The long awaited arrival of the Walt Disney World Resort 50th anniversary is just around the corner: October 1st. This 18-month long celebration is truly one you won’t want to miss. Bringing new entertainment offerings, merchandise, and decor The Most Magical Place on Earth just got a little more magical.
Entertainment Offerings:
Guests can enjoy three new shows, two night time firework shows and appetizers to be an all day or afternoon show. Epcot and Magic Kingdom will be getting the fireworks shows and Animal Kingdom will be getting the other. While many of us Disney fanatics are so sad to see Happily Ever After go I’m sure the new addition of the night time spectacular will be amazing.
The new Magic Kingdom show is called Disney Enchantment. It will include all new projects on the castle and for the first time down Main Street that will include 50th anniversary celebration elements. Epcot will also begetting a new nighttime show on the World Showcase Lagoon called Harmonies. It will be the largest night time show created for the Disney Parks and will include floating screens, choreographed fountains, lights, pyrotechnics, and lasers and incorporate the songs of some of our beloved Disney classic stories. Animal Kingdom’s new show is called KiteTails and while not much is known about this show according to the website it will be utilizing three-dimensional kites of Simba, Zazu, King Louie, Baloo, and many other animals. For best viewing for the show utilize the Discovery River Amphitheater.
Merchandise:
Disney is definitely pulling out every stop with FIVE new collections launching for the 50th celebration! The collections are: Celebration Collection, Castle Collection, Vault Collection, EARidecent Collection, Luxe Logo Collection. You will be able to find these collections on the shop Disney website as well as in the parks when they release. However, two out of the five will not be available on October 1st. The EARidecent collections will be available in late October and Luxe Logo collections will be available in November. We have seen sneak peek of the collections from Disney themselves and personally I can’t wait for the Castle and Celebration collections. I’m saying sorry to my wallet now from my future financial decisions.
Decor:
On top of Cinderella Castle getting a sparkling makeover the other iconic locations are going to be transformed for the celebration. Epcot and Hollywood Studios will both get iridescent and sparkling lights added to the icon Spaceship Earth (the Epcot ball), and the Hollywood Tower Hotel (Tower of Terror). Animal Kingdom will be seeing new projections on the Tree of Life. I highly recommend checking out the concept art on the Disney World website.
Another thing coming are 50 golden sculptures across the four parks. Some sculptures are in plain sight but some are slightly hidden in different areas or the park. These sculptures are not only of Mickey and his friends, but from other Disney movies like Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, and so many other of our favorite characters.
October can definitely be an extremely busy time in the Orlando area with Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights and now SeaWorld’s first ever Halloween event, Howl-O-Scream, which has been brought over from their sister park Busch Gardens in Tampa. I would recommend going at a later month of the event just after the holidays for reduced crowds and traffic. COVID-19 restrictions are still in place and as of right now masks are only required in lines and in any indoor space regardless of vaccination status. After the insane past couple of years we’ve had I think we all could use a little extra magic in our lives and Disney definitely understood the assignment!