Review - Horizons: A Carousel of Progress was the Showcase that Proved Disney is Listening
To get right to the point, the Disney Experiences showcase at D23 exceeded my expectations in nearly every way. While the sheer volume of announcements was understandably lower than the previous installment, the execution somehow managed to clear the already high bar set in 2024. This year wasn’t about volume. It was about quality, confidence, and, perhaps most importantly, connection. More significant than any individual announcement was the feeling that permeated the entire evening. Disney Experiences gets us. They understand us. They are listening to us. And they genuinely appreciate the passion that Disney fans bring to these parks, resorts, ships, and experiences.
That vibe was apparent before the showcase even officially began. The rather miserable warm-up act from the first night, which inexplicably involved five people trying to manufacture enthusiasm in the arena, was replaced by just two people. But these two knew the room. Instead of treating the audience like a generic awards-show crowd that needed to be told when to cheer, they leaned into why everyone was there in the first place. Classic Disney music filled the arena, including plenty of selections from shows and attractions of yesteryear. The DJ even mentioned that he had been sitting in the audience at the previous D23, establishing his bona fides as a Disney fan. More importantly, I believed him. His musical choices and comments demonstrated the kind of authentic fandom that is almost impossible to fake in a room filled with people who can immediately tell the difference. That seemingly small change foreshadowed what would become the theme of the entire evening. Disney Experiences wasn’t simply presenting things to Disney fans. It felt like the people producing the showcase understood that they were part of the same conversation.
Once the main presentation began, that philosophy became even clearer. This year's showcase took on the form of a talk show, with sit-down conversations interspersed with musical performances and celebrity appearances. It was a deceptively simple change that completely altered the rhythm of the evening. Neil Patrick Harris proved to be an ideal host, effortlessly moving between jokes, interviews, announcements, and emotional moments without ever making the show feel like it had ground to a halt so someone could read a press release.
One of my biggest criticisms of the previous showcase was that it sometimes felt as though the team had booked famous musical acts without realizing that, for this particular audience, the attractions are the stars. People aren't coming to the Disney Experiences showcase hoping to attend a random concert with some park announcements sprinkled in between. They want to hear about Disney Experiences. For the most part, this year's musical performances understood that distinction. They felt connected to the parks and the stories being told on stage, while their placement throughout the evening improved the pacing and gave the audience a chance to catch its breath between major reveals.
Perhaps nothing captured the new approach better than Gloria Gaynor paying tribute to the Disco Yeti. On paper, it sounds ridiculous. In the arena, it was perfect. The moment demonstrated a level of self-awareness that Disney Experiences has not always been willing to embrace publicly. The Disco Yeti has been a joke among Disney fans for years, born from frustration over one of Imagineering's most impressive creations being unable to perform as originally intended. Instead of pretending the joke didn't exist, Disney embraced it, laughed alongside the fans, and then delivered the news they had been waiting years to hear. That is how you turn a longstanding sore spot into a celebration.
The one musical guest who never quite fit was Beck, who couldn't have been more obviously reading from the teleprompter during his appearance. More frustratingly, the decision to end the evening with “Where It's At” killed some of the incredible energy created by the return of Figment and Dreamfinder. After delivering one of the most emotionally satisfying announcements of the night, the showcase ended with a song that had little connection to what we had just experienced while a largely disinterested audience rushed for the buses. It was an oddly generic ending to an evening that had otherwise been remarkably specific in understanding its audience.
If the ending missed the mark, however, the beginning was spectacular. The opening “Disney Animatronic” number may be the greatest non-announcement moment I have ever experienced at a D23 event. It managed to be funny, nostalgic, affectionate, and self-deprecating all at once, filled with references and homages that rewarded the people who know these attractions inside and out. Once again, the message was unmistakable: Disney knows what the fans talk about. Better yet, they are increasingly willing to join the conversation instead of standing outside of it.
We knew going into this D23 that the Experiences showcase would be different from 2024. The last event was about planting flags and revealing an enormous slate of projects. This time, the expectation was that Disney would dive deeper into many of those previously announced experiences while offering a smaller number of surprises. The talk-show format fit that mission like a glove.
