The Shows
We did more shows than rides on this trip, though still no where near
*all* the shows! We saw Little Mermaid (it was in rehab the last time I
was here). The mist effect works a little TOO well...we got raindrops as
well as mist. And for us, the effect at the end of the show where
Mermaid Ariel turns into Human Ariel did NOT work...and Mermaid Ariel
was left sitting on her rock. Too bad, because I'd heard that they had
improved the effect.
We saw Beauty and the Beast, which better than I remembered, but still, the best part of that show is the pre-show with Four for a Dollar. :-)
At Animal Kingdom, we saw Festival of the Lion King on two different
days - the first day we saw it was *very* disappointing, because the
singers were pretty bad. I can understand that they want to put their
own individual stamp on the songs, but some of them were barely
recognizable. One amusing thing...the firedancer actually set his
loincloth on fire and had to spend a few seconds beating it out with one
hand while he twirled his flaming baton with the other. :-) At this
show we arrived late and were seated waaaay in the back (third from the
last row) of the Lion section. We felt very isolated back there, and not
part of the show at all...when we came back several days later we were
in the 4th row of the Lion section, and that was SO much better!!! We
also had a much better set of singers for that show, though the duet on
"Can you Feel the Love Tonight" was a little ragged. I still like the
tumble monkeys the best, though. :-)
We saw "Tarzan Rocks" as well - we always seem to see the same lead
singer (Billy) though it's never the same female singers. We'd both
enjoy the show a lot more if they'd get rid of Terk and the audience
"clap-along" part. I guess it appeals to the kids, but we really
dislike it. The rest of the show is so high-energy and visually
interesting, but that part just drags it down.
During "Flights of Wonder" I was able to see my favorite bird again -
Sluggo the Sereiama. :-) I just love watching him bash the little
rubber alligator - he does it with such enthusiasm! :-) We actually
saw a *female* "Guano Jane", instead of the usual "Guano Joe", and she
was pretty good. Before we saw the show we talked to one of the bird
trainers outside who had brought out a barn owl, and asked her if Sluggo
was still in the show (since I hadn't seen him in over a year and a
half). She said yes, but they alternate him with Webby the Buzzard -
I guess I'd just been unlucky in my show selection since I'd been seeing
Webby instead of Sluggo lately. We found out that the bald eagle weighs
9-10 pounds, and the barn owl only weighs about 3 - he's all feathers
and fluff! :-)
We saw one Pocahontas Training Session - I still prefer that to the
regular show. They brought out one raccoon, who did his behavior quite
well..he runs across the log, picks up a pine cone, stands, then as soon
as he hears that little click, he drops the cone and is off like a
shot. :-) They also were
training some rats to run across the log as
a group - they were a bit less polished. And then there were the
doves...they are supposed to come to feed out of Pocahontas' hands, and
they used to do that, but they had a layoff in their training and shows,
and now they just fly up and perch on top of the stage. Which is what
they did this time. (In talking to a CM later in the week, we
discovered that they had stopped flying the doves because they had had
some opportunistic hawks in the area that were taking advantage of the
easy prey, and the audience didn't really like seeing the "circle of
life" quite so up close and personal.)
At Epcot we saw at least a little bit of most of the live
entertainment over the course of the week. We saw two complete sets of
Off Kilter one evening - and both sets were 30-35 minutes! They were
really "on" that night and it was a lot of fun to watch them. We had
seen them Sunday evening but Jamie (the bagpiper player) wasn't with
them...they had a violinist instead. Who did just fine, but it just
wasn't the same without the bagpipes. We saw them perform several songs
that were new to us. (Which are on their new CD, but that wasn't yet
available when we were there.)
 |
| Le Mime Roland |
We saw a new (to us) act...Lou E.G. in Italy. I guess he's a mime...he did some pretty funny stuff. One of his gags was to take a piece of masking tape and lay it sticky side up on the pavement, then watch to see if anyone would step on it. Then it was fun to watch his reactions as people just missed it. And we saw Le Mime Roland in France - he kept getting upstaged by the kids from the audience he was working with. :-) Lee normally thinks mimes are a terrible waste, but he though these two were ok.
