March 9, 2022 - Magic Kingdom

The Festival of Fantasy is BACK!

Mar 10, 2022

Lately, it’s been a tad difficult getting to the parks, especially Magic Kingdom. On the days I could get in, I had to work and vice versa. However, thanks to the incredible foresight and news following prowess of my friend, Carmen, I was notified that the Festival of Fantasy parade was coming back and on which day. I put in my park pass request and as luck would have it, it was available.

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I arrived at the park offensively early in the morning. I also borrowed a different camera lens from my roommate. This one was a SUPER ZOOM lens. You’ll see evidence of that later but it was also like four times the weight so that was fun to deal with.

When you want a pic of the cool sign out front but some kid is cheezin’ in front of you.

This was no zoom…from just outside the Railroad Station. Gonna be an interesting day.

This was using the zoom…from the railroad station.

While using no zoom, I had to stand pretty far away to be able to get this shot. It was a challenge to use this all day and for the first time I realized why good photographers use multiple lenses.

Before we got going, we were greeted by the Dapper Dans.

Some of these pictures turned out pretty darn well.

THIS is the lens for window picture taking

So, needless to say, I was pretty excited because for one I was back at the Magic Kingdom and it’s kind of hard to have a bad day there, but also, I’d never seen a full Disney parade before. The cavalcades were my first introduction to the sort of bigger, “Get off of Main St.!” production. Of course, we were there hours before any event so we kind of moseyed on down Main St. and ended up where one should end up.

The Mother ****ing PEOPLEMOVER!!!!!!
*airhorn sounds*

While it might not be the most interesting shot in the world, it was taken from the Peoplemover, so it has that going for it…which is nice

Expect a good amount of “top of castle missing” pics while riding the Peoplemover. It doesn’t make it any less beautiful though.

Work on the TRON roller coaster is progressing right along. It might actually be ready before the 75th anniversary

I think my focus and settings were a bit *looks left and right* Goofy.

I don’t know why I was fascinated with taking a picture of the backside of the Partner’s Statue but it happened a lot while waiting for the parade to start.

I TOOK THIS PICTURE FROM THE GROUND. THIS IS THE TOP OF THE CASTLE Y’ALL.

Like I said, I couldn’t get the full castle in the picture, but I was able to take pictures of parts of it with STUNNING clarity

This is not the parade…this was the cavalcade maybe 15-20 minutes before the parade.

Adorable. (Thank you again monster zoom lens)

I think Pluto sees something we mere mortals cannot

THE DAY OF REDEMPTION IS AT HAND! REPENT AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED! (Bonus point for whoever sees this and posts in the comments what this is a reference to)

Another off the list (there can’t be all that many left for me to get. I believe I have all but Magic Kingdom done)

Another one off the list…can you see it? (Sadly I didn’t get a close up…but I will)

The combo of boredom and fascination led to me taking a very close picture of this sewer cover from very far away. The *~*~*magic*~*~* is all around.

The band came out and played “Let it go” right before the parade started. I legit have no idea why…Why not pick “For the first time in forever”?

I will gladly say I did a garbage job photoing the Grand Marshal of the parade as in this one with this person in the shot was the best I did. But it was such a touching start because MK Cast Members were the Grand Marshal. It felt good that they got recognized. (Also…regardless of make/model THAT is the hood ornament I want for my car)

So yeah, I didn’t know how the parade was going to start and I sure as heck didn’t expect it to be THIS

Like, say what you will about the Grand Marshall (As I already did) but it’s gotta be an absolutely incredible feeling to be the first person in the parade.

The zoom was a good choice today. Look at ALL the details.

So that giant float had Cinderella in the middle and on the back was Elsa and Tiana. But with my camera setup I could get a ton of Belle but none of Cinderella or Tiana (Which is a shame because Tiana was absolutely beautiful). I need to go back with the regular zoom lens and ensure I capture them too.

This is of that center section for Cinderella I was talking about. SO MANY DETAILS!

Then there was this guy who I didn’t recognize at first…but it made sense after the fact.

Flynn doing his Flynn thing. The thing he’s standing on swung like a pendulum so it was incredible to see them work with that.

I didn’t get many of Rapunzel but the one I did get *chef kiss*

This parade was probably the most fun I had taking pictures.

Sorry for the semi-out-of-focus Wendy but I did manage to capture the absolutely distracted dude in the bucket hat casually videoing the parade so that’s a plus.

Again, I missed out on Tinkerbelle on the back of the float, but I did get this one of Hook

I have a fondness for Smee because in the movie Hook it was played by Bob Hoskins (Of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” fame) but…What on earth is that behind him?

Oh, how I adored watching this move and maneuver. Absolutely incredible

I heard tale that at one time this breathed fire but alas, none today.

Only when editing this picture did I see Jiminy Cricket (An important figure to this new Disney trainer)

Probably my favorite and best shot I took all day.

The Pinocchio float had one of my all-time favorite characters on it. You can see him here, but there’s more to come.

There he is! I absolutely love that they had Figaro doing cat things.

The folks on the swings were pretty incredible, too.

Donald and Timothy (Not pictured because I couldn’t get a good angle: Dumbo)

The man of the hour (or ten minutes…whatever). It’s always good to see your boss taking part in the festivities.

And with that, the parade was over. I had the best time watching it and I’m really excited to come back and see it several more times.

A bunch more Main Street window pictures…I never noticed that one HAD A KITTY ON IT!

I can’t picture a future where I tire of taking pictures of that castle

So my one friend went home after this and my other friend, who showed up later, wanted to get one ride in before we both left the park. I’ll give you one guess as to where we went.

After the ride, Magic Kingdom was hit with a pretty significant storm (the lightning was WILD) so we headed back. It was raining almost the entire trip back and so the monorail was down and with the ferryboats being a nightmare, we took the boat to the Polynesian Resort (fearing my camera getting wet, I didn’t get any pictures on the trip back sadly.) From the boat queue I did manage to get one more shot of one of my favorite buildings on property.

To me, the Contemporary is just the coolest thing ever.

And with that, the day came to a close. One for the history books for me. I had an incredible time and one that is not soon forgotten, for sure. I’m not a big proponent of the parade and I hope to see it again real soon.