The Imagineers, in particular, seemed much more comfortable sitting down and having conversations than standing alone on a massive stage delivering rehearsed presentations. There was a noticeable excitement when the people actually bringing these experiences to life were able to talk about their work. Instead of simply seeing concept art and hearing opening dates, we got a better sense of why decisions were being made and what excites the teams creating these attractions. That human element helped turn what could have been a two-hour project update into an actual show.
There was one anomaly in the otherwise successful guest strategy: Mark Rober's inclusion in the Space Mountain conversation. You certainly can't question his popularity or his ability to connect science and engineering with a massive audience, but he contributed very little to the actual discussion of Space Mountain. If Disney felt it was important to include a YouTube star in the showcase, I would have much rather heard about Rober's partnership with Disney over the past year to help make Make-A-Wish dreams come true. That would have connected him organically to Disney Experiences and given his appearance some emotional weight instead of making him feel inserted into a conversation where he didn't really belong.
The other celebrity cameos were much more successful because they felt authentically Disney. Paige O'Hara, Jack McBrayer, John Stamos, Megan Hilty, and the legendary Glenn Close all made sense within this particular universe, and the rapturous reactions they received proved it. Their appearances provided star power without overwhelming the actual stars of the evening: the experiences themselves. They also helped keep the show moving and prevented the more detailed Imagineering conversations from becoming too dry. But as spectacular as the packaging was, ultimately a Disney Experiences showcase lives or dies by the actual content. And this is where the evening became something special.
It was almost as though someone had gone through a Disney fan wish list and started checking boxes. The Imagineering Story Season 2? Check. The Yeti brought back to life? Check. Bringing new life to Disneyland's Tomorrowland? Check. Figment and Dreamfinder? Check. What more could we realistically have asked for outside of a functioning Fantasmic! Dragon? More importantly, these weren't simply random projects designed to generate applause in the Honda Center. Many addressed things Disney fans have been talking about for years, and in some cases decades.
The previous D23 Experiences showcase was largely about Disney's future growth. It introduced massive projects designed to add capacity, expand existing parks, introduce new intellectual property, and attract broader audiences. Those investments remain enormously important, and many of them are now moving from concept art into reality. This year's showcase complemented that strategy by focusing much more directly on the people who are already deeply invested in Disney Experiences.
Disney is embarking on an unprecedented era of expansion, with more projects underway across its global portfolio than at any other point in the company's history. That alone would have been enough to make this an exciting time to be a Disney fan. But expansion without stewardship can leave longtime fans wondering whether the places and experiences they already love are being forgotten in the pursuit of whatever comes next.
This showcase provided a compelling answer to that concern. Disney can build Villains Land while fixing the Yeti. It can expand Avengers Campus while finally confronting Tomorrowland. It can create enormous new experiences based on today's biggest franchises while bringing Figment and Dreamfinder back together. Growth and nostalgia do not have to be opposing forces. At its best, Disney Experiences can do both. And that may be the biggest reason this showcase worked so well. The most important announcement wasn't a new attraction, land, ship, show, or television series. It was an attitude.
For years, Disney fans have debated whether the company really hears them. This showcase felt like an emphatic response. From the music playing before the show to the jokes made on stage, from the Imagineers given room to share their enthusiasm to the projects Disney chose to announce, there was a consistent sense that the people running Disney Experiences understand the conversation happening among their most passionate fans.
Of course, listening doesn't mean doing everything fans demand, nor should it. Disney Experiences still needs to surprise us, challenge us, and create things we didn't know we wanted. But there is a difference between being creatively independent and being disconnected from your audience. This year's showcase found an impressive balance between the two.
The 2024 showcase was about scale. It showed us just how much Disney was willing to invest in the future of its parks and experiences. The 2026 showcase was about something harder to quantify: trust. Disney spent the evening demonstrating that while it is looking forward, it hasn't forgotten the history that made people fall in love with these places in the first place. We left the Honda Center with plenty of new things to look forward to. But more importantly, we left feeling heard. And for a Disney fan, that may have been the biggest announcement of all.