Walt Disney World might have something else up its sleeve for Christmas 2025. Although holiday entertainment has already been announced for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios there’s reason to believe that something more might be coming: a rumored return of a drone show, possibly “Disney Dreams That Soar” from last summer. (Updated September 4, 2025 at 12:05 pm Eastern.)
In case you’re unfamiliar with it, “Disney Dreams That Soar” was a summertime entertainment experience at Disney Springs, where drones took to the skies above Lake Buena Vista with that will be a late-night perk for Walt Disney World visitors. Walt Disney World showcased stories celebrating the joy of flight with state-of-the-art drones choreographed to create designs in the sky and paired with a soaring musical score and memorable movie quotes.
“Disney Dreams That Soar” consisted of over 800 state-of-the-art drones “dancing” across the sky, choreographed to a soaring musical score of iconic Disney music and memorable dialogue from beloved movies. The drones fly in a constant state of transformation, designing towering elements that are 400-feet tall and creating images of some of your favorite Disney characters from Toy Story, Coco, Dumbo, Peter Pan, Up, Star Wars, and more.
The show was approximately 10 minutes long and was presented twice nightly, at 9 p.m. and 10:45 p.m., from May 24 through September 2. The viewing area was on the Disney Springs West Side—along the waterfront between Cirque du Soleil and the Aerophile balloon.
“Disney Dreams That Soar” drew rave reviews, including from us (see our Review: Walt Disney World’s Best New Experience for Summer!). In that, we wrote that Disney Dreams That Soar is the “one new offering that’s practically perfect in every way, including the price tag for experiencing it, which is FREE. It’s the only new experience that earns a 10/10 score from me, along with a ‘go out of your way to experience this must-see’ recommendation. That strongest addition at Walt Disney World for Summer 2024 is the Disney Dreams That Soar drone show.”
This was in a season that included the opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, completion of the EPCOT overhaul, and more. Even up against all of those bigger projects, “Disney Dreams That Soar” was the unequivocal winner.
Despite that, we’ve never–not once–questioned whether or when the show would return to Disney Springs. To the contrary, all of our subsequent coverage (and even a large portion of the initial review) has focused on “Disney Dreams That Soar” as proof-of-concept for a nighttime spectacular with drones in one of the parks.
That’s why today’s Walt Disney World rumor, strongly suggesting the return of “Disney Dreams That Soar” (or another drone show) at Disney Springs comes as such a surprise. And almost feels like crossed-wires or some sort of error.
WDW Drone Show Rumor Details (Original)
As first caught by permit-watcher danlb_2000 on WDWMagic, Walt Disney World has filed a new construction permit for the installation of 870 feet of fencing, 6 feet tall, with 5 gates. The permit is assigned to, appropriately enough, the Jim William Fence Company as the contractor and has an address corresponding to Disney Springs.
The construction permit is almost identical to last year’s version of the same for “Disney Dreams That Soar.” If it weren’t for a minor verbiage change and different signatories, I might be inclined to believe that an old permit had been re-filed by accident.
It’s theoretically possible this is for something else, but another permit for 870 feet of fencing, 6 feet tall, with 5 gates–with the only difference being that it’s not “Beta” fencing this year–would be quite the coincidence. It’d be surprising to have an identical area serve a different purpose.
The one thing that’s tough to make sense of is timing. Last year’s permit was filed on April 2nd, after “Disney Dreams That Soar” was announced on March 21st. Walt Disney World is very cognizant of the fact that fans watch permit filings, and that someone would catch that this is an identical permit to last year. That’s why they often make announcements at seemingly inopportune times, such as “The Magic of Disney Animation” returning news mere weeks before it could’ve been a blockbuster headline at Destination D23.
To that point, there were just two different major media events at Walt Disney World. With this permit being filed after both, it would’ve made sense to announce the return of “Disney Dreams That Soar” (or whatever this is) at one of those. Something about this just feels off.
UPDATE: No Drone Show Coming to WDW
As it turns out, something about this was off. Walt Disney World has clarified that the newly-filed Notice of Commencement does not relate to the return of “Disney Dreams That Soar” or any other drone show.
Rather, it’s basically housekeeping because final inspections on the project site have not yet been completed, and the previous permit was approach its expiration. That explains why it’s so similar to the prior permit–it’s essentially an extension of that, even though “Disney Dreams That Soar” ended one year ago.
