So a few weeks ago I went down to Florida with two horse friends. When I saw the Ad for Arabian nights I thought it would be the perfect thing to do. I LOVE Medieval Times and the advertisements made it sound like something similar, so I got tickets. The first problem came with the fact that no show times were listed. So I called the morning of to see what was going on, and the ticket person yelled at me. Apparently my online reservation was not enough, I was supposed to call them. Yikes. That already made me not want to go, but the tickets were expensive so we gave our name to the mean ticket lady and hoped for the best.
The show was supposed to start at 6 and they told us that the doors opened at 4:30 and that there was a pre-show at 5 we should be there for. So we showed up at 5:15 to the shabby building where the show was and again had misgivings. Considering the building looked like it could use a good $20,000 in repairs my visions of a Mid Eastern Medieval times had vanished before my eyes. We walked in to the darkened building only to be greeted with a gift shop. After looking around for a few minutes to kill time we went in to the pre-show, which turned out to be one lone woman with a portable cd player trying to teach people how to belly dance. I am sure it would have been a lot more fun if we had some cocktails from the bar, but at about $10 a pop I figured I would pass.
When the doors finally opened we were brought to our seats, which were really good considering we had just gotten them that morning. We were second row up right in the center. Already at our seats were packets of ranch dressing…getting nice and warm waiting for salad to come. The waiter came to take our order (he was the best part of the whole show). I had hopes for descent food since there were only a handful of things to choose from. Gordon Ramsey always says to do a few dishes well instead of a menu full of crap. So we were served our salad (and I was a little worried about eating it because considering the lack of care in every other detail at the show so far I didn’t get the impression the veggies would be washed) and our drinks (the only good thing about the show was that you got all the bud light you could drink) and neither were great.
We got our dinners just as the show was starting and man, did dinner SUCK! We had all gotten different meals and not one of them was good. They couldn’t even reheat mixed veggies well! I am normally not one to complain about food, but this stuff was DISGUSTING! What else was disgusting was the way this one “rider” was treating the horses. This guy started the show with a liberty act, which normally is supposed to show the connection between horse and human. In this act the human was such a jerk that I was glad when the horse ignored him and went down for a nice roll! When I saw this person on the horses back I was praying he would get bucked off. He was a total jerk and spur rider and he was not even a results getting jerk and spur rider at that.
There were some good horse people working and riding in the show, but there was also a lot of crap. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the horses watching them try to go with their heads tied down with side reins. Not every act was horrible, but a lot were. There was not even a good story line to try and tie the acts together. By the time desert came (it was literally inedible…HOW DO YOU MAKE INEDIBLE CHOCOLATE CAKE!?!?!?!?!?!?!) we were all feeling bad for the horses and just wanted out.
If you love horses, do not go to this show. Yes, there were a few horses who still had the spark left in their eye, but there were lots who did not. There were also some really nice riders, but the one jerk who tried to strong arm the horses just left a bad taste in my mouth. Not only was the ticket way over priced, the food disgusting, and the horse acts not so good, it was just cheesy and horrible. Luckily my friends and I laughed at how horrible it was so at least we were able to have some fun.
So my advice for Arabian Nights…DON’T GO!
A Horse and a Half 