As Disneyland Resort prepares for the return of the holiday season, the “Magic Happens” parade at Disneyland Park will soon offer limited performances in October 2023, before hosting its final parade of the season.
‘Magic Happens’ Parade Schedule Changes
Starting October 2, 2023, Magic Happens will go down from two performances per day to only one at 6:30 p.m. PT on weekdays. Weekends in October will still offer two performances at 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. PT.
After that, the parade will host its final performance of the season on October 15, 2023. Following that final performance, no parades are currently scheduled at Disneyland Park until the return of “A Christmas Fantasy Parade” on November 10.
The annual holiday parade will run through January 7, 2024, alongside the other holiday offerings at Disneyland Resort.
Magic Happens Parade
Magic Happens debuted in early 2020 as part of the 65th anniversary celebrations and ran for only two weeks before the resort closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It returned to Disneyland in February 2023 after a three year hiatus.
The parade is led by Mickey and friends, followed by contemporary Disney hits “Moana,” “Coco,” & “Frozen.” The next segment of the parade is Disney Classics, including “Sleeping Beauty,” “Aladdin,” “Peter Pan,” “Pinocchio,” and “Cinderella” characters.
Watch our full video of a daytime performance below, followed by a nighttime performance (which features lighting on the floats).
Upon its return, the line of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” was noticeably missing from the finale of the show.
The line, which is also the title of the song originally composed for the controversial Disney film, “Song of the South”, was perhaps most widely recognized as part of the Splash Mountain attraction based on the film.
Additionally, Polynesian guests took to social media earlier this year to criticize the choreography of the “Moana” section of the “Magic Happens” parade. Hawai’ian TikTok user @kehanuolani shared a video disapproving of the choreography, writing, “Y’all should not have put us in the front row of this parade[.] Not [sic] hate to the girl who’s playing Moana but the choreographer needs to do some different work[.]”
A Hawaiian friend of WDWNT and frequent Disneyland guest told us, “Hula is the telling of a story with your hands. It’s about the ʻāina and the land. This is a complete [bastardization] of the culture. It would be better for her to just stand there and wave.”
The parade has also suffered a series of small mishaps, from the audio system crashing, Merlin from “The Sword in the Stone” losing his shoe, and the finale float getting stuck in the middle of Main Street, U.S.A. The performance was halted before the Cast Members on the Sleeping Beauty Castle float were evacuated and asked to walk the rest of the route.
Will this change in the schedule for Magic Happens affect your upcoming trip to Disneyland Park? Are you excited for the return of A Christmas Fantasy Parade? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
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