We’re preserving our original commentary for posterity, and since it still largely remains an accurate assessment of the inevitable future drone show at Walt Disney World, especially since we were skeptical of another one at Disney Springs in the first place…
Our Commentary
“Disney Dreams That Soar” was a smash success. It drew huge crowds to Disney Springs last summer, giving the area a shot in the arm during the hot summer months when locals and tourists might’ve otherwise avoided the area. A superficial analysis might thus conclude that it makes complete sense to bring it back.
However, the reason we’ve never questioned the show not returning is because it was also a logistical nightmare. Crowd control was complete chaos, as locals and tourists alike flooded into Disney Springs for the free show. Traffic was bad arriving and exiting Disney Springs, and extra Cast Members were needed as crowd control.
As busy as Magic Kingdom has been for the launch of Starlight, it was worse last summer at Disney Springs for the drone show. Having entertainment this good–the highlight of last year at Walt Disney World–without a paywall was a recipe for exactly that!
As you might know, we cover travel beyond Disney. One emerging trend that we’ve observed with two things, Fourth of July fireworks in certain US cities and Christmas illuminations in Japan, is growing backlash among businesses (and residents, but that’s not really relevant here). Once champions of these offerings because of the increased foot traffic, businesses have realized that volume of traffic doesn’t matter–quality does.
When a locality has a free entertainment offering, it drives a certain type of traffic and the accompanying congestion and overcrowding often discourages businesses’ actual clientele from visiting. Stated differently, there are massive crowds of people there to see the free thing and only that, and the actual customers avoid the area because it’s not worth fighting the crowds.
(It’s not just Disney that is aiming upmarket–every tourist destination wants to target higher-spending demographics if at all possible. This is especially true in places where low-spending tourists place more of a strain on resources than they contribute to the local economy, making them a net-negative. But I digress.)
Disney Springs would’ve been dead last summer without “Disney Dreams That Soar.” So I’m not suggesting this dynamic already played out. If I had to guess, there were probably winners and losers last summer.
Restaurants like Summer House on the Lake and others that offered packages for the drone show were likely huge winners, doing far more business than they otherwise would’ve. Even the so-called losers probably didn’t see the drone show as a net-negative, as summer would’ve been slower, regardless.
My other guess is that “Disney Dreams That Soar” came to fruition in the first place to appease operating third party participants at Disney Springs. Previously, my strong suspicion was that it was proof-of-concept for an in-park show this year, but that didn’t happen.
Regardless, it could’ve been a “two birds with one stone” type of deal. Tenants had seen decreased foot traffic the previous summer as pent-up demand ended, and the show was a way to make them happy while also giving guests new entertainment and a chance for Disney to test something. Win-win-win.
The summertime drone show was probably a net-positive, on balance, but I also strongly suspect that it wasn’t as much of a net-positive as tenants had hoped. And probably not enough of one for Walt Disney World to justify the labor and logistical costs incurred. So even if it was win-win-win, the biggest winner was guests.
The thing is, October through December is a totally different story. These are already the busiest few months of the year at Disney Springs, and while traffic has cooled a bit since the peak of pent-up demand, the shopping and dining district is still pretty busy during the evenings.
I’d speculate that this is the stretch of year when per guest spending is the highest at Disney Springs, between convention attendees with expense accounts coming to restaurants followed by families doing holiday dinners and Christmas shopping. The organic foot traffic that already exists feels strong and, more importantly, very healthy. There’s a bit of holiday entertainment, but it’s an enhancement, not a marquee draw. This is already a winning combination!
If I were a tenant at Disney Springs, I would not be pushing for a return of “Disney Dreams That Soar” this holiday season. I would’ve maybe done that over the summer, depending upon my location, but definitely not at Christmas. Around the holiday season, I’d be concerned that the influx of demand during an already high-demand time of year would ruin an already good thing.
I would think that would be the consensus view among the third party operating participants, too. They live this stuff, and aren’t just firing off a blog post after seeing a permit. This is what makes me skeptical about a return of “Disney Dreams That Soar.” Who actually wants this? It’s an expense for Walt Disney World, and potentially a net-negative for third parties at Disney Springs. And at this point, it’s unlikely to drive any new bookings from tourists. (I mean, I want this, but my “vote” doesn’t really count since I’m going regardless!)
On the other hand, Walt Disney World already did a drone show for Christmas at Disney Springs.
