There’s been a little bit of news this week around the Disney community along with a few minor reviews that I’ve wanted to write but didn’t think would fill up an entire blog post. What better excuse to do an odds & ends post and then add a giveaway to it! We’ll get to the giveaway at the bottom of the post after running down some news and pieces of interest. At least they’re interesting to me, hopefully you feel the same!

Snow White’s Enchanted Wish

If you’ve been following along with the blog the last week or two, you’ll notice that we’ve been running through some Disneyland content. We’ve been visiting quite a bit and will even more in a few weeks once Magic Key (Annual Passes) drops. While it took a few months for us to visit after opening, there were a few minor changes that I haven’t brought up on the blog and the most notable was the change from Snow White’s Scary Adventure to Snow White’s Enchanted Wish.

Disney was well underway with this change when the pandemic started, with the changed attraction scheduled to open in late spring or early summer. Obviously, that didn’t happen and Enchanted Wish opened with the park back in April. I try to go into new rides and lands completely blind, without any preconceived ideas or without having read any reviews. That was the case here except that I was doubtful I’d like the changes more than the original. I think Fantasyland should embody both the exciting and beautiful fantasies as well as showcase some of the darker side. Fantasmic! says as much. Snow White’s Scary Adventure captured both of those emotions but really showed off the darker part at the end.

While I do miss the dark ending, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the changes. Speaking on a broad scale, the attraction looks brilliant with a nice blend of classic dark ride and some brighter moments. The dwarves are more heavily featured and their scenes are beautiful. The one knock I’d give the attraction is that now the story has become slightly more of a book report of the movie whereas that was not the case before. That’s not my favorite style of attraction plot but it still makes more sense than the greatest hit sequences we see in other recent dark rides like Little Mermaid or Monsters Inc. Mike & Sully to the Rescue. Overall, Snow White’s Enchanted Wish ended up in the same spot in the Disneyland Attraction Rankings after the changes as some are positive while some aren’t quite as much. I’ll take that as a win as the ride continues to be a vital part of the best Fantasyland around.

Space 220 Restaurant Opening

Over on the other coast, we have found out that Space 220, a new Epcot restaurant, will open in mid-September. Finally. I’m not going to go look it up but I truly feel like I’ve been writing about this restaurant for five years. I don’t know how soon I’ll be able to eat there but just knowing that it will actually open is surprising at this point.

Space 220 gets its name from the restaurant offering an experience that will make you feel like you’re 220 miles into space, looking at Earth. Maybe it won’t make you feel like that as I don’t think the trip up to literal space would make you feel very good. Once inside the restaurant, after a trip up through elevators, the Space 220 restaurant menu will feature a two-course prix fixe menu for lunch, and a three-course prix fixe menu for dinner. While no prices have been released, I’m going to go ahead and guess that this will be quite expensive. Opening next to Mission: SPACE, this restaurant should give Epcot some much needed continuity in theme. I don’t know if it will be worth your time or money but the concept is sound! The opening should kick off a year of interesting additions to the park.

Parades Coming Back

The last bit of info I wanted to touch on comes on the heels of Disney announcing that Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade will be included in the new Christmas After Hours Event. Since we’ve already covered that news in a post, I thought I’d take a look at what this might mean for other parades at WDW and Disneyland Resort.

At this point, I don’t think Disney holding off on parades has much to do with COVID-19 or any health related issues. Seeing how the announcement about the Christmas parade came at the current height of the Delta Variant, parades not being shown because of that doesn’t stand to reason. Instead I think Disney has slowly been trying to round the parks into form while recouping some of their lost costs over the last year and a half. Running a parade is expensive, and while I don’t typically defend the company saving money, I’m sure that has played (large) role in why we haven’t seen floats coming down Main Street yet.

It’s odd to be in the parks in the afternoon though because people still sit on the curb and, probably without knowing it, seem ready for a parade. They do make castle parks much better and both Festival of Fantasy and Magic Happens are excellent pieces of their respective park’s puzzle. I think the parades could start as soon as Disney wanted to hire the Cast Members to make them happen.

With the announcement of the Christmas Parade, I think we’re likely to see an afternoon Magic Kingdom parade return before the end of the year and possibly by the 50th anniversary on October 1st. Having this celebration without a parade would be somewhat disappointing and bringing back Festival of Fantasy or something new would be a boon to the park. My forecast for Disneyland is a little less optimistic, as I don’t think we’ll see a daytime parade for at least a few months. The resort is still ramping up relative to Walt Disney World and hiring is going a little slower. Hopefully both parks will have something soon!

Giveaway!

Now, for the reason most of you probably came! We’ve decided to do a giveaway here on the blog featuring an exclusive piece from our Etsy store, Harold Supply Co. Our Grizzly Peak logo burned onto a handmade box! You can see it here below (sorry for not the best quality on those photos).

There are two ways to enter the giveaway and, if you’re so inclined, twice as many opportunities to win. First, subscribe to the blog via email! You can do that easily on the right side of the desktop page or on the bottom of the home page on your mobile device. Those that have already done that will be automatically entered to win. If you want a bonus entry into the giveaway then just leave a comment below about anything in this post or any question you might have! We will keep entries open for a week (this post was published on the August 14th) and then will select a winner and let them know privately. Thank you for reading and we hope you have a wonderful day!