HopperFan
"It's a bug-eat-bug world out there, princess."
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2003
- Messages
- 27,950
Animal Kingdom Mission Complete. I think I fulfilled my goals. Lotus Flower Popcorn Bucket. ROL Light Up Lantern Mug. AK Nighttime activities. Nomad Lounge Pre-Gaming. AND JB Alive ... at least for 6 more days.
We arrived after 4 pm, we had spent early part of day at DHS. DS wanted to meet the UP characters and that was where our first Mosquito 101 came between sets. In addition to the tables set up CMs are being very open about it. They said especially at AK you should be aware. We never had a bug land on us. We then did It's A Bug's Life and .............. I was quite upset to be stood up by my boyfriend, Hopper. He was dark. Great sadness. We then headed over to ride Everest early since SB line was "short" ....... it ended up being walk on. I have never seen the standby line before, very impressed with the decor.
After that our mission was to locate the infamous Lotus Popcorn bucket and ROL Lantern. Not as easy as you think. We searched high and low and FINALLY found them at kiosk just to right of Bug's Life entrance. She filled with popcorn (per our request) and since her soda was broken we got to keep lantern clean and grab a bottle of coke. I was good to go home now, I had the two things I came here for. During this time we watched the Discovery Island Parti, very cool, great music, costumes, stilt walkers. FUN. Next up - Safari. We really should have waited another 15 minutes or so but we wanted to make sure we had time at Nomad if we had to wait for table.
Safari - guessing we were a few minutes early for the fake sunset but there were mood lights throughout. Had a great guide. We got to see an "unidentified animal" per our guide aka worker at numerous locations putting out fruit and hay. Animals were active so we could see them. Cheetah walking about. There were 2 lady lions laying on rocks close to road and the male was on highest rock, stretched out with his tail hanging straight down. All the "deer" and giraffe were very active cruising about. Only a couple elephants, they are not as interesting later in day. No rhinos. Zebra galore. But the HIGHLIGHT was the HYENA .......... two of them running and chasing each other like crazy. I've never seen one before even though they intrigue me and love them in Lion King. BONUS for sure. Was it better than day, no. Pictures hard to take, feedings, trucks and workers made it feel less safari like and more zoo like. I would go back for the fake sunset just to see it and the hyenas.
We caught a couple minutes of the Harambe Dance/Music and it was great. Loved their costuming, very cultural dancing and wish we could have stayed longer. While neither are big and crazy, but are fun, colorful and great entertainment.
Off we went to Nomad. Well .................. all but one table was open. So we could sit wherever. In making comments to a couple CMs they said they will take the calm before the storm that will happen when Avatarland opens. Our server, Stephannie, was awesome. She really helped us pick our drinks based on what we like, she knew all about them, she went in great detail on the flavors both with that and the Bread Service which we got. Appetizers are expensive but the Bread Service (different from Sanaa) was very good and hit the spot with the drinks. We had four different drinks so I hope the Loungers will be happy that we tried to take for the team. Lamu Libation, Leaping Lizard, Dalang's Delight and Jenn's Tattoo. LL was $12.75 and the others $10.25 and $10.75. Not cheap but the drinks were big and we felt the liquor heavy. We probably stayed an hour and half. They weren't busy and we were pre-gaming for JB Alive. (Nomad is a good reason to stay on property aka bus home)
On way to theater we stopped to watch the Tree Awakening - BEAUTIFUL. I would have loved to have a theater built in front of that and just sat and enjoyed that. AMAZING! Wish we had time to watch it more but our FP+ called.
We arrived to the ROL Theater to enter the FP+ line. We were pretty far back. Everyone filled in on the wood bleacher seats and no one wanted to sit up front on the rock seats. While we had planned to sit in back since we figured by time we arrived that was all that would be left we felt our light up Lotus Flower deserved front of the theater. I think we were row 3 but no one sat in front of us. We were by the right stage. The FP+ area has a bend so those on left got to face middle stage. Standby then had a stage. Standby section didn't even fill half way up.....
