Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, I took a look back at a Disneyland Paris attraction that strived to get everyone into the Christmas spirit.
Though Christmas may have come yesterday, we’ve still got a few more weeks to celebrate at Disney parks around the world, even with those preparations starting as early as November 9th in Disneyland Paris. Disneyland Paris has been celebrating Christmas ever since it first opened its doors as Euro Disneyland in 1992. From what I can tell, Disney started using the Enchanted Christmas moniker at the resort in 2010, with the name sticking around through today. They go all out in Paris with Christmas-themed fireworks, meet-and-greets, parades and even shows, leaving no ounce of Christmas cheer unturned.
Over the years, Disneyland Paris has varied which stages hosted its Christmas shows, with some years even having more than one holiday show in the park at a time. Like I said, they go all out, so for today’s story I decided to look back at Royal Christmas Wishes, which debuted on November 7, 2015 and was the first Christmas show to call the Castle Stage home.
Our journey started with some nicely clad ladies and gentlemen coming out on stage with some presents. They kind of waltzed their way around the stage to seemingly classical music before two of them separated themselves with a man speaking in French and a woman taking on the English parts of the conversation (which did end up basically repeating the French dialogue).
The two dancers had a little chat before the man revealed that he had a snow globe to share with the woman, who spun a key. With that twist of a key, magic ensued as dancers emerged from all over the place holding some kind of snowflakes and dancing all around.
Via YouTube
But the real magic that emerged was the huge number of princesses that were about to appear complete with a fun winter outfit and their prince. Fittingly, Aurora and Phillip appeared first as they were in the shadow of her castle, with Snow White and her boo, Florian (or is it just The Prince?) up next. Cinderella and Prince Charming popped up next and they had a great big smooch that I was not ready for. Ariel (on two legs) and Eric appeared next, with Belle and Adam right behind (with Adam appearing in human form).
Tiana and Naveen hopped along next (but not as frogs) with Jasmine and Aladdin the next up in the princess parade. If that wasn’t exhausting enough, there was one final couple in Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. Whew, that’s a lot of princesses, but somehow the stage managed to hold all of them along with all the other dancers.
Once they were up there, they proceeded to waltz along with a couple of Christmas songs that I wasn’t too familiar with before wrapping everything up in a quick ten minutes. There really was not much else to the show and it wasn’t overly festive, but it was fun to see so many princesses at the same time, like the classic scene in Ralph Breaks the Internet. It was a nice little diversion during the busy Christmas season, but there is a reason it only stuck around for two Christmas seasons before closing on January 8, 2017. The following year, A Merry Stitchmas took the spot and added a lot more pep and zing to the experience, lighting up the Christmas stage itself for a few years.
Via Facebook
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and I hope you had a magical Christmas!