I’m sure I’ve mentioned that since my goddaughter Amelia May turned four, it’s been all about the Princesses. Specifically Disney Princesses. She has all the dresses, a full wardrobe of tiaras, and she travels nowhere without a full suitcase full of princess and fairy figurines. That’s just in case we land in a place with a severe Princess Deficit. Apparently, a true Princess, like the Boy Scouts, is always prepared. Well, imagine our excitement when we learned that a Disney on Ice extravaganza, Dare to Dream, which is ALL ABOUT PRINCESSES, was due to come to our area. We booked our tickets immediately and finally the day came.
It was a rough start, because you can’t just wear anything to the Disney Princesses. Amelia May has been to the Disney Store often enough that she has a full wardrobe of Princess dresses. But still, there were three Princess costume changes over at Amelia May’s house. First she was dressed as Snow White but there was a tiny tiny spot of chocolate found on the matching tiara, so that costume had to be rejected. I’m not exactly up on my Princesses, but the yellow dress was finally deemed worthy, which I think means Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Just to be safe, we had Rapunzel, Jasmine and Ariel tiaras. When it comes to Princess attire, Amelia May likes to mix it up.
Apparently, none of us slept much due to the excitement and there wasn’t much breakfast. And, for the adult Princesses, no time to stop for coffee. Not a good move when preparing for a massive Princess overload. Didn’t matter in the short run as we were quickly flying on Princess Adrenaline.
Now I should mention that we were traveling with, as she calls herself, Princess Amelia May. When Mommy is doing things right, she gets to be Princess Mommy. I have no Princess cred — probably due to a severe lack of pink and jewel tones in my wardrobe — so I think I’m just a handmaiden. I was planning to be Official Court Photographer. But there are some issues with picture taking.
Princess Amelia May does not suffer paparazzi. But she did deign to give the royal wave in the parking lot of the Oracle Arena.
Once inside the arena, we had to walk miles through the Gauntlet of Merchandise. Believe me, Uncle Walt is reaching out from the grave to part you from your money in so many ways.
Amazingly, we escaped to our seats stung for only a $20 souvenir bag with a fedora, a magical Rapunzel flower, and a full color commemorative brochure. That’s a victory, my friends.
On to the show and immediately we were in full on Princess Overload. The sets, the lights, loads of ice skating characters, the music.
The best of the three full length stories was Princess and the Frog which is set in 1920s New Orleans and features a Jazz and Gospel score, a bad voodoo guy, a good Obeah woman and a Princess who saves the Prince for a change and, once she becomes a princess, starts her own business! Fabulous.
Unfortunately, at about this time, Princess Amelia May stopped tolerating paparazzi.
And it’s also probably not cool to go around photographing other mommies’ princesses. So I don’t have pictures to corroborate, but I would like to report that there is a clear fashion trend happening among the age four to nine set: Princess dresses are worn with Ugg boots — the more sparkly the better.
But back to the show: it had songs and fireworks and Mickey and Minnie introducing everything and fireworks and Cinderella’s coach with four horses and Maximillian the horse from Rapunzel — all on ice! And fireworks! And Cirque du Soliel style flying on big ribbons of cloth! Then in the grand finale ALL THE PRINCESSES CAME OUT AND SKATED AND WAVED TO US!!! Princess Mommy had scoured the InterWebs and gotten a massive great deal on tickets. We could have paid 10 times the price and still found it worth the money.
Because for this…
You get this…
And this…
By the end, we were absolutely drained with a surfeit of all things Princess.
Princess Amelia May isn’t doing naps these days. But she practically begged to be taken home to play quietly. That’s about as close to naptime as happens these days. Princess Mommy and I felt we definitely could have done with a nap.
Even Pooh found the whole experience more Princess Excitement than could possibly be borne.
If you aren’t believing me on the excellence of Disney Princesses, watch this:
What lucky princess.
“Uncle Walt is reaching out from the grave to part you from your money in so many ways.” — that’s very funny!
I sure thing you earned your princess credentials after that long princess day. What’s with all the empty seats???
We went to the 10:30 AM show which was the only one not sold out. Also this is a HUUUUUUUUGE arena. There were loads of people there but we were just swallowed up in this big place.
Looks like such a fun time! We went to a similar show when Emma was just a little princess herself. Uncle Walt left behind a legacy of money-making machines! Just this past week, the now-not-so-little-princess went to Disney-Florida with her school band. They separated her from quite a bit of money!