Where do I begin? I spent most the show with my mouth slightly agape ....... I really had a hard time wrapping my head around that it was Disney. DISCLAIMER: They may have been very very talented performers but what they were working with .... this is not at all on them! I knew it was bad from stories and having watched it live streamed. I still had hope that in person it would be just not up to par ........
Best I can describe is there was this "OH $&!#" moment and they said "Go in the warehouse and grab anything you can and we'll throw it out there." It was so disconnected and cluttered, and even having seen the movie, I still couldn't pull it together. I do have a strong feeling that one reason ROL is delayed is this show had some similar design components and now it's not working.
- Stages: WHY? WHY? WHY? are you blocking so many guests view of the river with these barges wrapped in a facade? Why are there so many dancers and performers creating more height, blocking our view. Okay for JB there isn't much view but the structure of theater looks like this was a plan for all the ROL Dancers and StoryTellers.
- Barges: So they floated 3 barges with some Bollywood style props ............ two of them never had any other purpose. The one in the middle held the three singers after another barge zoomed out there, bumped it and they got on. Because of their distance from our side seats they were disconnected other than we heard the singing.
- Stages: had two high corners. Middle stage had a drummer on one and a 3 piece musicians on other. Standby stage had a drummer. Our FP+ Right stage had NOTHING. It just made it look like half their folks called in sick or quit.
- Dancers: They danced what they were given. It was all over the place. It didn't connect. I think it might have tied to the water projections .... At one point they brought out guests to dance. Just looking at their faces (we were close) they truly seemed to be trying really hard. But at same time it didn't seem like they were having fun.
- Water Projections: Bless their hearts.......... Houston we have a problem. They don't work well. The middle one to create a big screen did not match in middle. Tops are so far apart in my novice eyes I'd say 20-30 ft difference. OBVIOUS. The projections ..... had to guess what they were based on the voices I heard. Mostly just water water. The two side projections were half size, because there is no room. The looked like feathers and the water dropped heavy straight down from top. ALL I kept thinking was these are for ROL. This is a problem.
- Speakers: All during the show I was thinking was the poor animals. Surely they all hear this. Was SO SO LOUD by 10 minutes in my head was pounding. It was so loud it was almost too hard to even understand at times. They need to tone this down before ROL. It was not pleasant or peaceful or inviting. I almost pulled DS big headphones out and honestly surprised he didn't want them but he had been doing well with earplugs and medication, also think he forgot about them being with us.
- Music: Yeah, no. It was all over the place from Bollywood, to the pure cultural, to Disney Jungle Book music .... no connect. I just wanted the music to stop.
- Super Speeder Barges: They had some barges that were driven, moving quickly and maneuvering well ..... carrying fire dancers. They were cool, but you know we've seen that at FOLK. Just seemed like one more let's borrow that from something else. This expert driving proves if they put drivers on the ROL floats this thing could work very well.
- Random folks: We had folks walk down steps across and back up with these light light things and then again they came through with torches. I guess they were part of a plan but the story just didn't connect. Lots of pieces.
- Random Projections: They did some projecting on the trees along by Flame Tree and they were good. They might want to look at more of that in the surrounding area.
AFTERTHOUGHTS: I am concerned that this "river" is simply not big enough for a show. With the barges, floats and stages, it was way too much. Now if they ditch these stages and let our view be less cluttered .... put your story tellers on the front walk in front if each section .... it might be better. But right now with this show all I see is - hey let's pull out every float, barge, boat we can find and fill the pond. They HAVE to fix the water walls, not just the shooting of it but the projections were terrible. It's the AK, think simple, think nature, think beauty .... this show was none of that ...... all that stuff on the water was like a bunch of junk barges. This simply was not the quality we have come to expect from Disney .... and a good reminder that sometimes it's better to have nothing than anything at all.
