When Walt Disney World began its 50th anniversary celebration last October, it did so with a lot of new entertainment options at most of the Disney World parks. Most of these new shows, like Harmonious at Epcot and Enchantment at Magic Kingdom, are expected to last at least through the 18 months of the anniversary, if not to continue after, but one of the new shows, KiteTails at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, is seeing its show come to an end much sooner, though fans of the kites don’t need to worry as they’re not going away entirely.
Today, Blog Mickey reports that the last performance of KiteTails will be May 26. After that date, the massive kites, which look like various Disney animal characters like Simba and Baloo, will no longer be part of a scheduled show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Instead, the kites will be pulled all over the Discovery River Lagoon, not simply in front of the Discovery River Theater. And this will also happen without a set schedule, with the kites appearing more often, but for shorter periods of time.
The KiteTails show was met with some laughter when it first appeared in October. The massive kites being pulled around the water by cast members on jet skis was fine enough on its own. But when the show was over the kites came crashing down onto an unused portion of the theater seating, which, while intentional, always looked like something had gone terribly wrong. Whether it was the wildly weird ending, or the impressive kites themselves, many Disney World guests found the show to at least be charming even if it wasn’t on par with most of the shows in other parks.
For those fans that enjoyed the show, this new way of seeing KiteTails is honestly probably the better way to do it. The kites really are impressive to watch and this way anybody can see them who is walking close to the water at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. And they don’t need to take any real time out of their normal day to see it.
Ambient entertainment without a set schedule is becoming a bigger part of Disney theme parks. It really got moving with Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and then was taken to a new level at Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure. In these places characters aren’t standing in one place waiting to take pictures with guests. They’re walking around their respective lands simply existing, interacting with guests and each other. You never know when you’ll come across them or who it is you might come across.
The global pandemic then changed a lot at Disney World and increased this sort of character interaction by necessity. Since characters and guests couldn’t get too close to each other, the characters were found in the parks simply existing in places guests couldn’t go. This new version of KiteTails is basically that. It’s just going to exist and take place around you. It’s actually really cool. It makes the theme parks feel more alive when this sort of entertainment is just there.
If you do want to catch the traditional KiteTails performance, you can until May 26. Now maybe we can see about Disney Animal Kingdom finally replacing Rivers of Light.
