A Disney Dad shares his and his family’s rankings for the best Disney World shows that you need to experience.
When you hear the phrase “best shows at Disney World”, do your thoughts immediately run to fireworks? Well, no nighttime spectaculars today, because we’re picking shows that don’t explode…except some of them do. Or shows that star humans…well, except some of those humans are actually robots…
I might need a hand narrowing this down. Time to call in my Whole Family of Supers: Mama Bear, Baby Bear, and Teen Bear! Yes, my real-life family has been seeing shows with me at Walt Disney World for many years, and each one of them has become an expert in their own right. They’ve each been asked to pick a favorite show, spanning all four parks. There’s only one catch, and it is deeply unpopular:
Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue: The Forbidden Pick
None of us can pick the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, because there is a good chance that ALL of us would pick the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, and this article would be much too short. Baby Bear protests bitterly that I am not only passing over the best show in Disney World, but also the best dinner, which brings up an important point: Hoop-Dee-Doo is dinner theatre, and it is difficult to separate the delights of this vaudeville-style, baggy-pants musical comedy from the all-you-care-to-enjoy fried chicken and ribs that come with it.
A Dining Performance
Unlike our other finalists for best show at Disney World, the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue is performed outside the theme parks, in Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground, with three performances per day. You will also need to book your tickets in advance, as Hoop-Dee-Doo books through the Dining Reservation system. It is very popular and you would be well advised to make your reservations 60 days in advance. If that is too much advance planning for you, perhaps you will enjoy…
Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!: Mama Bear’s Pick
“You know, I was in this show one time,” I pointed out when my wife declared this delightful monster of a show to be her pick for best show in Disney World.
“Yes, dear,” she replied with a gentle tone that in no way suggested I had told this story a million times, and besides, she was there when it happened.
The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! deserves every hyperbolic syllable of that title, all the way down to the exclamation point at the end. This fun, funny show has been thrilling audiences in the Echo Lake area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios since 1989, with many cast members playing their roles for all or most of that time, making for a smooth, confident production well worth seeing time and time again. The theatre seats 2,000 guests and is frequently at full capacity – so come early!
Photo by WDW Magazine Photography Team
What to Expect
The central conceit of the show is that we are watching the stunt team filming a new Indiana Jones adventure, pausing every so often along the way for actors portraying the 2nd unit director, casting director and other movie professionals to engage the audience with fun facts about creating stunts for the movies, all while an enormous and extremely skilled crew moves flawlessly from one scene to the next, and stunt performers including the “stand ins” for Harrison Ford and Karen Allen execute heart-stopping action sequences strongly influenced by the first film in the series, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
New guests are amazed as one massive set-piece rolls away to reveal another, even more elaborate than the next. Indy breaks into a tomb, racing away from an enormous rolling rock, then swings from rooftops with half of Cairo seemingly in pursuit. Finally we see a fistfight with an enormous German soldier in and around a plane doused with flaming spouts of gasoline, surrounded by machine-gun fire and many actor-combatants meeting a grisly-looking but perfectly safe end.
And yes, prior to changes after COVID closures, the casting director used to pick a group of “extras” who would serve as the butt of some jokes and fill out the crowd scenes, and one fine day around 2014 one of those buffoons was me, and it was honestly one of the greatest moments in our history with Disney World. The actors playing Indy and Marion came over and shook everybody’s hand and I was as star-struck as my three-year old meeting Anna and Elsa.
How to See It
The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! is free with your admission to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and plays multiple times a day. Check your My Disney Experience app or Rope Drop App for showtimes. While you are doing that, maybe check showtimes for…
Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress: Teen Bear’s Pick
My son’s pick for Best Show in Disney World takes us to Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom, where it has been playing for more than fifty years, which is a remarkable achievement on its own, but even more so when you consider that the show came to Disney World after playing at Disneyland for six years following its initial run in the 1964 World’s Fair. It is considered one of the longest-running shows in the history of American Theater, with a massive number of performances every single day. Indeed, when the Magic Kingdom is open, not only is Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress almost always playing, it is generally giving multiple performances simultaneously.
What to Expect
How? With an all-animatronic cast, never taking a break, and a theater that is unlike any other. At the end of each of the four scenes, the 240-seat capacity seating area “exits stage left”, carrying its audience on to the next era, while the “actors” they have just seen play their parts all over again… and again and again and again, welcoming us into the life of a typical American family as their world steadily improves with improvements in technology, carrying all of us into a future that is truly “A Great Big, Beautiful Tomorrow”, just as the show’s irresistible theme song by the Sherman Brothers says.