And lastly ................ pre-gaming did not help. These are some pictures I took with an old iPhone so not great but with all the rain coming and short trip and my new AP with photopass included ........ for the first time in forever I left the cameras at home. (Do you see what I did there? heading to FEA tomorrow.)
We arrived after 4 pm, we had spent early part of day at DHS. DS wanted to meet the UP characters and that was where our first Mosquito 101 came between sets. In addition to the tables set up CMs are being very open about it. They said especially at AK you should be aware. We never had a bug land on us. We then did It's A Bug's Life and .............. I was quite upset to be stood up by my boyfriend, Hopper. He was dark. Great sadness. We then headed over to ride Everest early since SB line was "short" ....... it ended up being walk on. I have never seen the standby line before, very impressed with the decor.
After that our mission was to locate the infamous Lotus Popcorn bucket and ROL Lantern. Not as easy as you think. We searched high and low and FINALLY found them at kiosk just to right of Bug's Life entrance. She filled with popcorn (per our request) and since her soda was broken we got to keep lantern clean and grab a bottle of coke. I was good to go home now, I had the two things I came here for. During this time we watched the Discovery Island Parti, very cool, great music, costumes, stilt walkers. FUN. Next up - Safari. We really should have waited another 15 minutes or so but we wanted to make sure we had time at Nomad if we had to wait for table.
Safari - guessing we were a few minutes early for the fake sunset but there were mood lights throughout. Had a great guide. We got to see an "unidentified animal" per our guide aka worker at numerous locations putting out fruit and hay. Animals were active so we could see them. Cheetah walking about. There were 2 lady lions laying on rocks close to road and the male was on highest rock, stretched out with his tail hanging straight down. All the "deer" and giraffe were very active cruising about. Only a couple elephants, they are not as interesting later in day. No rhinos. Zebra galore. But the HIGHLIGHT was the HYENA .......... two of them running and chasing each other like crazy. I've never seen one before even though they intrigue me and love them in Lion King. BONUS for sure. Was it better than day, no. Pictures hard to take, feedings, trucks and workers made it feel less safari like and more zoo like. I would go back for the fake sunset just to see it and the hyenas.
We caught a couple minutes of the Harambe Dance/Music and it was great. Loved their costuming, very cultural dancing and wish we could have stayed longer. While neither are big and crazy, but are fun, colorful and great entertainment.
Off we went to Nomad. Well .................. all but one table was open. So we could sit wherever. In making comments to a couple CMs they said they will take the calm before the storm that will happen when Avatarland opens. Our server, Stephannie, was awesome. She really helped us pick our drinks based on what we like, she knew all about them, she went in great detail on the flavors both with that and the Bread Service which we got. Appetizers are expensive but the Bread Service (different from Sanaa) was very good and hit the spot with the drinks. We had four different drinks so I hope the Loungers will be happy that we tried to take for the team. Lamu Libation, Leaping Lizard, Dalang's Delight and Jenn's Tattoo. LL was $12.75 and the others $10.25 and $10.75. Not cheap but the drinks were big and we felt the liquor heavy. We probably stayed an hour and half. They weren't busy and we were pre-gaming for JB Alive. (Nomad is a good reason to stay on property aka bus home)
On way to theater we stopped to watch the Tree Awakening - BEAUTIFUL. I would have loved to have a theater built in front of that and just sat and enjoyed that. AMAZING! Wish we had time to watch it more but our FP+ called.
We arrived to the ROL Theater to enter the FP+ line. We were pretty far back. Everyone filled in on the wood bleacher seats and no one wanted to sit up front on the rock seats. While we had planned to sit in back since we figured by time we arrived that was all that would be left we felt our light up Lotus Flower deserved front of the theater. I think we were row 3 but no one sat in front of us. We were by the right stage. The FP+ area has a bend so those on left got to face middle stage. Standby then had a stage. Standby section didn't even fill half way up.....
Where do I begin? I spent most the show with my mouth slightly agape ....... I really had a hard time wrapping my head around that it was Disney. DISCLAIMER: They may have been very very talented performers but what they were working with .... this is not at all on them! I knew it was bad from stories and having watched it live streamed. I still had hope that in person it would be just not up to par ........
