Last night, Disney World unexpectedly debuted its new parade, Disney Starlight: Dream The Night Away, two days early!
Whimsy in Disney Starlight
The parade officially debuts in Magic Kingdom on July 20th, but last night, July 18th, they announced a surprise preview of the show, and we got to be front and center for it! We shared as much of it as we possibly could on our social media, and while we adored the parade, it turns out that not everyone feels the same way. In fact, some of you are flat out NOT impressed!
One comment that particularly caught our eye was from user @fastpass_shopping, who said, “Why does this look so… not good? 😬Everything looks so small and cheap. I’m sure people are thrilled to finally have a parade back, but this looks bad.”
Disney Starlight
We thought it was just a one-off, but the more we looked through the comments, the more we found that a lot of you feel the same. User @dancarey78 commented, “Come on be real . This is the biggest disappointment ever. The soundtrack is so awful and boring, dead space between the floats and it overall looks cheap.”
Guiding the way
Turns out, a lot of you enjoy the way the parade looks, but aren’t totally sure about the soundtrack itself. Some asked if this was the official soundtrack, or if it was still in the works, since this was a surprise preview. From what we can tell, this IS the final soundtrack of the parade, and while it does include nods to the Main Street Electrical Parade (it actually opens with that fanfare!), Wishes, and other former nighttime spectaculars, as well as the films that are represented. Personally, we adored the music and feel it’s a new instant classic. In the words of our reporter, “whoever wrote this is an international treasure.”
Disney Starlight
The final complaint we saw the most on our socials was the fact that Wish is included in the parade. This is arguably one of the least popular Disney films in recent years, so some people aren’t happy it was included in the parade, while other classics like The Little Mermaid got the chopping block. However, considering one of the main characters of Wish is Star, a LITERAL star, and the theme of the whole parade is starlight, we can see why the decision was made! When talking to the parade’s show director and producer, they made it clear that the focus was on stories that featured characters going after their wish or having their dreams come true. While there are so many movies we’d love to see, the parade can’t be too long!
Asha from Wish
However, we are seeing lots of positive responses to this new parade, and we’d even say about 90% of the feedback is very appreciative and complimentary. Again, we personally are big fans of this new parade, and you know us — we’re critical of things when we really feel they’re not up to par! We think between this new parade and the new Villains Show that arrived in Hollywood Studios earlier this summer, Disney live entertainment is killing it right now, and we really hope to see that continue!
Disney Starlight — Peter Pan Float
We’ll be in the parks again on July 20th to watch the official debut of the parade, so be sure to stay tuned to DFB!
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I saw it for the first time last night. I was amazed at the lights: I would call them gorgeous, elegant, impressive. It’s not like Paint the Night, which has a more “pop” feel with its neon. Starlight seemed more “formal”. The floats are longer than I would expect. I agree that the soundtrack did not have any singable or memorable songs. But I loved the parade, particularly the final “Whimsy” float with Mickey and frineds. From multicolored lights, to silver sparkle twinkle and strobe, that float was the best!
She might not have gotten her own float, but Tangled was represented in the Whimsy float. She and Flynn were hard to see though. They were in a backward facing boat under Aladdin. You could barely see her and Flynn kept standing up trying to be seen.