PIRATE ADVENTURE DINNER - Opening Night Show - Buena Park, California
A gypsy and a princess of a kingdom are captured and held for ransom aboard an evil pirate captain's ship. This captain has a nemesis that appears throughout the show. There are six main pirates. They have different stunt battles during the evening to win the reward of 1st mate.
The Pirate Captain has an equally nasty (but well voiced) wife. There is a dancing prancing pirate who is the emcee of the evening. And the apparent comedy relief.
The show uses a good deal of audience interaction and participation...with adults and kids.
Towards the end of the show one of the pirates falls in love with the princess - along with two other "noble" pirates leads a mutiny against the evil captain. The good guy wins the Princess and they sail off into happiness forever.
Concept - GOOD!
Reality - BAD.
Shrimp and Lobster - there was a small shred of a lobster tail in the minimal amount of shrimp. A side of chicken. Not a big side. A small pile of rice and a small pile of veggies. None of our group tried the beef and chicken dinner. Not sure how that was. The Apple cobbler in chocolate sauce with vanilla ice cream was okay.
Seating was to be desired. Apparently there were better seats at $ 10.00 more a pop - which I should have been told about when I made the reservations...the first day the tickets went on sale. (Mind you, I spent $ 99.00 for the evening - without tip...for two people....)
The show idea is a good concept. If you are in the upper rows, ya got spotlights right in yer eyes during all the major aerial stunts.
If you happen to be in the back sections, you get a great view of the back of the boat.
The two front sections - Purple and Red (I think) are the best to sit in and see from. Orange, Green, Blue, Yellow -are limited. Orange and another one are okay, sorta, Blue and - Green? (maybe) are the back corners and highly limited.
Okay. The instructions told us to get there about 90 minutes before the show for check-in, buffet, and, pre-show. We got there about 85 minutes before the show, and, totally missed everything that was pre-show oriented. No story opening, no buffet table, nada. The ticketing mess was horrid. To make up for this, we were given two color coated logo hurricane glasses of our choice of colors...took blue and green. Would have been given a free drink, too, but, no alcohol, thanks.
If you want to take in this type of a show, go to Medieval Times. Better show, better food.
If you saw the show that went before this, WILD BILL'S...it was a far superior show, far superior food.
The two shows just listed knew/know how to stagger the meal with the performance. The Pirates Show did not. Food just rolled while everything took place...so, if you are concentrating on eating, then, you may miss something important on the stage, er, deck of the boat. Whatever.
This show is hyped as being one of Orlando's top attractions. For me, it is a one-off and I don't think I'll be going back.
Pity, that.
As I said, the concept is good. The story line has developable ideas. Just that nothing gelled. (And, this is the Florida cast out here for the opening...they are hiring and training the California Cast over the next month.) Oh, well. I had high hopes...given what went before (WILD BILL'S) and that the same parent company developed and operated both.
The other thing is that this show was placed into the pre-existing theatre building developed for Wild Bill's...and it is really hard to hide a Western Americana themed building...no matter how many nets filled with barrels and nautical things you hang around the place.
"SIGH"
Hopefully the West Coast cast - as they develop themselves, will make this a tad more their own....
Actually, the idea of an interactive Pirate Dinner Theatre style show has a great deal of merit and deserves to be pursued...this experience could be so much more....
