Significant changes could be coming to the Disney Enchantment nighttime spectacular at Magic Kingdom. In this post, we’ll run-through the updates spotted during overnight fireworks testing at Walt Disney World, why these could be happening, and the timeline for a refreshed show.
At the last minute, Walt Disney World scheduled overnight fireworks testing at Magic Kingdom, alerting nearby communities of this so as to not be alarmed by loud explosions at 1 am. Normally, these notices are released with a bit of advance notice–I can’t recall one previously going out on the same day (but that could just be bad memory).
They’re usually fairly standard testing, with teams getting ready for the seasonal shows or special events. Recently, more attention has been paid to testing by the fan community as we’ve gotten our collective hopes up that one of the tests would be an updated version of Happily Ever After.
While today’s news is not that good–still nothing on Happily Ever After–it is an incremental step in the right direction. This overnight testing was for Disney Enchantment, but with a twist.
This test was of a modified version of Disney Enchantment, which included a new introduction featuring clips of Walt Disney, Roy Disney, Central Florida prior to development, and opening day. Segments included scenes the famous “Florida Project” video that Walt Disney filmed to pitch what would become Walt Disney World, as well as footage scouting and surveying the site, other archival footage, and early-era ‘Vacation Kingdom’ clips.
The recent test showed clips in the 50th Anniversary medallion, as well as on the lower sides of Cinderella Castle–not much on the higher turrets or what you’d typically expect in the way of projection mapping. The new footage is approximately two minutes long and plays prior to the normal Disney Enchantment. It’s a lot like a holiday tag, but as an intro rather than an outro.
It’s unclear whether what was tested is the finished product. It’s always possible that more projections will be added or tweaks will be made prior to debut. It’s also possible that nothing will come of this for regular guests–one of the coolest tests recently was a montage medley that ran during Cast Member EARidescent Evenings.
With the “what” out of the way, let’s turn to the “why” and cover the company’s potential motivations for making this change to Disney Enchantment. Guest satisfaction is the big one, and everything else really flows from that.
At this point, I want to turn back to an article we published last July, long before fans started clamoring for its return or anyone had even seen its successor: Happily Ever After Ending “Permanently.” That post came after Walt Disney World officially announced that the beloved nighttime spectacular was being permanently retired, a statement of which we were highly skeptical at the time. (Hence the air quotes around permanently.)
In particular, we shared this: “Happily Ever After’s guest satisfaction scores are through the roof…It’s my understanding that a decision about Magic Kingdom fireworks post-50th Anniversary will depend almost entirely on which nighttime spectacular scores better. If it’s close, Disney Enchantment will continue.”
I haven’t heard anything precise for Disney Enchantment, except that its guest satisfaction is considerably lower than its predecessor. Honestly, this isn’t saying a ton. It’s my understanding that Happily Ever After had one of the highest guest satisfaction scores of anything ever at Walt Disney World. Surpassing it was going to be a herculean task for even a great new nighttime spectacular, which Disney Enchantment is not. This is why we were confident as far back as last summer (long before knowing Enchantment was a dud) that Happily Ever After’s fate had not yet been determined.
With that said, I do want to be fair…
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