Fantasmic with a 2 y/o?

[hehesmom]

We are going 11/25-12/2 and have never seen fantasmic before. DH and I would like to see it since is has such great reviews but we do not want to scare our 2 y/o. She is not afraid of the dark and does well with fireworks but I'm not sure about the villian characters. Has anyone else taken their small children and what was their reaction? It won't kill us if we can't see it. Any info or experiences would be great. Thanks so much!

 

[LakeAriel]

Two is sort of young for the sitting still part. The show is beautiful but when we went with my 3 year old Grandson my daughter had to leave. In order to get a seat you have to arrive about an hour before the show and that is hard on toddlers. Then they need to stay in one spot for the show. If she is a very patient little girl and can sit for so long she may even fall asleep. You need to decide whether you want to wait so long. I would do something else, more toddler friendly this trip.

 

[jaycns]

Hi there...I will tell you how things went with my kids at that age...does NOT mean it will be that way with yours, but if your dd is not afraid of dark/fireworks I would say to go for it. We did with each of our children and they LOVED Fantasmic (actually only our youngest two as my oldest saw it for the first time when he was 7). The villans ARE scary BUT it's not overly intense if you are with them and they know in advance that Mickey Mouse is going to "battle" some of the meanies. My kids were Disney cartoon addicts (hard to admit but true) by the time they were two, so they knew that those villians always lost at the end of every movie. In fact, when Captian Hook gave one of our sons a hard time about wearing a green shirt (by threatening him with his hook and pointing to the green and making motions of being upset) my son (then just turned 3 years old) looked him down and said "If you don't quit it I will get Peter Pan and he can get you good and don't forget that some green things go TICK TOCK and have teeth too and I can find one of those too" (he was alluding to the croc). Well I cannot tell you how hard it must have been for Captian Hook and Mr. Smee to stay in character!! They were both doubled over in laughter (silent, but holding their stomachs and trying not to laugh you could tell) and their handler just let loose with a belly laugh so loud it scared my then infant son!! A few hours later my son told Peter Pan that he took care of Captian Hook for him and told Peter what he said and Peter had his handler give my son a magical moments certificate for "taking care of Hook". And Wendy (who was with Peter) gave my son a special "hero hug". It was great fun...but back to my point, some kids will do well with the Fantasmic villians, some kids won't. Mine did well with Fantasmic but I shared that story with you to show you that my kids have always been able to handle villians. My nephew on the other hand RAN from the Queen of Hearts and cried for about 10 minutes after she interacted with him and he was about 5 at the time and he didn't do all that well at Fantasmic during the middle of the show...but he did stick it out and LOVED it in the end. It turned out to be one of the things he talked about for months.

Also, on the waiting end of things. If I were you with a child that young I would eat at one of the MGM resturants that has a Fantasmic Seating Package and get the speical seating pass from them that allows you to have "reserved (by the section not by seats) seating" which allows you to come a bit later and still have a section that you will know seats are available in.

In short, two of my three boys saw Fantasmic as a young toddler and they did well with it. But, only you know how your child will feel. I have seen others doing well. I have seen others melting down. It's all relative to what a specific child is used to/can handle.

Good luck and have fun no matter what you chose you will have a GREAT time!

 

[golden1]

We are going to try it with the Fantasmic dining package. That way there won't be as much waiting around. My almost 2 year old is pretty hard to scare right now so hopefully he'll be okay.

 

[ckoncurat]

My daughters (ages 4 and 2 at the time), plus their grandma all HATED fantasmic. This show is "Villians 'R US"- almost every disney villian shows up, lots of scary music, fire. Special effects are great, but we won't be going back until my kids are older.

 

[LakeAriel]

We are going to try it with the Fantasmic dining package. That way there won't be as much waiting around. My almost 2 year old is pretty hard to scare right now so hopefully he'll be okay.

There is still a very long wait. Both times I saw the show I had dinner reservations. Once at Hollywood and Vine and once at Brown Derby. Each child is different but prepare to wait and there is a long walk to the theater also, have a stroller for the older tykes.

 

[hehesmom]

Thanks everyone for all your great input and advice. We still have a bit of time before our trip and our daughter may change a lot in 7 months. I really appreciate everyone's thoughts - thanks.

 

[klineyqueen]

My son was 2 on our last trip and he was totally into fantasmic. It had his complete attention! He doesn't scare easily and is a good little guy..he is easy to entertain. We a pile of mini stickerbooks in our diaper bag that we used to entertain him whenever we had to wait and they worked like a charm!