Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Today at Disneyland: Fantasmic! 20th Anniversary Celebration

It's hard to believe, but it's been two decades since Fantasmic! debuted at Disneyland.

Fantasmic! is a unique style of entertainment, incorporating dancers, projections on water screens, and fireworks; in the most impressive scenes, the show also utilizes Disneyland's Mark Twain and Sailing Ship Columbia.

A brief preview on the Disneyland website gives a good idea of what the show is like. There are also many videos available on YouTube, such as this one or this one.

On a few evenings this month Disneyland hosted an Annual Passholder 20th Anniversary Celebration of Fantasmic! Like the Soundsational passholder party we attended last October, on these evenings ticketed passholders were able to enjoy the performance after the park had been cleared of the daytime crowds. Some rides and restaurants were also available in Frontierland, Adventureland, and New Orleans Square. There were also special menu items available at area restaurants.


The Mark Twain at sunset:


Time for Fantasmic!


The fire-breathing dragon fondly known as Murphy has a history as being unreliable, but when he's "on," he's most impressive!



My favorite part of the show is the PETER PAN battle staged aboard the Columbia:


The grand finale on the Mark Twain:


The special passholder parties serve a dual purpose for Disney, making passholders -- who were just hit with massive price increases -- feel appreciated and that they're receiving "extra value," while at the same time the passholders who attend the off-hours parties may be less likely to attend as many regular days, making the park a little less crowded for everyone else. Crowds seem to have been a major factor behind the price hikes, especially with high interest in this summer's new lands at Disney's California Adventure.

Disney fun ahead in June: We'll be attending a D23 screening of IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS (1962) on the Disney Studios lot, and hopefully we'll be able to see Cars Land, which opens June 15th, during its inaugural month!

2 Comments:

Blogger Irene said...

Excellent photos of Murphy! Glad you had a good time. Too late for me to attend but now that I'm retiring in 3 weeks, I can go to these kinds of things and stay up late :) As a matter of fact, just yesterday I registered for an AP early entry to DCA in September after school starts - one of the perks I'm looking forward to - doing things I wasn't able to before.

7:22 AM  
Blogger Laura said...

Thanks much, and congratulations on your upcoming retirement, Irene! It sounds like you'll be able to have a lot of fun once your time is completely your own. :) It was definitely a bit of a challenge for us to get up at the regular time yesterday after a late evening Tuesday (grin).

Best wishes,
Laura

1:34 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Newer›  ‹Older