My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Spring Breakdown

My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Spring Breakdown is the third of three hour-long Equestria Girls specials.

In this special, the Mane 7 spend spring break aboard a yacht (first mentioned in My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Dance Magic), but Rainbow Dash believes Equestrian magic is on the loose.

Production
A teaser trailer for the special was shown at the 2018 My Little Pony San Diego Comic-Con panel.

According to co-director Katrina Hadley, the special was split into six parts instead of five, with each part having an approximate runtime of seven minutes and thirty seconds, and that "there will be no cut scenes as each part was timed and cut to be reassembled for broadcast on TV without losing any content."

Also, according to Katrina Hadley, this special takes place between My Little Pony The Movie and season eight Friendship is Magic since the crew didn't know Spike was getting wings during the time of development.

Part 1
During, spring break, the Mane 7 and several of their Canterlot High School classmates are on the luxury cruise liner, the Luxe Deluxe, which features an expansive selection of activities from swimming to petting zoos to all-you-can-eat buffets, and everyone is grateful to Twilight Sparkle for organizing it. While her friends are looking forward to a week of luxury, Rainbow Dash expects Equestrian magic to appear and turn the cruise ship into an exciting battle in which they save the day like they always do. However, the rest of the girls just want to relax and have fun on their vacation.

Pinkie Pie checks out the buffet and expresses interest in a special bundt cake dish, Fluttershy interacts with the petting zoo animals, and Applejack deals with a bad case of seasickness. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash ruins everyone's good time—or makes their bad time worse—with her obsessive search for Equestrian magic. When she asks other people enjoying the cruise if there is any "bad magic" on the ship, she is pointed toward an indoor stage area filled with smoke, and a silhouetted figure ominously appears on stage.

Part 2
The silhouetted figure is revealed to be Trixie, putting on a cruise magic show, much to Rainbow's disappointment. When Trixie expresses displeasure at the elderly audience members showing off their own magic tricks after seeing her stage magic, Rainbow gets the idea of drawing out dark Equestrian magic by using her and her friends' own magic. Meanwhile, Rarity shops for clothes in the cruise ship's onboard clothing store and meets a charming member of the ship's staff named Ragamuffin. Despite his difficulty pronouncing Rarity's name due to his thick Cockney accent, Rarity becomes instantly smitten with him.

Later, the rest of the girls get ready to perform music for the cruise pool party, and Twilight notices her friends' lack of enthusiasm. She learns that Rainbow Dash is ruining their spring break with her obsession with Equestrian magic and starts to feel guilty. When Rainbow arrives with the idea of using "rainbow lasers" during their upcoming show, Sunset Shimmer pulls her aside and tells her to stop looking for a magic problem that does not exist.

That evening, as the ship sails into stormy weather, the Rainbooms perform the song All Good. With her friends' approval, Rainbow Dash lights up the show by pony-ing up, but it causes a power outage that disables the ship's engines. When Rainbow Dash believes evil magic to be behind the outage, she exclaims "It's about to go down!", leading everyone to believe the ship is about to sink, creating cruise-wide panic.

Part 3
With the cruise ship stranded in the middle of the ocean without power, Rainbow Dash continues to believe dark magic is behind it, and her annoyed friends refuse to join her to search for its source. Meanwhile, Twilight goes with the ship's crew below deck to try and turn the engines back on. Pinkie sneaks into the buffet that Rainbow Dash got her banned from to try and get a taste of the bundt cake, and Rarity finds Ragamuffin entertaining the cruise guests with Irish stepdance.

Alone at the ship's stern, Rainbow Dash notices the storm starting to get worse, and she sees a strange insignia glowing in the water. Believing her suspicions about evil magic to be confirmed, she races around the ship to gather her friends together and show them what she saw. But by the time she does so, the insignia in the water is gone, and her friends think her obsessions are making her delusional. Rainbow suggests taking a lifeboat out to where the glowing came from, but her friends refuse to acknowledge her obsession with being a superhero any longer, and she goes off on her own again.

Some time later, in the dining hall, Twilight feels guilty for being so harsh to Rainbow Dash, but Sunset argues they would be having a normal spring break if she had not brought Equestrian magic to the human world in the first place. The two decide to go find Rainbow and apologize, but they discover one of the lifeboats missing. When a call to Rainbow's cell phone goes straight to voicemail, they realize she sailed off into the raging storm by herself.

Part 4
Sunset and Twilight head out on another lifeboat to find Rainbow Dash while their friends stay behind on the ship to try and get the engines back on, keep the other cruise guests calm, and provide lifejackets for everyone onboard. After some time speeding across the stormy waters, Sunset and Twilight eventually find an island; they discover the missing lifeboat. Deeper in the jungle, they find Rainbow Dash sinking into a pit of quicksand.

