My families second ever visit to Walt Disney World was for the 4th of July way back in 1989! I don’t have any photos, but I do remember seeing New Kids on the Block perform in front of Cinderella’s Castle. The crowds were absolutely insane!! The second time I visited for the 4th was 1998 when the fireworks were cancelled completely due to drought conditions and fire risks.👎🏻
I’ve always loved big firework shows, especially at Disney, so there was no doubt going to see Disney fireworks for the 4th of July would become an annual tradition once I permanently moved to Orlando in 2004. Little did I know that I would be able to see shows at both Magic Kingdom and Epcot every year! A few of those years even included a 3rd firework show when Disney’s Hollywood Studios put on a show with upbeat, more modern Americana song selections! It was timed perfectly so I could watch that show at 9pm and power walk over to Epcot for their show at 10pm! One year, I even managed to see FOUR firework shows when Downtown Disney did back to back midnight shows to Ring In the 4th on the 3rd and Plead the 5th on the 4th!! Those were the good ole days!
After moving away for a couple years, this tradition resumed when I returned and met Laura. So my tradition became our tradition and it continued until the pandemic. For various reasons, we only attended one July 4th fireworks display at Epcot when the events returned in 2021; however, when Disney announced their Celebrate America 250 festivities late last year, we immediately booked park reservations. We assumed they would go all out with an even bigger display this year. Spoiler alert, they didn’t!
Fast forward a few months and it became clear that the fireworks would stay the same. We did have those park reservations though and something else was announced. The beloved Carousel of Progress, Walt Disney’s classic attraction from the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair, was set to close in its current form on July 6th for a full refresh and timeline shift. What?! We knew an animatronic of Walt himself was being added, but this was completely unexpected! So there was no question, we would keep the reservation and head to Magic Kingdom on July 3rd to see this show one last time and tack on the holiday fireworks.
We arrived to the park at around 5:30pm to find that it was seemingly empty! Where were the crowds? Maybe the 96 degree heat drove them all away. Maybe three nights of fireworks at both Epcot and Magic Kingdom simply spread out the crowd. Whatever it was, Laura and I met up with our friend Amber and headed straight to Carousel of Progress. Though it was still a short wait, I hadn’t seen the theatre this full in a long time.
The show of course hadn’t changed, but I loved seeing it one last time! The gags are corny. The ideals of progress from a century ago seem trivial but make us realize all the things we take for granted. And finally, the 1990’s take on a “modern” family is laughable as we all now know what technology stuck and what never caught on! I even noticed a few things on this visit that I had never seen before! Like the cat! How did I never notice the cat?! I am more of a dog person, so Rover must have stolen my attention!
I am sure Walt Disney Imagineering has a wonderful new storyline in the works, but I am very sad to see this version shut down for such a dramatic overhaul. This show just reminds us of a much simpler time in America and I will miss it. Let’s just hope that There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow coming our way in 2027! Here are a few more photos from the show including some of my favorite scenes.
After the show we got some dinner and watched as a light rainfall came across the park. That rain saved the night! It was so incredibly hot when we arrived and those temperatures probably dropped twenty degrees after the rain. It felt so nice! Based on past crowd levels, we had planned to watch the fireworks in Fantasyland. We went to checkout the central plaza at about 8:40pm and found that there was still plenty of space there! We were shocked and decided we might as well watch the show from there!
It had been at least seven years since we had seen this fireworks show, and even longer since we last watched it from inside the park, but it didn’t seem to have changed much. I vaguely remember the opening sequence but that was the only part that seemed somewhat unfamiliar. This is not a complaint but the show wasn’t nearly as impressive as I remember it. They used to launch fireworks from at least eight locations surrounding the park, possibly more. That has been reduced to just three in the back of the park, plus one over the Seven Seas Lagoon which you can only see if you turn your back to the other three. The view from Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort is far better, but now has restricted access.
Click below to watch my video of the shows finale on Instagram!
And here are a few more photos from Disney’s Celebrate America! – A Fourth of July Concert in the Sky at Magic Kingdom!
Wow! It still gives me the ‘feels’ all these years later! We didn’t want to join the mass exodus from the park so we focused on getting out of the hub area in anyway we could! That lead us to Winnie the Pooh which had a very short line. We rode that and one of my all-time favorites Peter Pan’s Flight before catching the Disney Starlight parade! Then we joined the second mass exodus from the park after the parade!
And since you made it this far, I might as well throw in one more video from the parade that I actually saw for the first time (and filmed) a few weeks ago! Click below to watch Peter and Wendy FLYING on Instagram!
That’s it for Day One of Celebrating America 250 Disney Style! If you liked this blog, please like it, leave a comment and share it with others using the social media links below! But most importantly, come back soon to continue the festivities over at Epcot on the 4th!!
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