Very, very disappointing
by OurDisneyFam on 10/29/13SAP Center at San Jose - San JoseRating: 1 out of 5We go to Disney On Ice every year and have seen most of the shows on tour in the last few years. This production was BY FAR the worst. We have loved every one of the previous shows we've seen and have even seen some of them more than once because we loved them so much. Passport to Adventure was a massive disappointment though. It was made even more disappointing by the fact that this was the first one my husband has ever been able to attend with us. He has been deployed every single time we've gone before, so my kids and I were really looking forward to bringing him along this time. We are a Disney family, and we were really looking forward to finally attending one of these together. This was a terrible first show for him to see.
The Pros: Unfortunately, there weren't many. My son did love the Peter Pan portion of the show. In my opinion, this is the highlight of the event, but it doesn't come until after the intermission. As always, the Disney classics are also in this production, so your kids will get to see Minnie, Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy. I can't remember if we saw Pluto. The only problem is that these characters are really only in the production during scene transitions which is actually somewhat common in most Disney On Ice productions.
The Cons: Where do I even begin? First of all, there are four "acts" in this show...The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Lilo & Stitch, and Peter Pan. The most recent of these Disney movies was Lilo & Stitch which was over 10 years ago. Most of the younger kids in the audience didn't care one bit about much more than The Little Mermaid which was a fairly entertaining portion of the show. A child born in the 90s would probably love this, but not most kids who are under age 10 now. The Lion King portion was really poorly done with what appeared to be a bare bones production. It was actually pretty terrible, and I have NEVER said that about anything in regard to Disney. The Lilo & Stitch production was entirely too long and SO BORING. They lost the attention of a large portion of the kids in the audience quickly. I saw kids all around us playing in the aisles, under their chairs, and yawning...seriously. Why Lilo & Stitch?? I've never understood why Disney continues to push these characters. They just don't seem that popular to me. It felt like they were trying too hard to pick movies that were set in locations that fit the "Passport to Adventure" theme.
Beyond the poor production choices, the sound at this show was TERRIBLE. We were no more than 15-20 rows back from the ice, and we couldn't understand most of the dialogue between the characters because the volume was way too low. I brought this to a staff member's attention, but as expected, nothing changed. This issue with sound has also never been a problem at a previous Disney On Ice show for us.
I will return to Disney On Ice, but I simply can't recommend Passport to Adventure. Wait until another production comes to town.