I’ve seen Fantasmic exactly twice. First time was a couple years ago, I got to see it with my son during a DVC Moonlight Magic event at HS. I remember at the time, finding elements of it as entertaining, but mostly a kind of one and done. Glad to see it, but probably wouldn’t do it again.
Fast forward to December 2025, and since my wife had never seen it, we decided to see it ahead of the start of the Jollywood Nights event. But…this time, we both felt it was mostly boring. And, I just don’t know if my memory isn’t great about the first time I saw it, but I felt it was (no pun intended) watered down a bit. Like, there were some scenes toward the start (such as the animations inside the bubbles) which were just projections on water for, like, forever. My memory was that there were projections on water, but it was more interspersed. But not like 5 minutes straight of projections.
Toward the second half to third of the show, it was more interesting, with more live action stuff going on. Of course, the best part of the entire show was Steamboat Willie.
Anyhow, I’m just trying to determine if the show has been updated from a couple years ago, or if it was this way both times, and it just seemed more boring the second time around.
Agreed.
We love it so much.
It’s the only PM experience we watched twice on our Nov trip and I’ve seen it three times this year and have not gotten tired of it.
So many characters.
The floats and water projections are so fun.
And Steamboat Willie!
I get it is subjective. I mean, I don’t need to see Disney just show me 5+ minutes of characters that I already know. There is no story being told or moved along, so it was boring for me. If I want to see the faces of characters, I can do that anytime.
Regardless, you enjoyed it.
I just don’t remember there being SO MUCH of it in my first viewing. And that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Has it changed/been updated since May 2023? After May 2023, I felt “it was worth seeing once”. After seeing it with my wife, my thought changed to, “It isn’t really worth seeing.” I’m not sure if the SHOW changed, or if it is just my memory.
That’s fair. I wasn’t sure if you could think of anything specific that changed.
I DO remember coming away from the first viewing unclear what the “story line” was. I couldn’t figure out. It felt like random scenes, more or less. But then after some discussions, I understood it better. Going into this show, I knew what the story line was supposed to be…but I still felt like there was still no clear picture as to what the story was until about 3/4 of the way in.
I mean this in the most endearing way, but honestly sometimes you come across as so crotchety.
Fantasmic always wows me, even when they make changes I don’t completely love compared to the previous version. The music, the characters, the effects, the pyrotechnics … it just hits me in the feels every time.
I think the first time I saw the changed show must have been when we went for a Liner meet. Was that January 2023 by chance for FARTs? I remember sitting near you. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I saw the Moana sequence (and I think Pocahontas was in there…) which is one of my favorite parts now.
I saw Fantasmic for the first time in December 2022 and remember watching vlogs before that trip that talked about the updates that had been made to the show (there seemed to be consensus that it had improved).
I think I’ve seen it every year since then and haven’t noticed any changes. I think it’s an awesome show!
I saw the DLR version for the first time in June 2024, and I prefer the WDW one. I felt DLR relies more heavily on water projections than WDW does and has fewer live action scenes (like the Mulan fighting scene or the Lion King animal puppets). It does have a very cool PP fighting scene though. Honestly I’d he happy to watch either of them again and would definitely make time for it if I had an evening in HS.
correct
I remember sitting near you. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I saw the Moana sequence (and I think Pocahontas was in there…) which is one of my favorite parts now.