An evening at Cirque du Soleil
I had heard much about La Nouba but despite several trips to Orlando had never found the time to go amongst everything else there is to do in Florida. This year as a Christmas/New Year treat I thought it would be the ideal thing to do with the children. I tried to book around one month in advance for Boxing Day but this was sold out and we managed to get tickets for New Years Day instead. There are two performances, 6pm and 9pm. Although 6pm may seem a little early, with fairly small children and still suffering the effects of 5 hours time difference between the UK and US (which meant no member of our family had managed to stay awake to see in the New Year) this performance was ideal for us.
As always with Disney the event was very well organised with minimal queuing and no problem finding our seats. There was popcorn, candyfloss, soft drinks and even alcohol available to take in to the performance if you wished. A really nice touch was the availability of a booster seat for our youngest child (age 9). We weren’t sure that he would need it and initially placed it on the floor but when a rather tall lady sat in front of him out it came and it did it’s job beautifully. We had category 2 seating which was considerably cheaper then the top price ($86 vs. $121). This still offered an absolutely excellent view of everything. I really didn’t feel we missed out in any way by not having prime seats so I would recommend not bothering and saving the money to spend in the gift shop instead. If nothing tempts you there you are right in the heart of Downtown Disney with lots of spending opportunities all around!
As for the show, well what can I say? If anyone has ever seen the Chinese State Circus it was a bit like that only with more characterisation and a (very) vague story running through it. My jaw was dropping open and if anyone was looking at me I probably had a gormlessly amazed expression on my face (does such a thing exist? ) because of what I was seeing. Mainly I was wondering how on earth do they do that? The show was a mixture of awesome acrobatics, dance and other circus type acts. I don’t know the proper names to describe all the acts there was trapeze, bike stunts, stilt walkers, a most amazing hoop balancing act and wonderful trampolining to name just some. If the trampolinists were to read this they might be offended, because to describe it like that doesn’t really do it justice. Trampolining with a difference – walking up walls and involving human juggling almost.
I don’t have much criticism at all but I will say that at 1 hour 40 mins with no interval the show was relatively short given the admission price compared to a high quality West End show for example. Also, I found the parts with the clowns a bit slow but that’s just my personal taste and the children really enjoyed them. Overall there was so much to see that I know I missed lots of it. As well as the main act of the moment there was always something else happening on the stage somewhere, often very humorous. I wanted to look everywhere all at once but inevitably concentrated on the main act. It would be nice to go again and just see all the other things that were going on. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a slightly different experience whilst at Disneyland.
I had heard much about La Nouba but despite several trips to Orlando had never found the time to go amongst everything else there is to do in Florida. This year as a Christmas/New Year treat I thought it would be the ideal thing to do with the children. I tried to book around one month in advance for Boxing Day but this was sold out and we managed to get tickets for New Years Day instead. There are two performances, 6pm and 9pm. Although 6pm may seem a little early, with fairly small children and still suffering the effects of 5 hours time difference between the UK and US (which meant no member of our family had managed to stay awake to see in the New Year) this performance was ideal for us.
As always with Disney the event was very well organised with minimal queuing and no problem finding our seats. There was popcorn, candyfloss, soft drinks and even alcohol available to take in to the performance if you wished. A really nice touch was the availability of a booster seat for our youngest child (age 9). We weren’t sure that he would need it and initially placed it on the floor but when a rather tall lady sat in front of him out it came and it did it’s job beautifully. We had category 2 seating which was considerably cheaper then the top price ($86 vs. $121). This still offered an absolutely excellent view of everything. I really didn’t feel we missed out in any way by not having prime seats so I would recommend not bothering and saving the money to spend in the gift shop instead. If nothing tempts you there you are right in the heart of Downtown Disney with lots of spending opportunities all around!
As for the show, well what can I say? If anyone has ever seen the Chinese State Circus it was a bit like that only with more characterisation and a (very) vague story running through it. My jaw was dropping open and if anyone was looking at me I probably had a gormlessly amazed expression on my face (does such a thing exist? ) because of what I was seeing. Mainly I was wondering how on earth do they do that? The show was a mixture of awesome acrobatics, dance and other circus type acts. I don’t know the proper names to describe all the acts there was trapeze, bike stunts, stilt walkers, a most amazing hoop balancing act and wonderful trampolining to name just some. If the trampolinists were to read this they might be offended, because to describe it like that doesn’t really do it justice. Trampolining with a difference – walking up walls and involving human juggling almost.
I don’t have much criticism at all but I will say that at 1 hour 40 mins with no interval the show was relatively short given the admission price compared to a high quality West End show for example. Also, I found the parts with the clowns a bit slow but that’s just my personal taste and the children really enjoyed them. Overall there was so much to see that I know I missed lots of it. As well as the main act of the moment there was always something else happening on the stage somewhere, often very humorous. I wanted to look everywhere all at once but inevitably concentrated on the main act. It would be nice to go again and just see all the other things that were going on. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a slightly different experience whilst at Disneyland.