I will be taking my friend to WDW in a couple of weeks. She hasn’t been since her first trip in 2012!
I have a Fantasmic Dining Package reservation. It is for the first showing (9 pm) of Fantasmic. I noticed today there will be a second showing at 10:30 pm. Dining Package would give us a center seat.
Last week, DH and I were on Dining Package for the show. The first showing filled the entire stadium! There was a second showing but we went to Rise!
Do you think we could get a center seat at the second showing easily? I have popped in on Fantasmic on my solo trips right before the show and ended up stage left and hated it. The lights and music don’t start playing until part way through stage left.
And haven’t been since, ummm 
, last week. How can you stand the long wait!!!
🫎
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I’d say don’t risk it. Do what you did with DH. It guarantees you a centre seat and you can then take advantage of the second showing to do Rise or something else with hopefully shorter lines.
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Thanks, everyone! Hollywood and Vine, here we come! 
We haven’t been to see Fantasmic in many years, but I saw someone mention in another thread that there is a new show? We just booked the dining package at Mama Melrose’s for the first show. Latest dinner time was 4:45, which really surprised me. Anyway, the price has gone from $43 (latest unofficial guide) to $56/person. Looking at the menu prices, I’m not sure we would spend that much on dinner (including an entree, and appetizer or dessert, and a non-alcoholic beverage). Two questions:
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With the voucher, how early would you plan to get there to get seated for the 9PM show?
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Is it worth the extra money for the dining package?
Thanks!
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For me, showing up 30 minutes before the show with a voucher is good enough, unless I’m done with HS and want a seat!
The dining packages are expensive, especially once you start multiplying by however many are in your party.
Post Covid, I’ve done the package three times. The key thing about the Dining Package is that the seats are in the center of the arena. The standby seats are on the sides. Either way, you don’t technically get your pick of seats. You sit where the CMs direct you, though I have seen some people make life hard for the CMs! 
I’ve shown up 20-45 minutes before and we got seats in the Dining Package Area. Sometimes we were higher and sometimes were lower, depending on the day and not necessarily the time we showed up.
I’ve also been there without a dining package. I’ve been on the far stage left sides before because I pop in like 5-10 minutes before. I hate that section. Sometimes, the lights and music don’t start until the floats are halfway through that section.
If there are two showings the night you are there, you might want to gamble it and show up for the second showing. Since there are no dining packages for the second showing, you can see if you can get a center of the arena seat, if you are willing to wait in line ahead of the show. How early? I don’t know!
I was gonna gamble it for my next visit since there are 2 showings. But the friend I’m going with hasn’t seen Fantasmic since 2012. I took the safe route. We have a Fantasmic Dining Package!
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Thank you! Last time we were there my kids were little, and it was too loud for my son at that age. We’ve skipped it since then. When I read that there is a “new show”, I thought we’d give it another try. But it basically looks like the same story with different characters?
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FWIW, we were at HS first week of April, CL9 and went to the second showing of Fantasmic. Showed up less than 30 minutes before show, park had just closed and we were last customers at an ice cream stand and then headed that way. We had great seats, middle section. A section or 2 on either far side were entirely empty.
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It will have the overarching main story of Mickey’s imagination that is the same but the different character sequences in between were updated & plussed up and are SO SO SO good. DLR’s Fantasmic! got updates in 2018 and it made the show different but not necessarily better than it was before. The updates to DHS’s Fantastmic! though are SO good. And it makes it almost the better show for me. I still love how DLR’s is done on the Rivers of America with the gigantic Columbia & Mark Twain ships but DHS’s has a seat at least, there’s nowhere to sit in DLR but the cobblestone ground and sitting is only for the dining package sections. The standby have to stand up for a good 30-50 min (25 minute show plus 10-15 minutes before they make you stand).
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Thanks for letting me know!
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