No trip is complete without seeing the World Showcase Players - I think
this time Lee sabotaged his chances of playing King Arthur because at
the beginning when the CM asked "What do you think of the show so far?"
he shouted "Rubbish" before we were instructed to do so. :-) The guy
they did get was very good, though.
 |
| American Vybe performs "Fever" |
We also caught little bits of Spelmans Gledje in Norway, Masquerade in Italy (which we don't get at all, but it's been around for several years now, so *someone* must like it), Miyuki the candy artist in Japan (I'm still amazed at what she can do with just a couple of snips and pinches!), Matsuriza, also in Japan (another one that I don't see the appeal of), and MoRockin' in, appropriately enough, Morocco.
At Magic Kingdom the only show we saw was "Cinderella's Surprise Celebration". Which we had not seen before, and it was actually pretty cute. Though at the end they had a little bit of a technical problem...the banners are all supposed to turn back to the usual "Cinderella" banners rather than the "Villains" banners...but the one on the front of the castle didn't go up all the way, so it was half and half. :-)
At the Studios we saw the Streetmosphere characters playing an
improv game show..."99
The Parades
We saw the entire Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade one day. This was fun,
because we were standing on the Harambe bridge without too many people
around us, and Lee had his stuffed Stitch with him. One thing we
discovered on this trip is that the Disney Cast Members just LOVE
Stitch - and during the parade they pointed at him, came over to see
him, and Chip actually took him and showed him to one of the
puppeteers. (Stitch does have a lot of Chip and Dale qualities - do you
suppose he's really a genetically engineered chipmunk?)
I miss the Tapestry of Dreams parade at Epcot...it's just not the same
wandering around there in the evening without hearing the music.
The Parks
I think I've said this before, but Animal Kingdom has a definite problem
with crowds...even when there aren't that many people IN the park, it
still seems like there's lots of people....the walkways are always so
crowded. I don't know...maybe that's part of the "theming" to simulate
the crowding in Africa and Asia...but I don't really think so. That's
one reason we typically go to AK early or late...when there aren't quite
so many people there.
We went on the safari five times this trip...three times in one day! :-)
Our quest is to go on a "poacher-free" safari. We went on two
end-of-day safaris this trip...and on the last one we thought we'd
succeeded and would be poacher free...there were only seven people on
our jeep. But no...two of the people had NOT done the safari before.
Sigh. What idiots wait until 4:50 p.m. to do their very first
safari???? Our driver (Beth) was really cool, though...she did the
whole poacher thing, but she also made an effort to try to point things
out to us and tell us things that we *didn't* know. So we discovered
that giraffes have 16" tongues and can clean their ears out with them
(ewww!), and that male and female kudu actually really dislike each
other, and are only together during mating season. And we also learned
that some elephants have five legs. We saw a male that was
rather...umm...*excited* shall we say? And he definitely appeared
to have more appendages than usual. :-) On a couple of earlier
safaris we learned that okapis can lick their eyeballs with their
tongues (yuck!), and that wildebeest are called "gnu" because that's
the noise that they make..."gnu, gnu". I'm sorry that I don't
remember her name, because we had another notable driver...she told
us that she was from the jungle...the jungle of Massachussetts. :-)
The Studios...I don't know about this one. For as big as it is, there's
not that much to *do*. Or not that much that merits frequent repeat
visits. Hunchback is gone, Great Movie Ride is closed for rehab,
Doug is gone, the Backlot Tour and Sounds Dangerous are complete
wastes of time, Indy is a once-every-couple-of-years event, and
things like Millionaire, Beauty and the Beast, the Animation Tour,
and Little Mermaid are on show schedules, so it makes it hard to
plan efficiently. We went over in the morning, saw Mermaid and
the Animation Tour, were NOT able to get in to Millionaire via the
standby line, the lines for Tower of Terror and Rock'n'Roller
Coaster were 45 minutes, so we decided that was enough. We did go
back later in the day and saw the parade, Beauty and the Beast,
and rode Tower of Terror. Never did do the roller coaster this trip,
since the standby line was always too long, and we were using FastPass
for other things (Mermaid or Tower of Terror). This may now be my least
favorite park...Tower of Terror may not be enough to keep it above Magic
Kingdom since it has Pooh and Buzz *and* the castle.
