Today is the kick-off to the Summer season at Walt Disney World, and while Disney has announced most of the offerings that guests can expect to see and experience while visiting, there is one giant question that remains unanswered: when will the Disney Starlight nighttime parade debut?
When Will Disney Starlight Debut?
I think it’s pretty fair to say that the Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away nighttime parade debut has not gone according to plan for Walt Disney World. Ideally, the new Magic Kingdom nighttime parade would’ve been ready to go tonight as Disney World kicks off the Summer season. Instead, not only will it not debut tonight, but we’re starting Summer without an announced debut date.
Back in April, it appeared that Disney was targeting an early July debut date for the parade. Now, I’m not so sure. While none of the indicators have gone away, with every passing day it seems unlikely that the parade will be ready for an early July debut. In fact, every passing day brings into question just how far along in the process Walt Disney World actually is with the creation of the parade.
It wasn’t until late March that Walt Disney World began communicating that the parade would debut “later this Summer”, and now, Disney has us Googling “when does Summer end?” (Monday, September 22nd).
Turning to speculation, I think that it’s likely that we hear something about the Disney Starlight nighttime parade today or tomorrow. Walt Disney World is hosting a media event to celebrate the start of Cool Kid Summer, and while the Disney Starlight nighttime parade falls outside of the scope of that event, Disney will likely want to feed the media some new details.
While we know that there are still some unannounced details (such as a Tangled component), if we don’t get a debut date this week for the parade, we have to start wondering if the parade can or even should debut this Summer.
A debut date in August or September would be disastrous given that Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party would limit the number of days per week that the parade could run. Ideally, we’d still see a July debut. At this point, we could be looking at late July given the lack of news over the past month following operational adjustments, such as Cast Member blackouts, which typically occur just before an announcement is made.
The Disney Parks Blog put out an “Everything We Know” article about the Disney Starlight parade last week but failed to announce a debut date. Instead, the article basically was a recap of information that was already known about the parade, hinting at more details to be announced.
In the article, Disney still said that the parade would be debuting “this Summer”, and that “it won’t be long before the music swells and the twinkling lights flicker”. Hopefully, that means that the announcement of a debut date is imminent.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
