Disney On Ice

Ryan and I treated Lily to a special evening out last night...Disney on Ice! We thought this would be a fun way to have some time with just the three of us. We came home from work, and Lily was looking adorable in her Minnie Mouse fleece; she was so excited and ready to go. We told her we were going to a special place for dinner called "The Food Court at CNN." She was totally excited about it! She loved her Gorin's grilled cheese sandwich and chips; what a great way to start the evening. Then she was ready to see the show.

We had told Lily earlier in the day she would get a surprise while we were there. Of course, she wanted to know what the surprise would be. We told her we didn't know; it might be a cup, a spinner or something else but we would have to see when we got there. Her response was "How about a cup AND a spinner? Two things. One for each hand. Okay? How about that?" As we walked over to our section, we saw a souvenir stand, so we stopped by. We told Lily she could pick out one surprise, and it could be whatever she wanted. She pretty quickly fell in love with the Minnie Mouse spinner. "It's pink like my jacket!" So that's what she got, and we had a very happy little girl on our hands. You can see it in the picture below as she was showing it to me in our seats. You push the button and all the little pieces spin around and light up; she loved it.


We went in and found our seats which were pretty good. They were about 12 rows up on the side; we were near the end so we could look and see everything in one direction, plus there weren't a ton of people around us which is good for Lily since she can get overwhelmed by crowds. We had enough time to enjoy a cookie before the show started.

Right as they started to dim the lights, Lily climbed out of my lap and lay down on the floor. We decided she was scared because this let her stay under both of our legs, but she was able to peak through the seats in front of us to see what was happening. We think she was just unsure of what was going to happen. She stayed under there for a few minutes while the first few characters came out, but as soon as she heard Mickey Mouse she got up on her knees to find him. I picked her up and sat her back on my lap and she didn't move for the rest of the show. She really seemed to enjoy it.

Of course, Disney's theme this year is all about celebrations, so after the intro with a lot of the characters, they had Alice, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter come out to show Mickey and friends how to have an "un-birthday party." It was cute, but Lily doesn't know who Alice and those characters are. The party left a big pretend mess, so all these neon brooms came out to sweep it up under the direction of Mickey the Sorcerer. This was my favorite part of the show, and Lily really seemed to like it. She sat up straight in my lap and kept pointing to them and laughing. They did a lot of synchronized skating, and the neon light costumes they were wearing looked great in the dark arena.

The brooms skate around the ice and drop from the ceiling.

Watching the brooms intensely.

After the brooms cleaned everything up, Disney decided to celebrate Halloween which is of course only a couple of weeks away. Unfortunately, the brought out the Pumpkin King and many of the villains from their movies: Cruela deVil, Jafar and Snow White's witch to name a few. Neither Ryan nor I cared for this part. Lily didn't seem particularly scared, but she sat back against me and sucked her thumb. Honestly, it was a little darker than necessary I thought.

After Halloween, they moved on to Valentine's Day. Cinderella's fairy godmother came out to answer Minnie's question on how you know "he's the one for you." Thankfully the fairy godmother called on many princesses who knew exactly how to find their prince. Each princess and her prince came out came out as a couple and was spot-lighted as they skated together for a few minutes. As I have mentioned before, Lily is really starting to get into princesses, so she loved this part. She sat up, pointed out each one of them, laughed and enjoyed them. We saw Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, Mulan, Aurora, Ariel and Belle. Disney is also pushing hard their newest princess, Tiana, and her movie which is coming out soon, so she was introduced with her prince.

The princesses at one point sat around the fountain which was driven around the ice so each little princess in the audience could wave and see them well.

All the princesses and their princes skating around the ice. After Minnie found her prince in Mickey, it was intermission. Lily looked like she was having a great time. She played with her spinner some more ("I show it to Bama when we get home!" is what she said many times) and waited patiently for the next part to start. She posed for a picture with me too.

The show started back as Mickey and Minnie wanted to go on vacation; they would travel by means of a nifty gadget Mickey had but he couldn't figure out how to use it. They ended up getting separated, and they traveled the world looking for one another. You know how Lily loves her geography ABC board in her room, so she loved seeing all the places they went. They started out in Hawaii where they ran into Lilo and Stitch; this was actually a pretty fun part of the show; you can see one of the pictures below at a time when they lit the ice on fire.

After Hawaii, Mickey ended up in Rio where he danced in a Carnival parade with some brightly costumed people. Minnie ended up in Japan in a quiet tea garden where the skaters used pretty fans to help them dance. Mickey then went to China where he saw Mulan. Finally they came together in New Orleans, home to new princess Tiana. They had a lot of fun skating to the jazz music. Lily seemed to enjoy all of these.

Once Mickey and Minnie were all together again, it was time to celebrate every child's favorite holiday: Christmas! Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto and Goofy (dressed as Santa) were the focus this time, but they were joined by the cast of Toy Story as music played "The Toys are Back In Town." They had a little toy troll skater that was one of the funniest things I have seen! After a few minutes with the Toy Story cast, all the princesses, princes and other fun Disney characters (like Tinkerbell, Lilo and Stitch, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Jungle Boy and Baloo for example) came back out for one last skate together. It started to snow on them as they skated and then it ended with some small fireworks.

Lily watching Mickey and friends prepare for Christmas.

All the characters during their Christmas skate. It's difficult to see the snow in this picture, but it looked pretty cool while it was happening.

Fireworks ended the show and Minnie and Mickey rode out on a sleigh.

The show ended at about 9:15, and we got home about 9:45. I couldn't believe it, but Lily was wide awake. She played with her spinner on the way home, showed it to Bama as soon as we got home, drank a little milk and seemed to be pretty awake. We let her stay up until 10, but then got her ready for bed and she zonked out quickly. I think she had a really great time, and I am so glad we were able to take her. Last year when we took her, she didn't seem to have much fun (granted, she had the beginning stages of the flu which we didn't realize at the time), but that's because she really didn't know any of the characters other than Mickey and his clubhouse friends. Now she knows pretty much all the princesses, and she was able to really sit and watch the show. It was such a fun time for all of us, and I can't wait to go again!