you love fireworks it’s still 5 times longer and pretty spectacular compared to your average 4th of July show. Plus you get Tinkerbell. I don’t know if they just got lazy but they didn’t tie it together like HEA so it’s missing a lot of heart.
Woody Allen said it best, “Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.”
The Ted Lasso analogy is spot-on. Not a fan of fireworks shows, so my opinion on Enchantment would be about as useful as someone who had only watched the Christmas episode of Ted Lasso being like, “Why are they dancing in the street now, this is corny,” but then that same person has never watched the darts episode. However, I will give you an opinion anyway as someone who has never seen the show (Enchantment, not Ted) and only reflecting on this review.
As mostly a solo parkgoer I appreciate fireworks shows inasmuch as it pulls a good portion of the park population away from the rides to hoot at the sky like cavemen at a comet, but I also appreciate that people like them, and that’s just fine. I also get that it’s frustrating when any kind of ride or show doesn’t live up to expectations, or at least be somewhat good, WebSlingers, and I can also appreciate when people are let down by that. Does not color my opinion on fireworks shows either way, but it sounds like Enchantment missed the mark badly.
A lack of cohesion and successful transitions from IP to IP sounds pretty bad. It’s like when you’re in high school and you overhear the girl you have a crush on say that she likes Pearl Jam, and you’re like “I’m gonna make her a mixtape, I bet she’s never heard of this tiny band called Smashing Pumpkins” and then you put it together and summon up the courage to give it to her, and she finds it very creepy. Part of why you failed is no doubt because of the fact that at that awkward age you really didn’t understand the point of thematic transitions and narrative structure and tonal progression, and also, she’s well aware of Smashing Pumpkins and can’t stand Billy Corgan’s voice. For a hashtag teen to not get that right is forgivable, regardless of the laughter that rang through the halls as you slunk away, but you would think that Disney could do it in their sleep. It sounds like Disney DID do it in their sleep, actually, and maybe need to wake up next time.
To quote an actress off of a reality TV show….”You committed the biggest crime in show business-you bored me.” My husband and I watched this show on the Disney Parks blog expecting something akin to Disneyland Forever (it felt like the natural template for Disney to use and worked so well – use a new theme song and some new IP and bodda bing – hit 50th show). We knew it wouldn’t be HEA for us as that held a great deal of nostalgia for us. But to have HEA replaced by this….I’m still flabbergasted. It should have been so easy. Instead they made a show so convoluted and detached from the 50th Anniversary, it was shocking. I can only equate it to attending a show on Broadway expecting it to be a professional production and getting a community theater level show but with Broadway quality scenery, lights and sound. The flashy doesn’t make up for the core problem…this is not up to the minimum Disney bar. Pyro, IP, good narration and a nice song (I agree with your take) is all overshadowed here by a sad truth: Disney botched the 50th Anniversary castle-park fireworks show at Walt Disney World.
I think the projections on the castle could be much more clear, but I LOVED Enchantment!
I have had such high hopes for Enchanted, and am extremely disappointed to hear that it falls so short of Disney’s potential. I was over the moon when I read that the projections would be spread out. I never fell in love with Happily Ever After, which I believe had much to do with the fact that the show was really only fully visible from one angle. I loved it when there were a couple of short projection shows before and after Wishes, leaving a Frontierland or Fantasyland fireworks view feeling just about as magical as one from the castle forecourt. For a variety of logistical reasons, my family trips tend to fall into the week before Labor Day, and it has been miserable, trying to stake out a decent HEA viewing spot in the heat, only to have thousands of cell phones raised above my sight line to take videos. Having nothing to do with HEA, itself, I’ve become so turned off by fellow guest behavior before and during that show that most of the joy has been sapped from the experience. It sounds like there may be some relief from that issue with the new projection placement, but I never expected the 50th anniversary spectacular would be a step down in quality!
I think you nailed it. Current management has no connection to the parks beyond seeing them as a cash cow to subsidize the other arms of the Disney empire. This team doesn’t understand the Disney Parks, the Disney guest, or the Disney Parks experience.
Disney Enchantment is just as stale and boring and awkward as the “two Bobs” re-dedicating the park. I have a sinking feeling that this is what Disney is destined for with Chapek at the helm. Ugh.
Thank you! I’ve been trying to articulate into words how I feel about this production, and you’ve hit the nail on the head. Everything you’ve said in this post, I wholeheartedly agree with. Can we chalk this up to bad decisions made during a stressful pandemic? Can we blame this one on Covid-19? That’s what I’m telling myself at least, because it hurts me to think that Disney World might be losing some of its magic so corporate pockets can be filled to the brim.
