(Disney on Ice Presents Worlds of Fantasy is currently playing at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC, through Monday, February 16. Buy tickets here. The show is currently touring around North America, and there are lots of dates in lots of different cities, so check the full calendar to see if it’s playing near you.)

Disney on Ice seems to be in the area every few months, and it seems like it’s a different show each time. Indeed, there are currently six different touring shows, and each is a bit different.

Worlds of Fantasy does its best to appeal to the entire family by splitting the show up into four segments—apparently two for girls and two for boys. Your mileage may vary. My daughter loved the “boy segments,” and my son enjoyed those ostensibly meant for girls.

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The show begins—like all Disney on Ice performances—with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy. It’s not Disney without them, right? They set up the conceit that we’re about to have an adventure and travel to four different fantastic worlds.

First up is the world of Cars. Mater, McQueen, Sally, Flo, and Ramone drive around the ice, spin around, and act out a few cute scenes. I know they’re trying to capitalize on the popularity of the Cars films, but it’s an odd choice for an ice skating show. The cars are definitely impressive and cool to see, but there’s no skating happening here. These are full-size cars literally driving on the ice.

My son was beside himself with happiness, though, and I suppose that’s what really matters.

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Next up, we travel under the sea to visit Ariel. All the songs you expect to hear are here. “Under the Sea,” “Kiss the Girl,” and “Part of Your World.” An impressive-looking Ursula even comes out for “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” The skating in this segment was impressive, but the costumes were a bit hit or miss. As I said, Ursula was great. Flounder and Sebastian? Not so much.

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Finally, we head to Pixie Hollow for Tinker Bell and the other fairies. We get an almost complete reenactment of the first Tinker Bell movie, complete with flying fairies and LOTS of props. Neither of my kids are big Tinker Bell fans, so even though they enjoyed the show, this segment fell a little flat.

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After intermission, the entire second act is a reenactment of Toy Story 3. We’re all huge fans of the Toy Story movies, so it was fantastic to see all the characters out there on ice. The costumes were all amazing (except for Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, who have seen better days), and it was a joy to see some of the more elaborate costumes, including Rex, Hamm, and Bullseye.

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However, this segment is the entire second act, and it definitely begins to drag after a while. Barbie and Ken get a surprising amount of time to themselves on the ice, and there are a few extended dance routines that could’ve been shortened.

Although we adore Toy Story, the show as a whole would’ve been better served with a fifth or sixth segment. There’s no need to have so much time devoted to one set of characters, especially since the opening Cars segment was so short.

Would I recommend Worlds of Fantasy? If you’ve got kids who enjoy this type of thing, then absolutely. There’s a lot to enjoy here, and the Disney on Ice shows are well produced with some great theatrics and special effects.

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(Disclosure: I am a Feld Family Ambassador. As part of this program, I received complimentary tickets to Disney on Ice. All opinions remain my own.)

Jamie Greene
Jamie is a publishing/book nerd who makes a living by wrangling words together into some sense of coherence. Away from The Roarbots, Jamie is a road trip aficionado and an obsessed traveler who has made his way through 33 countries (and counting). Elsewhere on the interwebs, he's a contributor to SYFY Wire and StarWars.com and hosted The Great Big Beautiful Podcast for more than five years. Watch The Roarbots on Youtube

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