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The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights - A Walt Disney World Event Review
by Carolyn Brooke-Millward

My husband and I have been lucky enough to view the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights at Disney's Hollywood Studios a number of times over the last few years, and always try to visit them at least once every trip. Just before our most recent trip, in November 2015, Disney announced that 2015 would be the last year that the Osborne Lights event would be happening, due to the forthcoming expansion and reimagination of areas of the Hollywood Studios, so it became even more important that we went to see the lights this year!

Therefore, a few days into our trip, we spent a lovely day having fun around the Studios, seeing things that were new to us (the updates on the Great Movie Ride, for example), and after a delicious dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine-In, we headed over to the Lights, Motors, Action! end of The Streets of America.

The first thing we saw as we drew alongside the bit just past the Studio Catering Co was the purple cat, up high on a side wall on the right-hand side (no spoiler alert as a few days later, they moved him!). I was very pleased we had spotted him quite early on! We then rounded the corner and stopped near the Dessert Party area, under the globe, in order to gaze in wonder down the street at this wonderful, bright and colourful spectacle of lights. I couldn't see the snow at first, and then just after that the lights started to dance to a very upbeat and modern song, so we watched and waited for that to finish before starting to walk down the street. After the song had ended, the lights all came back on again and the snow began to fall.

We explored the whole area, including the side street with its canopy of changing lights, making sure to look out for hidden Mickey's everywhere. I think we found about 25 of them in all, although I knew there were more than that there. In the side street, we also found a Dr Who TARDIS outlined in blue lights, which was amazing! There was also a huge fireplace in the main street, and above it were three stockings made of lights, and named for the Osborne family members.

We stayed for well over an hour that night, just watching the dancing lights and enjoying the music, hunting for displays we hadn't seen before, and enjoying the snow (while in the UK it was apparently snowing for real in some places!). We found Kermit the frog perched high up on the side of a building near the end of the street, and we also found a window display that had a video film playing on a loop, telling the story of the Osborne Lights and how they came to end up at Walt Disney World, which was really interesting. My husband spotted several people wearing a really cool Osborne Lights-themed sweatshirt, which he loved, but it turned out to be one that was only available to Passholders – he was devastated! We eventually got to the end of the street, and left, knowing that we would return again the following week for another visit.

A few days later, we made our last visit to the Lights, and this was when we discovered that the purple cat had been moved! I won't tell you his new location in case it spoils the fun for others, but we hunted high and low and finally found him completely by accident! This was also the night that the Empire State Building cutout at the far end of the street was lit up in the colours of the French flag, in tribute to the tragedy that had just taken place in Paris a few days earlier. We played in the snowfall, we laughed and danced, and we may even have cried a little. It was really hard to tear ourselves away from the Lights at the end of the night, knowing that this really was the last time, and we spent quite a lot of time just saying, "right, time to go!" and then not really going anywhere!

The lights all looked so bright and lovely this year, but I do think that this view was coloured by the fact that we knew it would be the last year we would see them here, so it made the whole event beautiful and yet terribly poignant. I have many wonderful memories of seeing this display over the past years, from walking the streets when they included Residential Street with my parents, sister, and my young children, through showing them to my (at the time, new) husband for the first time, right through to seeing them last year with some new American friends we had made online, and whom we were meeting for the first time in the flesh! I sincerely hope that Disney manage to find somewhere to move this wonderful display of lights to, elsewhere on property, as it has always been a very popular and well-attended event.

Added to PassPorter's Article Collection on 12-01-2015 10:12 AM

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