FLORIDA: Come dine with me, pirate style
Saturday, 18 Jan, 2013
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As if three consecutive days in Orlando’s park weren’t enough excitement, Bev Fearis and family spent their final night in Orlando at a Pirate Dinner Adventure, but didn’t realise they would end up being part of the swashbuckling action…
International Drive Orlando might not quite live up to the craziness of the Vegas Strip, but it’s not too far behind. Alongside the hotels and restaurants sit a number of attractions that ensure the fun continues well after the theme parks close.
One such attraction is the Pirates Dinner Adventure, a popular add-on to an Orlando holiday and one which, having experienced it, I would recommend.
It’s a high energy show that takes place on and around an authentically replicated 18th-century Spanish galleon in a 300,000-gallon indoor lagoon with night sky lighting. To give you an idea of the scale of the thing, it’s 46 feet long, 18 feet wide with 40-foot masts. It’s impressive.
Diners sit in rows positioned in sections around the ship, just like at the theatre, but here you tuck into a three-course dinner while the adventure unfolds.
The fun starts from the minute doors open at 6.30am. On entry, guests are invited to have their photo taken, wearing silly pirate hats ($20 per photo if you decide to buy it) and then have a drink at the bar while the cast set the scene with an all singing all dancing pre-show on a small stage. Then guests are ushered through to their seats in the main auditorium.
Each section of the theatre is colour themed. We are seated in the ‘blue’ section, which means we are the support team for young Benjamin, the good-hearted son of evil Captain Sebastian the Black. Before the show begins he works his way around the ‘blue’ section recruiting volunteers to take part in games and compete against the other ‘teams’ – yellow, orange, green – you get the idea. Warren and I are both roped in – excuse the pun – and Freddie is promised that he’ll get a chance to join in too a bit later on.
Click here to sample the show
The cast of 12 have boundless energy and enthusiasm and the show is a swashbuckling action-packed mix of singing, dancing, swinging from the masts, bouncing on a trampoline, sword fighting, wrestling, acrobatics, cannon blasts and pyrotechnics – all of which distract from the rather unexciting food – a salad entrée with a choice of two dressings, followed by chicken or beef with carrots, runner beans and potatoes and then apple tart with ice cream. The ticket price also covers a champagne cocktail (half a glass) and a few glasses of beer or wine.
During the show, I’m called upon to help play a game of hoisting the sail, Warren plays some kind of game passing around a ball, and then I have to don a hat and swing a lantern on the side of the ship. Later on, Freddie is invited on to the stage with the other children to be sworn in as a pirate. He doesn’t really understand what’s going on, but is awestruck by actually being on the ship and so close to a ‘real’ pirate. He loves it.
After more sword fighting and thigh slapping, the story comes to a happy and romantic end (I won’t spoil it by telling you the plot), and then the audience is ushered back into the bar for more drinking and dancing. Freddie was exhausted, so we didn’t stay long, but by the time we left the whole dancefloor was doing a Zumba-style routine, led by one of the pirate cast. It was a suitably crazy end to a crazy three days in Orlando.
Tickets cost $63.95 + tax for adults (12 and over), $39.45 + tax for children (ages 3 – 12 years) and free for infants. For more info, see www.piratesdinneradventure.com. For further information about Florida, go to visitflorida.com or visitorlando.com.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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