Fantasmic Performing (almost) Nightly for July, August, and September: Good News or Bad News?

Walt Disney World Resort announced last week some changes to the Fantasmic—click here to read more—performance schedule at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Fantasmic historically has been performed 3-4 times per week in the evening.  This 25 minute show boasts 90 minute or longer waits.  We used the Fantasmic Dining Package that reduced our wait and gave us “back door” entry.  We are doing the same for our upcoming trip.

With the announcement, Fantasmic will now be performed every night in the months of July, August, and September (minus 1 night each of the months when the park closes at 7:00 pm for private events.)

While the expansion of Fantasmic performances is great news for folks who may not have planned to tour Hollywood Studios on an evening of a performance—or are even surprised when Fantasmic is not a daily occurrence—trust me, we’ve seen and heard that, it’s not such great news for the Williams Family.  Why?  Well, for our upcoming trip, we had 3 visits to the Studios in our touring plan—thank goodness for Park Hopper!  Our first visit to Studios is scheduled for our first day at the World—dinner at Mama Melrose with the Fantasmic Dining Package.  The second visit is scheduled for Wednesday—a pre-announcement NON Fantasmic performance day—with the plan that we would be at the Magic of Disney Animation at 5:00 pm for what our family refers to as the Character Explosion—click here and here to readmore.  At the Character Explosion, rare and unusual characters appear at the Magic of Disney Animation with air conditioning and short wait times.  It is a veritable character feast!  Alas, due to the change in the Fantasmic performance schedule, there will be no Character Explosion, as it is only held on non-Fantasmic nights.  Trust me, though, I’m going to ask!  Oh, and our 3^rd stop will be on Friday and then we will park hop to EPCOT—taking the boat from Studios to the International Gateway at EPCOT which will put us in World Showcase for more characters and dinner at Teppan Edo.

When I told the husband about the announcement and the effect it will have on our visit, he wad disappointed.  The Character Explosion—as we call it, as it has no official name, has become a bit of a tradition for us—and an easy and exciting way to interact with lots of characters.  I told him I had good news and bad news.  After I told him, he said it was mostly bad news—for us at least.