What makes my teenage son so enchanted by this trip back in time to watch progress from eras he never knew, courtesy of technology that he surely can’t imagine living without?
Photo by Judd Helms
“It’s so Walt Disney,” he says. “The show is a celebration of the past… the good old days. But it believes in its heart that change is coming, and it’s going to be awesome. Everything is great, and it’s only going to get better. It’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”
“Besides,” he adds “like you always say… it’s 20 minutes of the best air-conditioning in the Magic Kingdom.” That’s my boy.
How to See It
Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress is free with your admission to the Magic Kingdom, and is located in Tomorrowland, where it is about to start a new performance, and another one a few minutes after that. Leaving you plenty of time to see…
Festival of the Lion King: Baby Bear’s Pick
My daughter’s pick for best show at Disney World takes us to the Africa area of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, just steps from the Harambe marketplace. Festival of the Lion King can welcome 1500 guests at a time, seated on all four sides, but it opens with a bare stage and the entrance of four members of “a band of singers, who travel with Simba and his friends throughout the land”.
What to Expect
Dressed in elaborate and beautiful costumes, it takes these storytellers seconds to have the audience clapping along and swaying in their seats with their celebratory song of welcome. From there, it gets more elaborate, more colorful and more wildly over the top, as a small army of singers, dancers, acrobats, stilt-walkers, fire jugglers and more fill the space joyously and skillfully.
“Just when you think it can’t get any bigger, it does,” Baby Bear says “and then there are huge parade floats and dancers everywhere, all set to the music from the Lion King. You can’t be sad while you watch this show.” Especially the monkey-clad acrobats, whose riotous routine on trampoline, trapeze and rings has been a family favorite since the very first time we saw the show.
There’s no great internal logic to Festival of the Lion King, and really everything you need to know is right there in the title. This festival is a loud, joyous celebration brimming with color and music that will have audience members of all ages overjoyed to be a part of it, from the first notes of welcome to the final strains of the “Lion Sleeps Tonight” sing-along and the “Circle of Life” reprise. This is magic that is always special no matter how many times you see it.
How to See It
Festival of the Lion King plays multiple times throughout the day in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, check the My Disney Experience app, or Rope Drop App for showtimes, and try to arrive early, as this show fills up fast!
The American Adventure: Papa Bear’s Pick
If you are spending your day at EPCOT travelling the road of the World Showcase, a few things are probably true when you reach the halfway mark. You have probably been snacking, especially if there is a festival going on, and these days, when isn’t there? So a little break from that would help to make some room for later. Likewise, your feet will be letting you know that you’re getting your steps in and then some, and the rest of you might be wishing to get out of the Florida sun for a bit. You need a break. If only someone had thought to construct a magnificent love-letter to America of a show, with dozens of historical figures portrayed by advanced animatronics, and important events in the country’s history brought to life by breathtaking digital rear projections.
What to Expect
What’s that? Of course they did, it’s called the American Adventure and it could not be more suited to that name. You are in for stirring music and important tales told well, including the journey of Mayflower, the Boston Tea Party, the winter at Valley Forge, the penning of the Declaration of Independence, the Civil War and the Great Depression. And you will witness all of this within the beautiful, 1024-seat Liberty Theater under the care of Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain while enjoying what may be the most deeply refreshing air conditioning you will find anywhere on Disney World property.
Photo by Marisa Alvarado
Of course, this is Walt Disney’s history book at play, and just as Carousel of Progress shows us one family’s love for the past and optimism for the future, the American Adventure applies the same pride and spirit to a broader range of history, and does it in a magnificent way.
The show is approximately half an hour long, but you would be doing yourself a grave disservice if you did not carve out a little time to enjoy the “pre-show” in the rotunda featuring the Voices of Liberty, a wonderful group of a cappella singers putting the perfect acoustics of the pavilion rotunda to great use. Together with the show that follows, you will be rested, refreshed and bursting your buttons with pride, even if you are, secretly, Canadian (shhh! Don’t tell!)
How to See It
The American Adventure and Voices of Liberty are free with your admission to EPCOT and have multiple performance times throughout the day. Check your My Disney Experience app or Rope Drop Guide App for showtimes.
The Play’s The Thing
Every day at Walt Disney World you have the opportunity to share in brilliant, inventive shows like these and many more. Include some of your picks for best show at Disney World in your vacation plans, and your family is sure to give you a standing ovation of your own!
