Much like our "Fast Pass" segment which we began again yesterday after quite a hiatus, we realized that we hadn't done a "Saturday Slow-Down" recently, either. But just like it's important to have a good tip to share every now and then, we think it's important to take advantage of whatever opportunities you have inside The Parks to take a breather and just soak it all in. One such place to do that is at the Hungry Bear Restaurant at one very special time of day.
It never fails! Fantasmic! is such a popular show with the Park guests that on any given day, but especially the weekends, fans begin lining up (or sitting up if you prefer) as early as 4 or 5 in the afternoon to see it, when the show doesn't even begin until after 9! Now that's commitment and love! But for us, it's just a little bit too much; we like to catch the second showing anyway when you can pretty much just walk right up front scant minutes before the show starts. We definitely admire guests' tenacity, but we've discovered a way to slow down and enjoy the show from a much different perspective.
We like to watch, or experience if you will, the first showing of Fantasmic! from Critter Country. Of course, you'd be right in your assessment if you were to ask, "But how can you see or hear the show from there?" And yes, it's true that we don't get to see the show in its proper form (or hear it all for that matter) but for us, we enjoy getting to see something else even more: the behind-the-scenes magic. We absolutely love watching the goings-on on the Rivers of America from the upper level of the restaurant. We can watch the floats coming down the river after their part in the show, we can watch the Cast Members running around Tom Sawyer Island and changing as they get ready for their portion of the show, and we love watching the Columbia Sailing Ship come by after the Peter Pan segment in the show. Oh, and did we mention the neon monkeys?! From time to time we also enjoy just strolling down the river just before and during the show. Last time we did this it earned us a very special wave from Ariel herself!
The thing we love the most about "experiencing" the show from the restaurant though, is when the Mark Twain Riverboat comes by, and you can probably tell why just from the pictures: character interaction! For us, it is absolutely awesome to sit at our table, watch the boat go by, and yell and wave at all of the characters. We don't know if the characters get as much of a kick out of it as we do really, but yelling out at Goofy and watching him break into a dance when he hears you is truly something to behold! Yelling at Woody as the back end of the boat swings by and getting into a faux "fast-draw" contest with him (yes, it did happen) are things you just can't put a price-tag on, and it's something that unfortunately a lot of people will just never be able to experience for themselves because they won't know about it or think to do it.
A friend of ours recently (teasingly) told us we were cheating by watching the show from back here, and asked us if we thought that all the interaction and watching the "behind the scenes" stuff stole some of the magic away from everything. We guess we can see where some people might feel that way, but for us, it truly adds to the magic.
We've said it before, and we'll say it until the day we quit blogging about our adventures in The Park. Sometimes you just have to slow down and let the magic come to you. The truth is, the first time we saw the show from the Hungry Bear, we were all set to run back to New Orleans Square and watch the show from The Haunted Mansion. It wouldn't have been a very good view and we wouldn't have been able to see much, but that was the plan, and for whatever reason, we didn't do it. We got lazy and just decided to slow down, stop, and catch the second show instead. We mark it down as one of the best decisions we ever made, because not only did we have fantastic near front row seats for the second show, but we got something else out of the deal we never bargained for: another strong dose of Disney Magic delivered right to our table. And we think that's worth slowing down for.
