review: ice escapades
By annemarie on November 25, 2009 | Filed Under events
There are a few magical things I remember about Christmas when I was little. One was going to the Nutcracker Ballet and the other was the Ice Capades, even though I’m a bit fuzzy on whether or not the Ice Capades actually happened during the holiday season, but none-the-less they were magical.
So I was excited to get the opportunity to take my three-year-old and six-year-old girls (along with their grandmother, bringing the whole ice capade thing full circle in a generational way) to the opening night of Disney on Ice Worlds of Fantasy. No matter how you feel about girls and princess obsessions (and I’ve succumbed without trying to encourage it in any way) the combination of princesses, fairies, cars and wild animals cavorting magically on ice beats any objections I have.
What I always forget when I’m watching people skate is how hard it is to skate in a straight line, yet alone twirling and whirling about in a lion’s head. The production value was amazing from the costumes to the flying fairies to the blooming flowers right at the end. My six-year-old kept up a running commentary evaluating the skaters along the lines of “Oooh, he’s really good,” and “Look at her, she’s really good.” To be ranked “really good” you had to twirl in the air, skate around carrying a princess over your head or be a wave.
What I like best about these sort of spectacles is watching my kids watch them. The total suspension of disbelief, the hands clapped over the mouth, the round eyes, the perching on the edge of the chair. My three-year-old had never seen an ice show before and was impatient for the princesses, my six-year-old clapped at the end of each number like an opera buff applauding an aria.
The show consists of four mini shows. Cars come first, then Ariel, then the Lion King, then intermission and then Pixie Hollow. The mini show that held together the best was Ariel, it just seemed to work well visually and with an abbreviated story line. The racing cars on ice were just plain fun. The stampede of the wildebeests in the Lion King was visually amazing but the story was a bit scattered. My three-year-old, who’d never seen it before, got hung up on Simba’s dad dying and so we had long chats about that for the rest of the show. As for Pixie Hollow, well I’ve never been there and I’m not sure I’d like to go back. It was by far the longest story (too long!) and was a bit of a mish mash. That’s an adult point of view though, the kids were enthralled. And the blooming flowers, flying fairies and confetti were truly enchanting.
The whole show ran to about two hours and by the time we worked our way out of the parking lot and made it home it was almost 10:30, so I’m really looking forward to getting everyone out of bed tomorrow morning (ha!). If you were taking a really young child you could leave at the intermission to beat the crush in the parking lot and get home at a slightly more reasonable hour.
The show definitely appealed to both boys and girls and my suggestions for managing it from a parent’s point of view are:
- Manage expectations about “stuff” beforehand. There are heaps of booths selling toys, huge slushies in flower shaped cups, whirligig things and more. So if you’re just there for the the show let your kids know beforehand. It’ll make their disappointment slightly less acute.
- Be zen about the whole parking crush both before and after. I am not zen about these sort of things, I hate sitting in my car in a lineup for twenty minutes at ten at night when I know my kids should be in bed. But I tried to be zen and we got into an intricate discussion about which parts were our favourites and why. My six-year-old’s least favourite part was “all the dreams I’ll be having about all the stuff I want now.”
- If you’ve got princess-loving kids hit the (free) princess pre-show. They’ll be enchanted.
- Suspend disbelief yourself. It’s pretty darn fun (if you can rock the zen part anyhow).
Caveat: I wrote this late at night post show and post putting overexcited kids to bed, so any spelling mistakes and thoughts that don’t quite hang together, well, that’s all on me.
p.s. I forgot to mention how much fun I had watching the girls put together their “most beautiful” outfits. They weren’t quite the ones I considered most beautiful but they thought they were fabulous! My eldest even put on “all her best jewelry.”
Thanks so much for this review. I’m taking my 4 y.o. daughter there this Sunday (going with a few of my friends with their kids as well).
I showed some of the old Disney on Ice videos on YouTube to my daughter, to prepare her. Her favourite Disney character is Pinocchio, but looks like he’s not going to be there in this Disney On Ice performance?
She’ll be very disappointed, I better prepare her for that.
The Pixie Hollow thing is because they are mega pushing fairies now as the next princess thing.
Still don’t know ..may just take her to the new movie!
Thank you for a very helpful review! What time does the princess pre-show begin?
My in-laws are taking my 4-year-old on Sunday. I’m sure that she’s going to have a great time. Me? I’ll be honest, I’m sort of looking forward to the peace and quiet at home.