On my most recent trip to Walt Disney World just a couple of weeks ago, my family took in a lot of shows.  A lot more than we usually take in.  Usually, we go to one maybe two shows.  But this trip, we went to a lot more for some reason.  It wasn’t because the weather was bad (it was great!).  It wasn’t because the parks were crowded (they weren’t outside of Monday at Magic Kingdom and Saturday at EPCOT).  We just did a lot of shows.  Here’s my top 5 shows at Walt Disney World after going on my most recent trip:

5) Enchanted Tales with Belle

My daughter and I took in this show on our last morning in the parks.  It’s been on our to-do list for a long time but it always had a long wait.  On Sunday morning, after going on Space Mountain, the wait was only 10 minutes and it was even shorter than that because we were the only party of two in the line and got into the next show.

I was very impressed with everything about this show.  It has a great pre-show both in Maurice’s Workshop and with Madame Wardrobe.  It has lots of guest interaction as the guests get to be part of the show.  No child is left out of the show.  Every child gets a role no matter how small.   Every child gets to participate and get a photo with Belle at the end of the show.

On busy days, the line can get long especially in the late morning/early afternoon.  The best time to take in this show is early in the morning or later in the afternoon or evening.

4) Finding Nemo – The Musical

A great show but it’s not even the best show in Animal Kingdom.  That distinction goes to The Festival of the Lion King.  Still Finding Nemo is a great show.  It’s one of Disney’s longest shows at 40 minutes.  This is my second viewing of the show and this experience was much more enjoyable.  My party had Fastpass+ reservations for both shows.  The first time, we had tickets for a show where we had to wait outside for the previous show to clear the theater.  This time, we didn’t have that restriction and we were able to walk right into the theater and grab any seat we wanted.

The show is great theater.  It takes a lot of talent to hold a character, perform your lines, and not make it look there is a person holding the character.  The actors and actresses in this show do a wonderful of job while re-telling the story of Finding Nemo.   A great show to take in during the summer.  It’s a 40 minutes of quality entertainment that keeps your family in air conditioning and out of the hot Florida sun and Animal Kingdom always seems, to me, to be the hottest park of the four.

3) Fantasmic!

My family has always wanted to go to this show but our plans never kept us in Hollywood Studios until closing.  So, we always missed on.  This trip, we decided to go to Fantasmic! on a whim.  We hopped a bus from Magic Kingdom to Hollywood Studios.  We had used our three Fastpass+ in Magic Kingdom and grabbed Fastpass+ seating about 15 minutes before the show.

I don’t even think we sat in the Fastpass+ seating area but instead grabbed seats on the end in the very last row behind the walkway.  We did this so we could lean up against the fence and use that for a seat back since the seating is metal bleachers.

Even, all the way in the back, we had a great view of the show which was wonderful.  A lot of villians….a lot of imagination….a lot of Disney history.  All under the lights at Hollywood Studios.  The only downside to the show is exiting the theater.  There is only one center exit and everyone has to funnel through that exit.  Traffic flow would be better if there were exits at each end of the theater which met with the center exit further downstream.  That lone downside didn’t detract from our viewing of the show.  After seeing the show once, we need to go see it again to catch stuff that we missed this first time.

2) Festival of the Lion King

Best show in Animal Kingdom.  Just a great show.  There is so much this show has going for it.  Audience participation.  Tumbling.  Jumping.  Singing.  The performers do a great job playing to the crowd while performing (a tough skill).

This was our first visit to the new Harambe Theater and we were impressed.  The theater is now in an easily accessible part of the park in  the Africa section of the park instead of its old location in the former Camp Minnie-Mickey.  The theater felt bigger and I did not feel like the guests were right on top of each other.

A big plus for our visit was our daughter got to lead the Lion section in their “roar.”

1) Frozen Sing-A-Long

I know I’m going to catch some heat over this one.  But stripping away what movie it is part of, it’s a wonderful show.  It has a fun pre-show with clips from the movie presented in a fun and different way.  The narrators are funny and topical.  It has the pinnacle of audience participation as everyone is encouraged to sing along to the songs that were drilled into our heads from many watching of the movie and listening to the soundtrack.

The Hyperion Theater (old American Idol Theater) is the perfect venue for it.  It’s a big theater which can hold a lot of guests which is important for this highly popular show.  It has a large stage which helps the performers maintain spacing while still giving them room to move.  They aren’t cramped on the stage.  The performers are engaging in both telling the Frozen story while making the audience through topical humor appropriate for guests of all ages.

What are is your top five shows at Walt Disney World?

Thanks for reading!