Once Upon a Time Coming to Magic Kingdom!
The popular nighttime spectacular Once Upon a Time is coming to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom starting November 4, 2016. Disney announced today that Celebrate the Magic would end its run on November 3, with Once Upon a Time starting the following day.
Once Upon a Time will likewise utilize projection mapping and other effects (likely pyro, lasers, and fire) and will feature Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast telling bedtime stories with Chip, as they are pulled into the stories of numerous classic animated films, including Cinderella and Peter Pan.
A version of Once Upon a Time currently plays at Tokyo Disneyland, and we’ve seen it many times. The show is so popular there that it utilizes a lottery system (on select nights) for seats near Cinderella Castle, and also has a seasonal Frozen version from January through March.
My favorite scene from Once Upon a Time is unquestionably the Winnie the Pooh scene, in which Pooh’s dreams of honey come true…but he also encounters Heffalumps. Peter Pan’s flight over London is also awesome and, naturally, the Frozen scene with “Let It Go” is a guest favorite.
It remains to be seen what extent Magic Kingdom’s version will parallel Tokyo’s. It’s doubtful the Magic Kingdom version of Once Upon a Time will be a direct clone from Tokyo Disneyland. For one thing, the Florida version will probably be in English. 😉
Beyond that, the Tokyo Disneyland version is long, clocking in at over 18 minutes. This works fine there, where there are no fireworks (well, there is a laughably bad ~4 minute show between the parks that gets cancelled maybe 75% of the time). By contrast, Celebrate the Magic is around 9 minutes long–so half the duration. In Magic Kingdom, running two feature length shows around Cinderella Castle back to back might test guest attention spans.
Then again, maybe the plan is not to run them back to back? With the departure of Main Street Electrical Parade, there’s a gap in Magic Kingdom’s nighttime lineup, and this could be how Walt Disney World intends upon filling it for now.
That would be my guess, and why I think Once Upon a Time will retain a 16-18 minute duration. (The scene list Disney posted also mirrors the existing version, so it’s pretty unlikely this will be less than 10 minutes.) If anything, it might lose some of the fire or pyro effects, but there really aren’t that many in Tokyo’s version, anyway. It could end up being a direct clone (save for the language), which would be great.
I’d be pretty happy if Once Upon a Time is not condensed at all, but I think regardless of how it’s truncated, this represents another improvement in the evolution of Magic Kingdom’s projection shows.
While Once Upon a Time highlights fewer films than Celebrate the Magic, I think the great strength of Once Upon a Time is that it devotes more attention (and a song) to each film. It’s not just a cursory character cameo meant to quickly highlight all of Disney’s “important” properties.
Don’t get me wrong: I really like Celebrate the Magic is an excellent show, and under-appreciated among fans. However, I like how Once Upon a Time has the pretense of a narrative thread, and spends more time on each scene. For me, this makes the emotional payoff greater. It also helps that the music is really good. (Here’s the complete source audio soundtrack for Tokyo’s Once Upon a Time if you want something stuck in your head the rest of the day.)
Walt Disney World receiving its own “feature-length” projection show has been a long time coming. These projection shows started back during the “Let the Magic Begin!” (they all sound the same now) promotion with The Magic, The Memories, and You, as a de facto pre-show for the Wishes! fireworks, with Celebrate the Magic later replacing it.
Magic, Memories & You probably also served as a proof of concept test for Disney Dreams, the mixed media show featuring fountains, water screens, lasers, floodlights, pyro, fire, and more at Disneyland Paris.
Rather than being a pre-show, Disney Dreams proved a lavish, fireworks replacement; in my opinion, it is still the gold standard for shows like this. Following the lead of Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disneyland received Once Upon a Time, a scaled back version sharing similar bloodlines; Disneyland received Disneyland Forever, a balance of mixed media and more traditional fireworks shows; and, Shanghai Disneyland received Ignite the Dream, another balance.
Honestly, I’m a bit surprised Magic Kingdom still has not received its own full-fledged next-gen fireworks replacement. Back when Celebrate the Magic was announced, I predicted that would be Disney’s long term plan: “I think it could be a remote step in the direction of Disney Dreams. Guest reaction to ‘The Magic, The Memories, and You!’ was so resoundingly positive and pyro is so expensive that Disney is likely considering ways to eliminate or scale back on a dedicated fireworks show like Wishes!, so a hybrid show might not be too far away.”
