'Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade' fun facts

Feb 10, 2014 in "Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade"

Posted: Monday February 10, 2014 1:50pm EST by WDWMAGIC Staff

How about some Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade fun facts?

  • Parade features a cast of more than 100

  • Disney characters from more than a dozen classic stories are represented among nine parade floats

  • 40 additional characters are presented in animated or sculptural form

  • Performers appear on stilts, swings and pendulums, bringing a kinetic energy to the procession

  • The Princess Garden lead float stretches more than 50 feet long

  • The Jolly Roger atop the Peter Pan float flies 28 feet above the parade route

  • Mickey’s Airship finale float is the tallest float topping out at 32 feet

  • The trio of finale floats span more than 90 feet along the parade route

  • Elaborate costumes are being crafted by 10 different costume houses, in eight cities, in two countries — including Creative Costuming facilities in both Florida and California.

  • Some 27 separate custom designed fabrics were designed by Mirena Rada in collaboration with Creative Costuming Graphic Artist Paul Jordan.

  • Counting interfacings and trims, it takes 28 separate fabrics to make up one Swing Thug #1 Costume (Tangled unit). His vest requires vinyl to be cut into 75 separate diamond shapes and then stitched onto cool max fabric.

  • Some pieces, including the Seashell Girl (Little Mermaid unit) headpiece, were digitally sculpted and then grown to size with a 3D printer.

  • It takes 30 yards of fabric to make one Seashell Girl costume which includes 12 different colors of Nitex Mesh.

  • The coral pieces for the Coral Twins (Little Mermaid unit) were custom designed. They are being hand poured in three separate colors by the artisans of the Creative Costuming Craft Team and baked and finished for 16 hours each in an oven.

  • The socks worn by the Lost Boys (Peter Pan unit) are custom designs that were knitted to order in Hong Kong.

  • Minnie Mouse’s Dress and Hat (finale unit) uses 95 gold lame dots that are cut out, “blinged out,” and then sewn on.

  • The Bubble Girl (finale unit) headpiece is made from three separate clown wigs that are blended together by the Creative Costuming Millinery Team.

  • Cha Cha Girl (finale unit) – Her wig was designed with 148 yards of horsehair in four colors, that is then rolled, pressed and curled by hand.

  • The Steampunk-inspired Maleficent Dragon stretches 53 feet from snout to tail and reaches 26 feet in the air.

  • Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Creative Entertainment team members partnered with Tony Award-winning designer Michael Curry on the development of the Maleficent Dragon.
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SpectroBroMay 09, 2018

I can say for a fact that the costume with the expandable wings WILL be back. The wings are currently being repaired. They went 4 years with out being replaced so these repairs are much needed.

DisoneMay 08, 2018

bummer.

SquishyMay 08, 2018

Haven't seen this said by anyone yet but, The raven costumes in the festival of fantasy parade seemed to have change for permanently. The costumes currently in use we're temporary in 2017 and only used in windy days but for the past 3-2 months it looks like this is a permanent change. Apparently the wings of the old costumes broke too many times because of the wind. Old costume: New costume:

CrazydisneyfanlukeNov 16, 2015

I haven't seen any in a recent search, could you link one?

riorizNov 16, 2015

There's videos of the 5pm on YouTube

TTA94Nov 15, 2015

Oh I do agree fully that the garland is very much missed! I do hate those stupid wreaths! Im just saying, regardless of the Christmas decor, that FOF is even more awesome at dusk!

JoeCamelNov 14, 2015

Oh Please, I have to whine that they took the garlands down for this parade. How could it possibly be great with the lights when the garlands are missing. This is a travesty that must be rectified by cutting the floats down to size or erecting risers for the garlands at once TIC...

Cesar R MNov 14, 2015

and noone took photos? HERESY!

cjk0318Nov 14, 2015

It's definitely pretty :)

TTA94Nov 13, 2015

Just saw FOF at 5pm because of the Christmas parade taping today.. I still wish they would run it at this time more often! 6 or 7pm would be even better! Seeing FOF with the Main Street lights is really cool!

JoeCamelJun 18, 2015

Uh - no, the idea is to have you pay to come into the park not sit and watch it on your phone?

jrhwdwJun 18, 2015

WDW just Periscoped FOF and it was awesome!!!! Someone PLEASE tell management that they need to do this or set up a Live Cam MUCH more often!!!

dstrawn9889Jun 02, 2015

fridays' show, apparently the parade controls were misbehaving -- wrong audio ques for the floats, onstage effects offline(not triggered)

mm52200Jun 02, 2015

Already an ongoing discussion about this in the thread titled "Mess-tival of Fantasy". It was just one of those days where everything that could have gone wrong happened. I saw the parade in person that day, and I saw it the day before. It was in perfect working order the day before, every single effect was working. So this was definitely a fluke of some sorts.