Disney on Ice

Today JoJo and I went to see Disney on Ice (Princesses). Frankly I wasn't looking forward to it, 'cuz it's not really my bag, but we thought JoJo would have a good time. In addition, we were meeting Isaac, one of JoJo's classmates, and his dad at the show.

Originally Isaac's mom was going to get seats for the four of us, but they didn't have that many contiguous seats available. So she got seats for her two attendees, and Naomi got seats for me and JoJo. The web site Naomi worked through was in French, and bizarrely the resulting electronic receipt was in Flemish! We couldn't understand much of that receipt, except we did understand that our two seats were apparently not adjacent to each other—something that Naomi definitely did not understand when she made the purchase. (We took it up a bit with the ticketing company, and they said, "The only solution is to take your daughter on your lap during the show.")

I looked on-line for the location of the venue (Forest National), and where to pick up the tickets, which seemed to be around the corner from the venue. When JoJo and I got there, we headed around the corner for the tickets, looking for an address that turned out not to exist. I was pretty annoyed about that, and we turned around to go back to the venue. There, there was a ticket window that was easily located, and I wondered why the web site for the venue and ticket window was so needlessly confusing.

Our friends had their own difficulties finding the place, but all four of us were seated (JoJo in my lap) before the show started. By a small miracle, one of our two non-adjacent seats was next to their two seats, so we were all sitting together. And the JoJo-on-my-lap arrangement, while not my personal preference, was honestly best for her, since it gave her a better view of the show; Isaac was on his father's lap for the same reason, so we ended up with an extra seat (plus the additional extra seat, all alone, further down the row).

Our seats were literally in the last row, four rows behind Bob Uecker (well, where he would have been). But the view of the show was fine, if not close. The first half consisted of choreography around one or usually two key songs from a given Disney princess movie, including Mulan, The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White; the second half was basically the entire story of Cinderella. By and large, the songs had been skillfully translated into French. I noticed two accidental spills on the ice, but on the whole the skating was pretty good (not that I have an eye for this sort of thing). I think JoJo liked the show a lot, and she certainly recognized a bunch of characters. Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Goofy made appearances too.

After the show we waited a while for our bus, and crammed into it along with a lot of other show-goers. Near our stop, the bus suddenly stopped, and the bus driver got out to fill out some paper work, and he gave some of it to someone who appeared to be the owner of a car parked on the street. If I understood what transpired (and I think I'm right, but at the same time I don't really have confidence), the parked car should have had its side mirror folded into the vehicle to make room for a bus on the narrow street. If this is correct, then one aspect of this event that's notable is that the bus driver is apparently empowered to effectively give tickets. By the time the bus driver got back on the bus, there was a long line of cars stuck behind the bus, and we bus riders were certainly ready to move on again.

The four of us continued to Isaac's home for dinner with the two complete and reunited families. Two sets of parents, two 4-year-olds, two 2-year-olds, and a whole lot of chaos. But it was fun!