Frozen Summer Fun - Finishing Each Other's Sandwiches

A warm greeting from Disney's Hollywood Studios

I'll kick this blog post off by saying that I am one of the people that is still not yet tired of Frozen.  I'm quite sure that parents that have been stuck with their kids listening to the soundtrack over and over again or watching the Blu-Ray every day twice a day have a much lower tolerance that they can't just quite let go, but as someone who only has to enter the world of Arendelle when I choose to, I'm still very fond of the movie and its characters.  That said, I was pretty excited to hear about Frozen Summer Fun coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios.  The theme of the event is that after the events of the film, Anna and Elsa have embarked on a goodwill tour of neighboring kingdoms, including the currently quite summery Hollywoodland.  Kristoff is along for the ride, as well, and Olaf has decided to take his summer vacation with the royals.

He is one excited snowman.

In case you're wondering why Olaf pops up so frequently in the photos on this blog entry, it's because during the event, cast members are handing out small Olafs-on-a-stick to insert into your pictures.  At the end of the day, any photos posted online with the tag #olafsummervacation are taken into consideration for a picture montage at the end of the night before the Frozen fireworks spectacular, but more on that later.

Tabby and I arrived shortly after rope drop, so unfortunately I can't relay whether or not there was a special rope drop ceremony, though I am sure they did something fun for the events (though unlikely anything on the scale of the Star Wars Weekends rope drop).  The first thing that we did upon arrival was head over to Wandering Oaken's Frozen Funland to reserve a time for ice skating.  On the day that we went, there wasn't a huge rush, but I'd recommend planning to hit the Funland pretty early in the day in order to save a spot, as I'm sure that it fills up quickly on busier days.  I'll write more about the Frozen Funland later, when I discuss my first ever time on ice skates.  Yeah, I know you guys want to know how badly I crashed, but you're just going to have to wait - chronological order here, people!  After that, we headed next door to Wandering Oaken's Trading Post.

I heard that they were having a big summer blowout.

This was the place to find all of the Frozen merchandise available for the Summer Fun event, much like Darth's Mall at Star Wars Weekends (this will not be the last time you'll see SWW mentioned in this post.)  A good percentage of the merchandise was not exclusive, at least from what I could tell, but it was a fun place to browse, as well as currently the only place that I am aware of to get the Frozen MagicBands.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find a good angle to photograph the MagicBands, but you can check them out at the official Disney Parks Blog.  What I was able to get a picture of, however, was the specially designed cake pops that they have available for the celebration.

Of course, we had to sample the wares.

The cake pops were tasty - chocolate on the inside, white chocolate coating the outside (with bits of gummy-like candy for Olaf's features and sparkling sugar for the blue-and-white pops).  There were other options available, as well, such as reindeer-shaped cookies and rice krispie treats coated in what appeared to be confectioner's sugar, making them look like snowballs.  There were no specialty beverages, adult or otherwise, available inside of Wandering Oaken's Trading Post, but near the main stage in front of the Sorcerer Mickey hat they have tents with three beverages: one non-alcoholic and two alcoholic.  We didn't sample any of them on this trip, since we were trying to stay hydrated throughout most of the day.  So we browsed the shop a bit, and took a few pictures of the items available.

By this time, it was about half an hour until the start of the Royal Welcome, so we headed off back towards Hollywood Boulevard to find a spot.  Unfortunately, there were no particularly good spots for photography.  We got a couple of good pictures, but most of the better ones we took actually took place after the welcome ceremony, as the procession headed past Echo Lake, so either be early and find a good spot to take pictures or make your way quickly around near the American Idol building to get unleash your inner shutterbug.

Before the procession, Streetsmosphere characters were around causing mischief,
like this chef handing out "Free Snowballs"

The arrival of the royal sisters

Wait, is Kristoff doing the Smolder™?

The brief show, heralding the arrival of Anna and Elsa into the park for the day, was not exactly easy to take photographs of.  Why, you may ask?

No child left unshouldered.

It was a mild annoyance, I'll admit. The fact is, these kids are the target demographic of the majority of this event, and with people packed in like so many sardines, it would have been extremely difficult for the younglings to watch the show from the ground.  Although I'm sure there was a collective inner (and some outer) groan when the oft-played "Let It Go" started up as a sing along, as they needlessly showed the lyrics on the screen to the children who have memorized every word and looked "fractals" up in the dictionary, hearing a chorus of kids singing is something that always warms my heart a bit.  What can I say, I'm a bit of a softie.  Plus, my incredibly immature self couldn't help but snicker when Olaf invited the crowd to "follow his bouncing butt."  Played to the lowest common denominator, perhaps, but I definitely rank on the lower side.

