The Disney Destiny, Disney Cruise Line’s seventh cruise ship, will launch later this year. The vessel is themed around the stories of heroes and villains. One story that will be performed inside the Walt Disney Theater is Disney Hercules, a Broadway-style retelling of the classic animated film. The show will feature larger-than-life musical numbers, puppets, cutting-edge technology and more to bring new energy to the stage adaptation of Hercules.

For Disney Cruise Line, the ship’s crown jewel is the Walt Disney Theater, where each night guests onboard will see performances featuring Disney characters and retelling Disney stories. What makes the Disney Destiny stand out among its other Wish-class ships (the Disney Wish and Disney Treasure) is the immense level of storytelling and technology that is blended together to make each stage performance top-notch.

Although shows don’t just appear onstage overnight, and Disney Hercules is no exception, new technology and storytelling techniques have enabled Disney to enhance its entertainment offerings onboard its new ships. A massive team of performers, choreographers, musicians and more has worked for nearly three years to bring Disney Hercules to life for the Disney Destiny, which will take its maiden voyage on November 20, 2025, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Designing Theater, The Disney Cruise Line Way

“We’re so proud that we get to make theater that, for many people, is their first exposure to this art form that we’re all so incredibly passionate about,” says Jenny Weinbloom, Vice President of Live Entertainment at Disney Signature Experiences. “We’re always incredibly thoughtful as we’re developing these shows that we’re making them for everybody.”

Disney Cruise Line mainly draws nuclear and extended families who want to cruise together. Adults without children is also a growing segment for the brand, which makes sense since this is a booming guest segment at Disney Parks as adults look to tap into the nostalgia of their childhood.

Why Disney Cruise Line Chose ‘Hercules’ For The Disney Destiny

Disney has a deep vault of intellectual property to choose from for live performances. When it was announced that the Disney Destiny would be themed to heroes and villains, the theater creatives knew Hercules had to be the premier show inside the Walt Disney Theater. Not only was it already a musical with a classic score and soundtrack by Alan Menken, it was also one of the ultimate hero and villain stories from Disney’s Renaissance era of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“Hercules is kind of having a moment right now,” explains Weinbloom. “Hercules is on the West End too, which is a delightful coincidence, but it’s because this music is so incredible, the story is so incredible and it’s kind of a perfect time to tap into the nostalgia of this amazing source material and to build upon it.”

The new show, while telling the same story as the West End rendition, will be exclusive to the Disney Destiny.

“Our task is to take that story, take that music and reimagine it through the lens of a theatrical vocabulary,” says Weinbloom. “[We are] taking what’s inherently animated about this story, stripping that away, and taking the story to its core and rebuilding it again for the stage.”

Cutting-edge technology will bring Disney Hercules from Mount Olympus to the Disney Destiny.

This isn’t the first time the Greek god has made its way to a Disney Cruise Line ship. Hercules: The Muse-ical could be seen on the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder from 1998 through 2008, and was earmarked as a musical comedy.

While these two smaller ships have fantastic shows inside The Walt Disney Theater, the Disney Destiny has some major upgrades that have allowed the Disney Hercules production team to enhance the story through technology that was just not possible in the early 2000s.

One of the biggest jumps in technology is the theater itself. “Not all of our ships have the same theater. The Destiny is in the Wish-class of ships, so the Wish, the Treasure and the Destiny. They have significantly larger Walt Disney Theater venues than the smaller, older ships in the fleet. So they have different capabilities attached based on that scale and also based on the technology embedded within those venues,” explains Weinbloom.

Another leap forward in technology is the on-stage puppets. Disney Hercules will have eight total puppets, including two towering Titan puppets. But these Titans aren’t going to be manned behind a curtain like a marionette.

The puppets are actually Exo-frames that were developed in partnership with Walt Disney Imagineering’s research and development team. The puppet style was play-tested at the Disneyland Resort as an Incredible Hulk figure. For the show, there will be an earth Titan and a frost Titan that tower 9 feet and 13 feet tall, respectively, with actual performers inside the puppet.

Additionally, Disney Cruise Line’s rehearsal facility in Toronto, Canada, is a technological marvel. The facility’s multiple rehearsal rooms are designed and marked just like the stage inside the Walt Disney Theater on each of Disney’s cruise ships. There are also dedicated rooms for stunts and flying rigs, which are exactly the same systems used onboard each cruise ship, just in a different space, so performers can get plenty of practice in before heading to the ship.

“From a new show development standpoint, having the facility here has been integral to our process. We did a workshop on the ship and had all of these ideas about what we were going to do, but when we got here and into the actual space, lots of things changed,” explains Arin Dale, the Producer of “Disney Hercules.”

For Disney Cruise Line and Disney Live Entertainment, the goal for Disney Hercules, or any show inside The Walt Disney Theater, is for guests to be truly immersed in Hercules, going from zero to hero as he fights Titans and Hydras.

As “wow” moments come to life on stage, the idea that this may be Disney Cruise Line’s most advanced stage show yet should fade into the background, as storytelling is the prime reason theater exists after all.