Starbright Holidays – An Intel Collaboration, a first-of-its-kind light show featuring 300 Intel Shooting Star drones that brought the nighttime sky alive with synchronized choreography set to a specially orchestrated arrangement of classic holiday music. Showings of “Starbright Holidays” at Disney Springs were at 7:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. nightly, and it ran from November 20, 2016 through January 8, 2017.
If it happened once, surely it can happen again, right? Yeah, sure. “Starbright Holidays” was very busy (and mindblowing for the time, since drone shows weren’t as mainstream a decade ago), but the difference is that 2016 was less busy as a whole as 2025 at Disney Springs. Most notably, it was before Central Florida’s population absolutely exploded. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the population of local Disney fans is nearly double what it was then–and that’s the primary driver of crowding for something like this, as tourist numbers to Disney Springs should be somewhat static.
A final possibility is that Walt Disney World is rebuilding the drone staging and launch site not for “Disney Dreams That Soar,” but as a test site for an in-park entertainment offering. I’m not sure this is necessary for a test, but it might be considered a ‘best practice.’
For reference, last year’s test was conducted from a launch pad in the parking lot behind Cirque du Soleil in the overnight hours. That didn’t require any permits, but was visible from Disney Springs and Saratoga Springs. While we might expect to see a repeat of that if this was for a drone show destined for the parks, it’s possible that Walt Disney World went the permit route to err on the side of caution.
Since “Disney Dreams That Soar” ended, our take has consistently been that there’s no way that the company spent all of that money developing nighttime entertainment for a show at Disney Springs. It’s just too good to be the final culmination of drone shows at Walt Disney World. It’s gotta be proof of concept–a test of the technology for something bigger and better. Does anyone really think Disney would purposefully locate its best summer entertainment outside of a park in a place that’s free to see?!
There are several reasons for Animal Kingdom finally getting a drone show, most notably that attendance is significantly lower at Animal Kingdom than any other park at Walt Disney World. The park is in urgent need for additions, and there’s a good chance that the other parks start cannibalizing Animal Kingdom attendance until that happens. If Epic Universe is going to “steal” park days from Walt Disney World, the first place people will cut is Animal Kingdom.
It especially makes sense during the non-summer months, as sunset happens earlier, allowing for two showtimes before 8 pm. Factor in all of the construction closures, upcoming extinction of DINOSAUR and more, and it just makes sense to use a drone show as a stopgap at Animal Kingdom this holiday season and into 2026.
A drone show at Animal Kingdom would solve a lot of problems. I’m still skeptical they’d launch one now as opposed to waiting until 2027 when Tropical Americas opens, but that’s one conceivable explanation for this permit. And it does make more sense to run one in the winter and spring as opposed to summer.
Ultimately, we’re really excited about this regardless of whether it’s “Disney Dreams That Soar” returning to Disney Springs or laying the groundwork for the debut of a brand-new drone show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
We both loved “Disney Dreams That Soar,” and would enjoy seeing that again, even if it means fighting the Christmas-time crowds. (If anyone at Disney is reading this, we’d absolutely “contribute to the local economy” by buying some ice cream and cookies while there!)
As Annual Passholders, we’d far prefer a brand-new drone show at Animal Kingdom. Putting the nighttime offering behind the paywall of a theme park gate makes more sense and would alleviate crowding and congestion concerns. Animal Kingdom also has an unused venue that’s perfectly appropriate for this type of thing, and it could be a much-needed shot in the arm for the park.
Above all else, I’m excited for what this signals–continuing to usher in a new era of entertainment at Walt Disney World. There is something to this permit, we’re just not sure of the landing point for these drones just yet. And I’m confident that “Disney Dreams That Soar” was/is the starting point for drones at WDW, but certainly not the endpoint.
Whether it’s another run at Disney Springs this Christmas or a test for the real deal at Animal Kingdom further down the road, there’s something to this. The upside to drones in a theme park at Walt Disney World is too high–they’ll find a way to make it work eventually. We’ll keep you posted on this rumor/developing story, as we strongly suspect there’s something to this other than the return of “Disney Dreams That Soar.” Stay tuned.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about this rumor/construction permit? Do you believe this is a return of the “Disney Dreams That Soar” drone show at Disney Springs? Or do you think this is testing for a fully-fledged, drone-driven nighttime spectacular at Animal Kingdom in 2026? Do you agree or disagree with our reasons as to why one is undesirable at Disney Springs from October through December? Any other thoughts or commentary to add? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!