Epcot remains our favorite park...we were there at some point on five of
our 7 days. :-) Even though we spent a lot of time just wandering
around and not actually DOING a whole lot. I think Imagination, Circle
of Life, and Test Track were the only Future World attractions we did -
we never even went in the other pavilions. We saw Illuminations
three times, though the first two times the globe was NOT spinning -
Kenny told us that it had been broken the previous weekend, too.
It doesn't have the same impact when you just see the same continents
all the time...and from some places you probably don't see much of
anything but dark ocean! Fortunately by Friday night it was fixed.
We found a new favorite viewing spot between Germany and the African
outpost - it has an unobstructed view of the globe and the fireworks,
and you can see the lights on most of the pavilions.
I was sorry to miss Epcot's Flower and Garden show this year, but
it started late due to Easter being late, and I was trying to avoid
the hot weather - quite successfully! It ended up being the right
decision - I have a friend who went to Flower and Garden at about
the time we would have gone (Hi Ilene!), and she told me that it
was HOT - in the 90s every day. I'm glad we missed that.
In Conclusion
It was a really nice vacation - much more relaxing and restful than our
usual Disney vacations. And that's all I have to say about that. :-)
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Text and photographs copyright © 2003 by Laura Gilbreath.
All rights reserved.
Laura Gilbreath lgil@cts.com
I *finally* saw the "Stars and Motorcars" parade at the Studios - Lee
had seen it. It was cute for what it was, but not something I'd wait
very long for. The Lilo and Stitch car was fun, because Stitch
was messing with the driver's hat. The
Meg in this parade didn't make eyes at Lee
the way the one in the Disneyland parade used to. :-)
I think we actually spent more time at Animal Kingdom than any other
park this time. Which I guess is not too surprising since it's our
second favorite park! We went back late one afternoon just to see the
tigers and do the safari - it's very nice being there late in the
day...as long as you don't want food, because everything starts shutting
down when the parade starts at 4:00. We went out to Conservation
Station...uh...Rafiki's Planet Watch...one afternoon and spent probably
40 minutes or so talking to one of the Animal Care Specialists - her
name is A.J. and she works with the animals (mostly birds) at
Conservation Station. She told us lots of interesting things - she'd
also worked at the Pocahontas show for a while. We discovered that the
Flights of Wonder show isn't actually done by Disney - it's contracted
out to another company, so the birds and trainers actually work for
them and not Disney. I wonder if that was true of the original AK
bird show, which was SO bad...if that was Disney or a contractor.
We had lots of fun watching the tigers (as usual)...though the best time
to see the tigers continues to be around 4:00 or later. That's when
they are prowling around ready to go *off* exhibit for the day. So they
are active - walking around, and chasing each other around. Though
sometimes they just sit and look pretty. :-)
As usual, we spent very *little* time at the Magic Kingdom. We would
have gone one evening to see SpectroMagic, but the only night it was
running was the night we arrived...and we didn't realize that. Even if
we had I doubt we would have gone...Going to the MK first thing after
we arrive is not my idea of a fun evening after travelling all day.
We did go to the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday morning for a couple of
hours - we did Pooh twice, Buzz Lightyear twice (I beat Lee both times
even though he drove the second time), a couple other Fantasyland
rides and the castle show, then wandered around and decided that
was enough. It was a really pretty day - the castle surrounded by
blue sky is really lovely.
The new drop sequences on Tower of Terror are cool - I think I've
experienced three of them now. One of them I don't like very much
because it has more short drops rather than long ones, and I like more
air time! I also don't care for the seat belt seats...I don't get
nearly as much air time with those as with the lap bar. :-) We did
get one ride this time with the lap bar rather than the seatbelts.
Back to Laura and Lee's Vacation Page
Tigger and Stitch's Disney Invasion
Stitch Was Here
times.
Last updated 5/26/03