Following the procession, we headed over for the Premiere Theater to take part in the sing along event.  Earlier in the day, we had gone over and picked up tickets for the twelve thirty showtime.  The tickets seemed to be going pretty quickly, so if you have a desire to see Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff in a stage show, you'll want to snatch them up pretty quickly.

                            

The Frozen-decorated theater filled up fairly quickly, and was a wonderful little break from the sun and humidity.  The sing along was fun, though the two "royal historians" were a bit... much at times.  Sometimes even lowest common denominator jokes miss their mark even with me, and that's saying something.  They were certainly not enough to make the experience less fun, with a crowd of people belting along with the royalty of , following a bouncing snowflake to the major musical numbers from the film.

Elsa, letting it go

After the last round of "Let It Go," (Yes, the song was played in its entirety once, then from the bridge on a second time at the end - maybe it is getting a tad overdone) we headed out towards our appointment with Oaken at his Frozen Funland.  At this point, I confess, I was quite nervous.

The face of someone who is 80% sure he's about to fracture is coccyx

For $10, you get the rental of a pair of skates, a helmet, a pair of fresh socks, and thirty minutes on the ice.  Just prior to the free skate, there is a short show with a pair of Oaken's cousins ice dancing to a selection of songs from the film.  After that, I headed out on the ice for the first time ever.  I held on to the wall more tightly than some of the youngsters that I saw around me, but I managed to make it through the thirty minutes with only two breather breaks rinkside, and a grand total of zero falls.  Mind you, I definitely would have hit the ice if Tabby (who was fancy enough to have brought her own skates... show off...) hadn't been babysitting me for most of the time.

Show off... not holding onto the wall and stuff...

After removing my skates, we explored the rest of the Frozen Funland, which included a snack spot with a few items that were special for the event...

And a snow play area, featuring a frequently refreshed pile of snow and tools for building snow castles.  There were a lot of kids in this area, so Tabby and I decided to forego that experience, since we figured we'd be tripping over young ones and inciting snowball fights, which Oaken's cousins would likely have discouraged.  I should also mention that a number of the cousins had accents that matched Oaken's Swedish Chef-esque voice, which made for a chuckle or two.

(It doesn't have to be a snowman...)

The cast member who greeted us with a hearty "yoohoo!"

From there, it was time to take a break from the realm of Arendelle and spend a little bit of time exploring Hollywoodland.  Tabby had never been on the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, so we hopped in a super stretch limo and blasted off through L.A. (The coaster now ranks as her second favorite, with Expedition Everest being her number one, though she does wish the yeti would stop being an extra from Saturday Night Fever), took in a viewing of One Man's Dream and the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, and stopped for a drink and a snack at the Tune In Lounge, which I'll write a full report on soon, since it was quite the experience in and of itself.

A special blue raspberry Frozen-themed milkshake

Olaf hasn't been alive long enough to taste the drink, but he still loves a good photo op!

At the end of the night we headed over to Echo Lake to watch the pre-show for the fireworks to see if any of our photos made it into the Olaf's Summer Vacation photo montage.  We weren't too terribly hopeful, and Tabby even commented that there were many adorable children that had their pictures with Olaf.  We spoke a bit too soon, however, because as the montage started our photo was the first one to appear...

Our moment of Disney fame - even better than being the Rebel spy!

The fireworks were fun - a lot of the special shaped bursts that always impress me, and well choreographed missiles to the main songs from the film, with Queen Elsa making an appearance on the stage to initiate what essentially amounts to the first fireworks encore I've ever encountered.  As we made our way towards the exit, a flurry of snow fell on Hollywood Boulevard, closing out a Frozen day with a bit of magical flair.  There's just enough to do at the Frozen Summer Fun event to fill most of your day without feeling the need to rush around like a crazy person, and of all the featured experiences, only the ice skating cost any extra, and that was quite affordable.  If you or your kids are fans of the film, and are going to be in the area, I'd definitely recommend checking this event out.

Until next time, everyone, stay magical!

P.S. Yes, to my geekier readers, that is a snow Dalek shirt.  I was trying to find a link to it in case people were interested in buying it, but I couldn't find it!  If any of you happen to know where to pick it up, send me a link so I can share with the rest of the geeks!

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