Celebrating 100 Years of Magic with Disney on Ice at Nottingham Arena

“It was all started by a mouse”.

My daughter had been asking me for months if we could go to Disney on Ice when it was on in Nottingham, and I’d thought it would be lovely to take her as a Christmassy treat so I was very excited to surprise her with it just before we went!

We were very lucky to be given tickets to go and see Disney on Ice 100 Years of Magic at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena, and I got to take Ava, as well as my sister-in-law and my nephew who had also never been.

We were all so excited to be attending the last Disney on Ice performance, celebrating 100 years of Disney magic! We had absolutely amazing seats, although I do think it would be good to watch from pretty much anywhere in the arena. We were sat to the side of the ice, a few rows back and we had an incredible view and it was very cool having the Disney characters so close to us! But because it’s ice dancing I think it would be great to see from up high too.

The kids were so excited as the lights went down and the show started and they adored pointing out some of their favourite characters and waving to them as they skated by or danced near us. It lasted a good length of time overall I think — it was on for sixty minutes, then there was an interval, and then the show was on for another thirty minutes — I would have liked the second part to be on a bit longer because it didn’t feel that long after the break and because I was enjoying it a lot, but it was probably the perfect amount of time for young kids to hold their attention, so I guess they are more important than me…

Disney on Ice showcases over 50 (and some of the best) Disney characters with Mouse-ter of Ceremonies Mickey Mouse, the spirited Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and many of the Disney Princesses, including Jasmine, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Ariel, Snow White and Tiana.

We were sad that Moana wasn’t a part of it as we all love the film and the great songs from it, but I know it is coming for the next show which is called ‘Magical Ice Festival’ after this run finishes in January.

A highlight for all four of us (I’d say particularly the kids but I’m not sure that’s true!) was Toy Story as we all love the films, and A and N were so excited to see Forky on the ice! He was part of it for the first time, alongside the regulars Buzz, Woody and Bo Peep. I wish this bit was longer as it was really good but I did think that could be because there aren’t as many songs in Toy Story — especially where they sing themselves — as there are in many of the other movies.

The Frozen part of the show was really good and you could tell everyone, including us, was really into it. I was singing my little heart out, as was Ava (despite her feeling a bit poorly) and it was such good fun. The story of the film makes for a really good performance on the ice, and as with the whole show, the ice dancers were all absolutely brilliant. I actually kept forgetting that they were actually skating as they just glided around so smoothly, and did wonderful spins and dances. Olaf was brill of course and made us laugh a lot.

The Lion King was beautiful to watch and I loved Hakuna Matata with Timon and Pumbaa. The magic of Disney really makes seeing Disney on Ice so special as not only do you get to see some brilliant ice dancing, but it’s alongside everyone’s favourite songs from their favourite films and it really is quite magical.

We got some chips, a glass of wine each (the adults!) and bottles of water during the interval, and, as expected it was all pretty expensive. We didn’t need to get anything there though; we took some sweets in with us and we could have easily taken our own soft drinks too. I don’t think there was anything stopping us from doing this. They have loads of great Disney merchandise available which was all very appealing to the children (and me) but it was all very expensive, again, as expected, but you can always get your light-up oojamaflips for around a fiver outside of the arena if you prefer, which we did before we saw Little Mix too.

We had a brilliant time and I would love to take my family again next year as a special treat around Christmas. I’d definitely recommend it to families with younger kids, although it’s also a lot of fun seeing it as a much (much) older person too! I loved it and my family all did too — it’s such a joy seeing your children’s faces light up as they spot a character they love.

At the time of writing this there are still tickets available for Disney on Ice in London, Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Cardiff and Birmingham. Get your tickets here.

We were provided with tickets to see Disney on Ice but all words and opinions are my own. See my full disclosure policy here.