There is no shortage of add on and upgrade experiences at Walt Disney World. Between dining packages, backstage tours, and dessert parties, the possibilities are endless. Living in Orlando, they’re usually not my first pick to spend money on. For us, it’s so easy to go see the show another night, I usually don’t worry about having the perfect seat. So, when Jay surprised me with the Fantasmic Dessert Package, I was really excited because it’s not something I ever would have gotten to do normally.
There are three ways to guarantee you have a seat at Fantasmic: Fastpass, the Fantasmic Dining Package, and the Fantasmic Dessert Party. Fastpass will get you a seat, but there’s no telling where it’ll be. The Dining Package and Dessert Party share the same seating area, and it’s pretty much perfectly centered.
Jay made the reservations so I didn’t get the instructions directly, but they asked us to be there by 7:15 pm for an 8:30 showtime. Honestly, that’s pretty close to what time we would have gotten there anyway, to get decent seats with Fastpass. My only complaint was someone insisted on riding Tower of Terror, and that got us over to see Sorcerer Mickey late, so we didn’t have time before we had to be at Fantasmic. (I thought it would be cute to meet Mickey, then go see him in his show. Duffy even matched him!)
We reached the check in point at the Ampitheater, which is where we normally would scan our Fastpasses. Dessert Party guests were being sent up to the left, so that’s what we did after they checked our names off a list. We were given two light up lanyards, and then moved forward to be handed two GIANT snack bags. Next up was the drink station, and the first actual explanation we got of what was happening from a lovely Cast Member named Sharia.
We got two souvenir cups that also lit up and had the choice of a red rum punch or a blue margarita. Jay went with rum; I went with the margarita. The best part? We could come back as much as we wanted for refills! She even went ahead and set Jay up with his first refill in a plastic disposable cup.
If someone had told me the Fantasmic Dessert Package had unlimited alcohol, we would have done it YEARS ago.
The seating section is fairly large, and you can go wherever you want. We picked higher ground, and went all the way to the end of the row, so we wound up as centered as we could get without worrying about Cast Members asking us to fill space later.
We pulled out our snack trays, and they took up our entire laps! There was a printed menu of everything they contained, although apparently, I forgot to take a picture of it, so here’s a list:
- Strawberries dipped in white chocolate
- Chocolate Mousse with crispy pearls and white chocolate coin
- Evil Queen’s Apple Pie topped with oatmeal crisp
- Ursula’s cheesecake topped with strawberry pearls
- Chocolate chip cookie brownie
- Passion fruit and mango macaroons
- Mini Babel cheese snack accompanied by fresh grapes and crackers
The cheesecake was my favorite because I love a good cheesecake, but I also really liked the macaroons. Jay immediately confiscated my cheese to eat it. His favorite was the apple pie and the strawberries. The grapes were actually really nice to have to counteract all the sweetness.
Even with two people and a bear, there was SO MUCH food we actually couldn’t finish it all. So, we combined the two snack trays into one, and put it back in the bag to save for later. Jay took both our cups back for refills twice before the show started.
Then, of course, I cried all through the finale of Fantasmic. It is my favorite show!
Fantasmic is the only show at Walt Disney World where I’ve done both the dessert party and the dining package, and I’ve actually done the dining package at Disneyland as well. I think you get the most for your money with the Dessert Party. We walked away with two souvenirs each, and neither of them are something you could buy on their own in the parks. That’s on top of the amazing slew of desserts and drinks! The dining package is still a good value, in Florida at least, if you’re wanting to eat at a table service restaurant anyway, but you spend more money and you don’t have anything to take home. This, at least finally took some of the sting out of our miserable Fantasmic dining experience at Disneyland two years ago.
This is also the least expensive dessert package at Disney, but is the only one that doesn’t seem to be unlimited desserts. However, it is the easiest to take your leftovers home!
Cost: $39 plus tax.
Value: 10/10, would gladly do again.
Duration: With the show time included, it’s about two hours. I have a feeling we could have gotten there later than we did.
Add Ons: This is the add on.
