The official “first day” performance of Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade. The sun was shining, crowds were eager and characters putting on their very best performance. “Once upon a dream”, it truly was…

But then, they arrived. The park forever warns during Disney’s Halloween Festival not to trust a Disney Villain, and, now that Disney’s most vicious cast of characters have their very own float year-round for the first time, it seems we need to keep a watchful eye on this motley gang…

As the final burst of the parade’s show stop music came to an end and Ursula cackled her final “Just Like We Dreamed It!”, each of the floats’ individual scores started up again. Maleficent scowled at the audience… but failed to move. As worried glances spread across the parade control Cast Members and the characters continued on with their performances, the parade – from float 5: Dreams of Power onwards at least – remained at a stand still. Memories of a performance during the previous week’s rehearsal runs – when the float ceased movement for a short time at the exact same spot – will have sprung to mind for everyone involved.

A good five to ten minutes on and music is suddenly cut from the float, with extra crew rushing in along the parade route to check on the troubled float. Watching from the sidelines, coincidentally, was the Fairy Godmother. No, she didn’t cast a spell to end the villains’ nightmare, she was attempting to take a break from her role at L’Auberge du Cendrillon‘s new princess dining, before getting caught up in the chaos and having to “shoo” away Ursula’s slimy green sea creatures.

Whilst the Evil Queen from Snow White (a character almost never seen at Disneyland Resort Paris before this parade) looked entirely unimpressed with her problematic float, the undefeated Maleficent continued to whirl and whip her hugely acclaimed new firey costume for the entire time.

The audience watching at Royal Castle Stage, where the incident occured, were surprisingly patient considering the long wait and warm sun above, with very few deciding to move on to other attractions. Either the audience had a lot of faith in Disney’s showmanship, or the tantalising glimpse at the colours of Dreams of Adventure just around the corner kept them hooked.

Just as parade control decided to switch performers in front of each float, to give the audience some variety to what they were watching, a sudden flurry of radio messages and a reappearance of technical crew from behind the float saw it spring back into action, met with a round of applause from everyone watching. But, alas, this wasn’t the end of the parade’s problems, with the final Dreams of Romance (Part 2) float performing in complete silence – without any music – for the entire run.

Our exclusive video clips from the unfortunate first-day performance of the park’s new parade begin toward the end of the problems, including the re-start of the float itself.

With each float having it’s own computer to control music and the exact position of the show stops, it seems that whilst the dreams themselves may be full of magic, talent and wonderful artistry… technology may not always be on their side. Not least when a Disney Villain is involved.