Disneyland Paris Goes Behind-the-Scenes of “Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade”

Hi everyone!

The new Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade soft opened at Disneyland Paris yesterday before it officially debuted today as part of Disney’s Enchanted Christmas. Yesterday we shared this video, “Live From the Magic at Disneyland Paris” that features a look behind the scenes of Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade. This is a longer article talking about this gorgeous new addition to the holiday lineup. At the time Disneyland Paris posted the video, there were some spoilers but now the parade has debuted.

This is the sixth video in the web series hosted by Mathias and Chloe at Disneyland Paris. They speak to art director Olivier Dusautoir about the parade. Dusautoir started out as a parade dancer years ago and worked his way through being a puppeteer and eventually a scenographer’s assistant and then on to working on solo projects.

Dusautoir says they started considering a new Christmas parade several years ago and had brainstorming sessions. The concept decided on was the story of trees. “We wanted to link each tree with the characters”. They had to think about what Christmas trees would be like for Santa, the princesses, the “VIP’s” (Mickey, Minnie and friends). There are five unique and beautiful floats (designed by Jody Daily). The opening float features Mickey like he is the conductor of the parade. The float has “a somewhat vintage, retro, cartoon style”. Dusautoir was adamant that he wanted the tree at an angle even though it was difficult to do. The light bulbs are 1950s style.

Photos courtesy Disneyland Paris

Minnie’s float is the candy float. There are candy canes, snowflake shaped cookies and peppermints (among other items) on the float. The icing lights up. Santa’s float is like a big music box with a big snow globe at the back. The snow globe is a miniature replica of the tree on Main Street.

The lights were a challenge because they didn’t want visible sources of light. “We wanted it to be a luminous parade, not an electric parade”. Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade is both a day and night parade with show stops including the evening tree lighting. The floats had to be designed for characters to get off the float. “…we had to include stairs everywhere on the floats.” That included making sure the princesses could walk off the float in their dresses.

There is more to learn in the video about Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade! Mathias and Chloe also stop at Minnie’s Delights, the central pastry shop to learn about holiday offerings.