I haven’t done one of these for ages, but I’ve got an hour to kill at work before I’m allowed to go home and watch s**t on TV all afternoon, so I’ll throw it in.
I’m on half days at the moment, the weather is lovely (too hot really, but sunny and blue skies) and I hadn’t seen the new Moana show, so thought I’d pop into Disney for the afternoon. I’m not going to do a proper report, just chuck in some pictures and make a few comments here and there.
I was only at the park for around 3 hours, so in terms of rides, I only did Big Grizzly Mountain a couple of times, Space Mountain and Mystic Manor.
Castle reconstruction is underway. Well, the land directly in front of it for now. There are about 4 or 5 small diggers working away behind there at the moment.
I haven’t done Festival of the Lion King for a while, so did that for the air conditioning. It all seemed a bit “off”. It was down for annual maintenance recently (also when they hire/train new performers) and it seemed to me that the backing track has changed slightly since then. The four main characters talk/sing live, but the music and backing vocals are all prerecorded, and that seemed a bit different and was perhaps throwing the performers off a bit? The fire effects were f**ked as well. I’ll probably see “Simba” tonight, so I’ll try and find out why it was a bit crap.
Continuing my quest for air conditioning, I also did the other big indoor show, Mickey and the Wondrous Book. Using my annual pass, I booked early entrance on the train on the way there. Such a great perk since it's still massively popular and people start queuing about an hour before each show on busy days. I can just rock up 10 minutes before it starts, skip the queue and get in first, securing the best seats before the plebs are let in. Festival of the Lion King has the same system, but there's no need to reserve in advance since the capacity is much bigger.
The Moana show then. After seeing the tiny stage area, I wasn’t expecting much, but it’s actually quite a cute little “filler” attraction. It’s just using a small patch of empty space, and provides something extra in Adventure Land, which only had Jungle Cruise and Tarzan’s Treehouse before (well, Lion King as well I guess), despite being the park’s biggest land.
It was actually pretty cute. It’s clearly designed for younger kids, and is very simple in its staging. It’s a very good example of “children’s theatre” really, rather than a traditional theme park show. It has the characters telling the Moana story, with simple actions, puppetry etc. directly to the small audience, who are very close to the stage, rather than perfoming “out” into the space as with the bigger shows.
There is some background music, but it doesn’t act as a backing track that has to be followed strictly as with the two bigger shows. This means that there’s a bit of audience interaction since the action doesn’t have to be so tight – Moana, for example, asks the kids “which way should I go?” and then follows that. It’s done using both English and Cantonese, but not in a just-repeat-everything-twice kind of way.
So yeah, it’s not something I’d bother with again, but it’s quite a lovely little kids’ show really. The actors did a great job interacting with the kids and were really engaging.
There’s also some new/temporary Carnival of Stars parade, which is on an hour or so after the regular parade, is kind of short, and seems to just be there to squirt water at people. Meh.
I’m on half days at the moment, the weather is lovely (too hot really, but sunny and blue skies) and I hadn’t seen the new Moana show, so thought I’d pop into Disney for the afternoon. I’m not going to do a proper report, just chuck in some pictures and make a few comments here and there.
I was only at the park for around 3 hours, so in terms of rides, I only did Big Grizzly Mountain a couple of times, Space Mountain and Mystic Manor.
Castle reconstruction is underway. Well, the land directly in front of it for now. There are about 4 or 5 small diggers working away behind there at the moment.
I haven’t done Festival of the Lion King for a while, so did that for the air conditioning. It all seemed a bit “off”. It was down for annual maintenance recently (also when they hire/train new performers) and it seemed to me that the backing track has changed slightly since then. The four main characters talk/sing live, but the music and backing vocals are all prerecorded, and that seemed a bit different and was perhaps throwing the performers off a bit? The fire effects were f**ked as well. I’ll probably see “Simba” tonight, so I’ll try and find out why it was a bit crap.
Continuing my quest for air conditioning, I also did the other big indoor show, Mickey and the Wondrous Book. Using my annual pass, I booked early entrance on the train on the way there. Such a great perk since it's still massively popular and people start queuing about an hour before each show on busy days. I can just rock up 10 minutes before it starts, skip the queue and get in first, securing the best seats before the plebs are let in. Festival of the Lion King has the same system, but there's no need to reserve in advance since the capacity is much bigger.
The Moana show then. After seeing the tiny stage area, I wasn’t expecting much, but it’s actually quite a cute little “filler” attraction. It’s just using a small patch of empty space, and provides something extra in Adventure Land, which only had Jungle Cruise and Tarzan’s Treehouse before (well, Lion King as well I guess), despite being the park’s biggest land.
It was actually pretty cute. It’s clearly designed for younger kids, and is very simple in its staging. It’s a very good example of “children’s theatre” really, rather than a traditional theme park show. It has the characters telling the Moana story, with simple actions, puppetry etc. directly to the small audience, who are very close to the stage, rather than perfoming “out” into the space as with the bigger shows.
There is some background music, but it doesn’t act as a backing track that has to be followed strictly as with the two bigger shows. This means that there’s a bit of audience interaction since the action doesn’t have to be so tight – Moana, for example, asks the kids “which way should I go?” and then follows that. It’s done using both English and Cantonese, but not in a just-repeat-everything-twice kind of way.
So yeah, it’s not something I’d bother with again, but it’s quite a lovely little kids’ show really. The actors did a great job interacting with the kids and were really engaging.
There’s also some new/temporary Carnival of Stars parade, which is on an hour or so after the regular parade, is kind of short, and seems to just be there to squirt water at people. Meh.