Are you still there Keith?
Phew - just got home, I've been hanging out backstage with the princesses (just kidding!)
Anyway - in simple terms, yesterday's show was fantastic! (Mel - you really should have gone!)
It opened a little different this year, there was only a very brief appearance of Mickey and Minnie, before it went straight into a big opening number featuring Tiana and a lot of songs from The Princess and the Frog. It was an amazing high energy opening that really set the scene for the rest of the show.
After Tiana, the Fab Five came out and did bigger intro and we moved into the main theme of the show which was Dreams (which in reality translates to Princess dreams!)
We then had a section with Snow White, which featured a number of songs, the dwarfs, the wicked witch and happily ever after of course. I think I'd seen a version of this before, however it was still really well done.
Next came an extended Cinderella section which really followed the whole Cinderella story. It was great seeing Gus, Jaq, Perla and Susie on stage together too. While I've seen other Cinderella segments before, this seemed completely new with new props and sets and was really great. It was in two parts with the segment up to the clock striking 12 before the intermission, followed by a segment of the prince finding Cinderella after the intermission.
But by far our favourite segment was the Rapunzel story! This was brilliant, featuring all the songs, major characters, and scenes from the film. It also contained some of the most spectacular aerial work I've ever seen at a Disney on Ice - essentially they had two golden ribbons hanging from the roof representing Rapunzel's hair, on which both Rapunzel and Flynn did some dual flying stunts with no cables - just by tying their hands in this ribbon and holding on! They were soaring high around the arena - it was really brilliant stuff. And it was great to see Maximus on ice. This whole sequence was worth the ticket price.
After Rapunzel was the big finale where nearly all the princesses appeared with their partners dressed in gold (including Mulan, Aurora, Belle, Jasmine and Ariel - even though they weren't in the main show) as well as the Fab Five and other cast.
All in all, we rate this as one of the best Disney on Ice shows ever - I've commented in recent years that the shows have been getting better - well this is one of the best.
Roll on next July!!