I certainly enjoy the different theme parks. I liked the Animal Kingdom and all the animals we could see. Epcot's World Showcase was exciting and Future World was educational. Disney-MGM was interesting, especially to my children who are interested in acting and show business. Magic Kingdom had the most rides. We all had our favorite activities and as much as I enjoyed some of the rides, I think I like the shows the best.
The Disney-MGM Studio theme park is focused on movies and television, of course. We had dinner and a movie the evening we visited. The dinner was at a restaurant called Hollywood and Vine, which is decorated like a diner in the 50's with waitresses in uniforms and rock-n-roll on the jukebox. The food was a great buffet filled with down home food like our mothers might have made. When we left the restaurant we wandered toward the theater for the evening show. "Fantasmic" is a fireworks and light show starring Mickey Mouse and his friends. In this show, which is a little frightening for the younger children, Mickey's dreams turn to nightmares as all the Disney villains try to take away his joy. Video clips appear on curtains of water that rise out of the lake while Mickey fights for his dreams. He succeeds and then all his friends come out to celebrate.
At Epcot, we saw the evening fireworks and light show called "IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth" which presents the history of the earth from the beginning of time to the present and then into the possibilities of the future. What I enjoyed most in Epcot was a street performance we happened upon while shopping in the villages. As we were leaving a tea shop in England, we noticed three actors setting up in the street. They did a show about King Arthur using Diseny guests to play some of the roles, including Sir Galahad. They made stupid jokes and got the whole audience involved with certain phrases or actions. It was very funny. I saw Sir Galahad later that day and greeted him warmly, with a bow and a smile. I'm not sure if he was embarrassed, but Vicki was!
The movie "The Lion King" was the theme in a show found in the Animal Kingdom. In this show Timon plays with some acrobatic monkeys who play on trampolines and trapezes. There is singing, dancing and plenty of fun with Simba and his friends. The animatronic animals seem almost lifelike, especially the elephant that was right near our seats. Some of the dancers are on stilts -- it is amazing to watch the way they move and dance. There was always a stilt dancer near the elephant, whose trunk could swing back and forth and his head bobbed up and down. About halfway through the show I noticed that the stilt dancer was having a little difficulty staying on his feet and I realize rather quickly that it was because the elephant was playing with him. His trunk kept hitting the back of the dancer's head, tapped the dancer's arm and even pushed at the dancer's back. The dancer turned and played with the elephant. The dancer grabbed the trunk, danced and boxed with the animatronic animal. I don't know if this was typical for the show or whether the cast members playing the roles had a special relationship, but it was sure fun to watch.
We saw a couple of shows in the Magic Kingdom, including "Mickey's Philharmagic" which was described in an earlier blog. We went to the Country Bear Jamboree, which Vicki thought was lame. We ran into a street performer, Captain Jack Sparrow, who was teaching the crowd how to use a sword (but he deserves a separate blog.) We also went to The Enchanted Tiki Room - Under New Management. Now, I remember seeing this attraction, or some form of it, during previous visits to Disney parks but I never had an interest in visiting. But we had a few minutes on our hands and the show was about to begin, so we went in to watch. It is a cute show, with animatronic birds singing annoying songs. The show stars Iago from "Aladdin" and Zazu from "The Lion King." They fight over the control of their new business venture until the Tiki gods punished Iago and brought everything under control.We missed too many shows that we really wanted to see, but we simply ran out of time. I guess that is as good a reason as any to go back again!