Best I can describe is there was this "OH $&!#" moment and they said "Go in the warehouse and grab anything you can and we'll throw it out there." It was so disconnected and cluttered, and even having seen the movie, I still couldn't pull it together. I do have a strong feeling that one reason ROL is delayed is this show had some similar design components and now it's not working.
- Stages: WHY? WHY? WHY? are you blocking so many guests view of the river with these barges wrapped in a facade? Why are there so many dancers and performers creating more height, blocking our view. Okay for JB there isn't much view but the structure of theater looks like this was a plan for all the ROL Dancers and StoryTellers.
- Barges: So they floated 3 barges with some Bollywood style props ............ two of them never had any other purpose. The one in the middle held the three singers after another barge zoomed out there, bumped it and they got on. Because of their distance from our side seats they were disconnected other than we heard the singing.
- Stages: had two high corners. Middle stage had a drummer on one and a 3 piece musicians on other. Standby stage had a drummer. Our FP+ Right stage had NOTHING. It just made it look like half their folks called in sick or quit.
- Dancers: They danced what they were given. It was all over the place. It didn't connect. I think it might have tied to the water projections .... At one point they brought out guests to dance. Just looking at their faces (we were close) they truly seemed to be trying really hard. But at same time it didn't seem like they were having fun.
- Water Projections: Bless their hearts.......... Houston we have a problem. They don't work well. The middle one to create a big screen did not match in middle. Tops are so far apart in my novice eyes I'd say 20-30 ft difference. OBVIOUS. The projections ..... had to guess what they were based on the voices I heard. Mostly just water water. The two side projections were half size, because there is no room. The looked like feathers and the water dropped heavy straight down from top. ALL I kept thinking was these are for ROL. This is a problem.
- Speakers: All during the show I was thinking was the poor animals. Surely they all hear this. Was SO SO LOUD by 10 minutes in my head was pounding. It was so loud it was almost too hard to even understand at times. They need to tone this down before ROL. It was not pleasant or peaceful or inviting. I almost pulled DS big headphones out and honestly surprised he didn't want them but he had been doing well with earplugs and medication, also think he forgot about them being with us.
- Music: Yeah, no. It was all over the place from Bollywood, to the pure cultural, to Disney Jungle Book music .... no connect. I just wanted the music to stop.
- Super Speeder Barges: They had some barges that were driven, moving quickly and maneuvering well ..... carrying fire dancers. They were cool, but you know we've seen that at FOLK. Just seemed like one more let's borrow that from something else. This expert driving proves if they put drivers on the ROL floats this thing could work very well.
- Random folks: We had folks walk down steps across and back up with these light light things and then again they came through with torches. I guess they were part of a plan but the story just didn't connect. Lots of pieces.
- Random Projections: They did some projecting on the trees along by Flame Tree and they were good. They might want to look at more of that in the surrounding area.
AFTERTHOUGHTS: I am concerned that this "river" is simply not big enough for a show. With the barges, floats and stages, it was way too much. Now if they ditch these stages and let our view be less cluttered .... put your story tellers on the front walk in front if each section .... it might be better. But right now with this show all I see is - hey let's pull out every float, barge, boat we can find and fill the pond. They HAVE to fix the water walls, not just the shooting of it but the projections were terrible. It's the AK, think simple, think nature, think beauty .... this show was none of that ...... all that stuff on the water was like a bunch of junk barges. This simply was not the quality we have come to expect from Disney .... and a good reminder that sometimes it's better to have nothing than anything at all.
And lastly ................ pre-gaming did not help. These are some pictures I took with an old iPhone so not great but with all the rain coming and short trip and my new AP with photopass included ........ for the first time in forever I left the cameras at home. (Do you see what I did there? heading to FEA tomorrow.)
and she said something along the same lines of the discouragement and almost the belief that it might never happen. 