The great part of this news, in my estimation, for Magic Kingdom is that the hybrid show is finally here…but so is Wishes. We have our cake and eat it, too. That’s potentially at the expense of a nighttime parade right now, but given the hasty end of Main Street Electrical Parade, it seems like Walt Disney World was left scrambling there. My guess (emphasis on a guess) is that a new nighttime parade is in development for Magic Kingdom, and this is an interim stopgap solution.
Regardless, if it’s anything like the original version in Japan, Once Upon a Time should prove to be a smash hit with Walt Disney World guests. We are very excited to see it on our next trip!
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the news about Once Upon a Time coming to Walt Disney World? Have you seen the show in Tokyo Disneyland? Are you excited for it, or do you wish a new nighttime parade were announced? Share any questions, tips, or additional thoughts you have in the comments!
I’m sad we won’t get to see Celebrate the Magic again, but we have it on video if we need to relive it. It wasn’t playing in August when we went due to a refurb on the projection system, so we haven’t seen it since last September. It’s a good show (I especially like the Tangled section, and the theme song is really catchy!), but I am excited for Once Upon A Time!!
Also why does Disney announce changes and make them so sudden? It is such a quick turnaround time for anyone planning to visit.
This is such sad news to me! They didn’t play Celebrate the Magic for some reason the last time we were there – cancelled due to the rain- and I was hoping we would be able to catch it next spring when we are back. It seems like it is gone forever?!?
Hey Tom,
Thanks again for your awesome articles and everything you put into this site! You mention in this article that Tokyo Disney has a winter Frozen version of the Once Upon A Time show – we are going in January and noticed the show was going to be shut from January to March but no replacement show had been announced – I thought it was a weirdly long amount of time for a projection show to be down for Maintenance but then found out that the winter festival celebrations from last year cooincided with the shut down dates, so I was hoping there’d be a winter show, however I could find any indication there had been a winter version in the past. Have you seen this version of the show? Is there any other info you could give me about it or any source re the fact a winter version of the show exists? Appreciate any help you could provide
According the the show page on the Disney website, the show duration is 14 minutes long. I have never seen the TDL show and am very much looking forward to seeing this in a few weeks!
I agree that Dreams is still the best projection show Disney has done, so I’m a bit anxious about it being replaced by a new show for the 25th. It’ll be good to have a new show but hopefully it’ll keep the same magnificense as Dreams.
Once upon a time is great and I think the combo OUAT + Whishes will finally rival the combo Fantasmic! + Watevertheshowis at Disneyland.
That is amazing news….looking forward to this new show…the music sounds magical, can’t wait to see all up close!!! Hope they decide to keep it playing at magic kingdom, and do a new night time parade as well somehow!!!
Hmmm…right now the app is showing this starting at 10:45 lots of days, when wishes is at 10. I hope that’s a mistake!
Now I have to decide if I like Celebrate the Magic well enough to stay late this weekend to see it one more time…might have to get the kids opinions!
I’ve noticed this as well. Wanted to mark the times for both down on my itinerary for when I’m there next Saturday, November 5th. Very confusing, and somewhat frustrating when Disney sets it up so we plan everything out in advance, but then when we want to plan entertainment like this we don’t have the proper info.
I’m guessing that showtime is correct. A small gap between Wishes and OUAT, just like there would’ve been with Wishes and MSEP.
With MSEP, there used to be one parade before Wishes, and then sometimes one after….Celebrate the Magic also often had one viewing before and one after. When we’ve been, the befores were constant and the afters were only sometimes run depending on crowd levels and I don’t know what else–I’ve been there where they said they were having two CTM and didn’t, with no explanation as to why not and clear weather. 10:45 is pretty late to be the only showing, at least for those of us with littles and a 40 minute drive home after getting back to the car. But, I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to see it sometime.
Do you think we would be able to see this from the Poly beach? My husband and I are attempting a “no park” Disney weekend as our babymoon, and splurged on a room there.
I can’t imagine how you would be able to see a projection on the castle from outside the park. The fireworks? Sure. But not this. Sorry. Congratulations on the baby though!
“Celebrate the Magic” is without question my favorite thing about any of the Disney World Parks. Given that, even I can’t believe how sad I am feeling at this news! I guess I love it even more than I knew. 🙁 I’m sure the new show will be great, I wish I cold get myself down to Florida to see Celebrate the Magic once more though!