A Series Of Exciting Announcements Kick Off Summer At Walt Disney World!

In their wonderful style, Disney have this week put out a series of magical announcements concerning not only events happening in the parks this summer, but some things which will debut even further into the future, which is becoming more exciting with every passing announcement, of which there have been many! It certainly has been a busy week over at the World, with the Animal Kingdom celebrating its 15th anniversary on Monday, and then a two day press event taking place as well over the course of the week.
As I mentioned in the former paragraph, the announcements have been plentiful, coming thick and fast over a couple of very exciting days. Such is the volume of these announcements, it's certainly been difficult to keep track of them all, so I've elected to set them out in a list below for additional clarity. Here they are
1: Disney have announced their 'Monstrous Summer' event, which will celebrate the release of the upcoming Monsters University movie, the prequel to the original Monsters Inc film. Alongside the already active Monsters University Monorail (or 'Monsterail)' the summer will feature meet and greets, special performances of the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor at Magic Kingdom, and most notably the 'Three Park All-Nighter', which will see the Magic Kingdom join the two parks of California's Disneyland in being open for 24 hours, much like the 'One More Disney Day' event last year. The Magic Kingdom's event will see the film's stars Mike and Sulley being the Grand Marshals of the Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade, alongside late night appearances by characters in Town Square and dance parties in Cinderella Castle's courtyard. As always, Disney have promised lots of surprises and unique merchandise for this special event, which will begin at 6am on May 24, running for the following 24 hours. This rare event was announced by none other than Mike Wazowski himself, who was projected onto Spaceship Earth using some pretty awe-inspiring technology. I won't give too much away, but would really recommend watching the video of this amazing piece of Disney Magic- absolutely amazing! There's also a video detailing how they did it, which can be found here
2: It has been revealed that the popular 'Celebrate A Dream Come True Parade' at the Magic Kingdom, will bow out to a replacement in spring 2014. This spellbinding parade has been a Magic Kingdom staple since its debut in 2009, when its predecessor was re-themed to create it, and has proved to be one of the most popular Magic Kingdom afternoon parades ever. It's successor, the Festival of Fantasy Parade will feature new floats, music and costumes, and will according to Disney “...bring a celebration of New Fantasyland...” to the parade's route. No dates have been announced yet, but we do know that a range of Disney Movies will be represented, from timeless classics such as Dumbo and The Little Mermaid to modern masterpieces like Tangled and Brave.
3: A major update has been shared regarding progress on the construction of the two New Fantasyland attractions which are yet to open- the Seven Dwarves Mine Train and Princess Fairytale Hall. The Disney Parks Blog reports in this post that both are on course for their respective opening targets, and also features a video in which Imagineers take us behind the scenes on construction of both attractions.
4: The Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend is adding the 'Glass Slipper Challenge' and a new 10k race for 2014. RunDisney have shared a creatively written article on their blog which has all the information you need should you wish to participate.
I am incredibly excited about all this! One of the reasons I love Walt Disney World so much is because it's ever-changing; there's always new stuff being brought in, and this week has been as good an example of this as any. Whilst I unfortunately probably won't get back to the World until after the Mine Train opens, I'm still definitely going to follow along with all of this awesome stuff, and can't wait to experience some of it myself!
Thanks for reading! This post took a little longer than normal to write, so this week's Attraction Review will be coming your way tomorrow! I read so many different articles to write this one that it took a bit longer than I thought it would to write- but I'm definitely going to do more WDW news updates in the future!
Please check out the awesome We're Going To Walt Disney World Podcast of which I am the guest in Show #29! They do an amazing job with their podcast, and I would love for you to check it out if you haven't already!
Have a magical day!

Thank you for reading; and have a magical day!

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