Disney on Ice

We went to Disney on Ice last night. I took a few notes because at this point, I can’t help myself.

There were a lot of charming costumes, including adorable starfish and other sea creatures for the Little Mermaid portion, and all sorts of skates designed to look like other things, like high heels or footy pajamas. The Lion King portion seemed the shortest. We particularly enjoyed Pumba. J leaned over to me to ask how they were making Pumba skate like that, and when I explained that I thought it was one person hunched over, I asked, “What do you think of that?” She answered, “Uncomfortable.” All of the four stories (Lion King, Little Mermaid, Lilo & Stitch, and Peter Pan), were super-abbreviated, but it was more about the spectacle than the plot, anyway. Only Lilo & Stitch fell a little flat because so many of the costumes were jeans or shorts (also because we don’t know that story), but the skater who played Lilo made up for it with the biggest personality of all the performers. My girls have done enough skating to know how tough it is, so they were deeply impressed. The Peter Pan story was the longest, with fun special effects like fairy dust, flying, and a pretty awesome pirate ship.

A few parts were scary for easily-scared children, including a giant Ursula sea witch and a big alligator. But they looked more like parade float than anything, so it wasn’t bad. In fact, when Captain Hook’s eaten by the dragon, he basically jumps into the cushy alligator and then pulled ropes on the alligator to make the jaws bit, a move so obvious that J pointed it out to me. So I wouldn’t be concerned unless your child is at an extraordinarily fearful stage.

There’s an intermission during which pretty much everyone will purchase something for way too much money. My girls got $15 snow cones in souvenir cups, and another popular item was $10 cotton candy that included adorable Tinker Bell or Nemo-themed hats. It was pretty funny, actually, because there were a ton of big men wearing the lavender upside-down flower Tinker Bell caps. I chatted up a group of guys two rows ahead of us because they looked much more likely to be at a frat party than at this show. Turns out one of their younger sisters was in the show and he was seeing her for the first time: if you go she’s the fox-costumed lost boy among others, so cheer extra hard.

Last night there were plenty of seats, with the upper tiers of the TU center completely empty. I also noticed that the people who dropped serious cash for ringside seats were getting a lot of extra attention from the cast members, eye contact, high-fives and such. Since we’re just coming off of Disney World, it felt very much like a show that you might see there.

There’s a show tonight and two on Sunday, and you can buy tickets at Ticketmaster.com, call  1-800-745-3000 or visit the Times Union Box Office.  Ticket prices are $12, $22, $40 for VIP, and $55 for Rinkside. There’s still the coupon for tonight’s Saturday, December 10 at 7 pm. The code is MOM2011 to save $4 on the $22 or $12 tickets to these performances.