After some overconfident boasting, Rainbow apologizes for ruining everyone's spring break and admits that there is no Equestrian magic on the loose. However, much to Sunset and Twilight's surprise, a large plant monster from Equestria appears over the quicksand and threatens to devour Rainbow. While Twilight keeps the monster at bay with her telekinetic geode powers, Sunset tries to get Rainbow out of the quicksand.

The monster momentarily breaks free of Twilight's magic and disturbs the top of the sand, and Sunset sees a portal glowing beneath the surface. Having an idea to escape the plant monster, Sunset shoves Rainbow down into the quicksand and through the portal before grabbing Twilight and jumping into it as well. The three find themselves in a dark underground cavern, and when Sunset illuminates the darkness with her unicorn horn, Twilight and Rainbow Dash discover they have been transported to Equestria and turned into ponies.

Part 5
As ponies, Twilight is in a state of extreme panic over her new unicorn form, and Rainbow Dash struggles to get used to her newfound Pegasus speed. Sunset is concerned that more portals to Equestria are opening up around the human world, but Rainbow suggests using this excursion as a vacation to make up for the spring break she ruined, and Twilight sees this as an opportunity to study the Equestrian world.

Sunset, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash sneak through Ponyville, taking care not to draw attention or run into Rainbow's pony counterpart, until they finally reach the Castle of Friendship. Inside, they meet with Princess Twilight Sparkle and Spike, and Princess Twilight quickly realizes from their atypical method of entering that they came through a portal other than the Crystal Mirror.

Back in the human world, the rest of the Mane 7 and cruise guests deal with an even worsening lightning storm. Applejack and the ship crew finally get the engines back on, but the ship speeds out of control toward the island. The ship's hull is breached by the sharp rocks lining the island's outer rim, and it starts to sink into the ocean.

In the Castle of Friendship in Equestria, Princess Twilight and Spike tell stories to Sunset, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash about their and their friends' many adventures. Of particular note is the time the Mane Six defeated the Storm King and sealed his power away in the Staff of Sacanas. Rainbow Dash recognizes the Storm King's insignia as the same insignia she saw in the water from the cruise ship, and when Twilight and Sunset mention stormy weather accompanying the insignia sighting, Princess Twilight is alarmed to discover that some of the Storm King's magic found its way into the human world, manifesting as a giant magical lightning storm. Realizing their friends are in terrible danger, Sunset, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash race to save them.

Part 6
Back in the human world, the rest of the Mane 7 and cruise guests panic as the ship continues to sink and the lifeboats are destroyed by lightning. Upon their return from Equestria, Sunset, Twilight, and Rainbow use the Staff of Sacanas to absorb the Storm King's residual magic and dispel the lightning storm. With the weather calm again, Rainbow apologizes for going off on her own and actively looking for trouble, but Twilight points out that if she had not done so, they would not have found what they needed to save their friends.

However, as an island parrot points out to them, the cruise ship is still sinking; when Sunset and Twilight are unable to start the lifeboat, Rainbow Dash uses her super-speed to push it toward the ship. Upon reuniting with their friends, they combine their magic to power up and work together to save everyone.

Twilight and Rarity lift the cruise guests and crew onto an artificially-made lifeboat, Fluttershy provides all the petting zoo animals with lifejackets while Rainbow ushers them to safety, Sunset reunites a scared little girl with her mother, Applejack helps people trapped in their rooms by the flooding water, and Pinkie Pie assists the kitchen chef that banned her from the buffet earlier. Once everyone is on the artificial lifeboat, Rainbow pushes everyone to shore as the ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Though everyone is safe on the island, they are stranded without a ship to get home. Luckily, Sunset Shimmer has an idea. Back at Princess Twilight's castle in Equestria, Sunset enters with dozens of humans-turned-ponies hoping to return home via Crystal Mirror.

Quotes

 * Pinkie Pie: Spring break! This cruise has everything!


 * Rainbow Dash: Best spring break ever!


 * Rainbow Dash: This is Equestrian magic!


 * Rainbow Dash: The magic came from that way! We sail out and find the source!


 * Sunset Shimmer: I've seen something like this before.


 * Sunset Shimmer: See you soon!
 * Rainbow Dash: Whoa!


 * Twilight Sparkle: Where are we?
 * Sunset Shimmer: The sand was covering a portal to Equestria.
 * Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash: [gasps]
 * Twilight Sparkle: [screams]
 * Sunset Shimmer: Twilight! You're okay! This was supposed to happen!
 * Twilight Sparkle: Sorry, I wasn't listening. Because we're ponies!