Disneyland’s 50th fireworks were how a castle park’s 50th anniversary should be celebrated. It was nearly perfect. If they got rid of this Enchantment garbage and brought the Disneyland 50th fireworks, I’d be fine with that.
If only every critical review was given with this level of thoughtfulness, the world would be a very different place. Cheers, Tom.
– a restaurant owner
Too much Moana, Brave, and Aladdin. In both shows. I have only seen them online but I am not anxious to see them in person. But I know it not FOR me anymore. I am too old and poor for the new .
Nighttime is always the most magical time in a Disney park, and a HUGE part of that magic was the Nighttime Spectacular that usually closed out the night. There were nights that my feet were begging me to go home, but missing the nightly fireworks presentation was just plain blasphemy. Sadly, after a 9 night stint at WDW over the kickoff of the 50th Anniversary celebration, I’m going to be listening to those feet, at least at Magic Kingdom AND Epcot. I found both Harmonious and Enchantment to be the opposite of a happy ending at a day in a Disney park. After first being utterly disappointed with Harmonious on Sept 30, I consoled myself with the thought that Enchantment was least offering an original song in it’s score. Fast forward to the conclusion of the debut of Enchantment, and to quote a song from the Broadway show, A Chorus Line, “I felt nothing”. Looking around me, I could pick out the casual park-goer from the Disney loyalists, by the look of joy or shock on their face. Me, I must have looked shocked. For those who like to complain about Disney complainers, you must realize that if a Disney fan is complaining about some aspect of a Disney park, it’s because we hold Disney to a high standard-a standard that Disney itself would usually surpass. The last few years have seen Disney settling for mediocrity more often than not, and in my book, both Harmonious and Enchantment are perfect examples of this slide. As a 20+ year DVC member and a regular visitor to WDW since 1973, I have a vested interest to hold the Walt Disney Company to a higher standard and expect the company to keep their parks relevant AND mindblowing. As a creative company, both of these latest presentations should have been home runs. IMO, they’re merely walks. Tom, you encapsulated my feelings exactly.
I couldn’t agree more with this review. Such a let down that something that had so much potential falls so short. I did however enjoy harmonious.
I have not been to the park since 2007 so any fireworks show should blow me away. But it didn’t. Yes I loved Wishes. Unfortunately, I did not get to see Happily Ever After in person, but I did get to catch it on YouTube about a month ago. It BLEW ME AWAY even on the small computer screen. I had never seen anything like it and thought it was brilliant. I loved the use of the different windows and balconies. I couldn’t believe they were already retiring it. I was able to catch the new show right on Oct 1. I had great hopes, but they fell flat. It just didn’t jive like ‘Happily’. I caught Harmonious two days later, and was greatly impressed. I was so glad I was able to finish my trip on a good note. Sorry Enchantment. You just didn’t make the grade.
I agree with your thoughts. I’ve only seen Enchantment on Disney Park Blog, and I didn’t like the show. I am not a fireworks connoisseur, so I am always satisfied with all the fireworks at the show. Night show soundtracks are critical to me. Just like HEA, Enchantment’s soundtrack was too Pop-sounding and relied too much on the modern films. I was hoping Enchantment would be similar to Remember Dreams Come True from DL 50th, but it was the complete opposite. I hated there were no Mickey, Walt, Theme Park references, and minimal use of the classic animated movies. These are all things I love about Disney. Wishes still remain my favorite MK fireworks show. Even the minor castle projection show Celebrate the Magic had a better soundtrack than Enchantment. One positive from Enchantment was I liked the Night on Bald Mountain section.
Loved the soft simple voice of Jiminy Cricket, and really enjoyed Wishes.
I didn’t really bother to get connected to HEA.
I’ve only seen Enchantment online (we will be there in 2 weeks to see it in person), but was really unimpressed watching it online. There was very little in it that was familiar and so no immediate connection.
This show was sort of the climax of Disney’s horribly minimal celebration of this very important anniversary. (I couldn’t believe on Oct. 1 that there wasn’t a ton of hoopla that day in the park).
I don’t know why I’m shocked and definitely disappointed but how could Disney fail to produce a ton of meaningful (even small events) for the 50th and onward?
The only explanation is obvious, that the current leadership has no emotional, only financial, connection to this company and it’s history.