My husband, brother and I were lucky enough to be able to attend a dinner event held in the Great Movie Ride earlier this year. These events are offered once or twice a year for Tables in Wonderland members and allow a pretty limited number of guests to dine within the attraction. If you ever have the chance to go, I highly recommend it! We had seen the emails about the previous events and had talked about going, but the timing was never right, so when this one popped up we jumped on it.
Once you are registered for the event, you get an email with the proposed menu, and further instructions about what time to meet in the courtyard of the Great Movie Ride, located in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We were excited, so of course we were there early, and after a short walk around the park, we took some time to check out some of the handprints in the courtyard.
A short while later, we were called together as a group with the others and greeted by our director for the evening, CB. He explained that we were there to shoot some scenes and that we would be going throughout the evening doing various party shots. He gave us a quick outline of what they would be, and then explained that we’d have to walk into the set. He then asked if we had any questions before leading us into the building and through the queue.
We made our way through the normal queue and into the boarding area. That’s where things started to differ. Instead of getting into a ride vehicle, we took the stairs down and walked onto the floor. CB welcomed us to the movies and then led us through the various scenes until we got to the gangster area. This was to be the set for our first shoot. Here we were filming a cocktail party, and it was quite the elaborate set. We were met by a gangster and his moll, who had very good manners and provided us with our table numbers for a future scene. Other shady characters provided us with drinks, and snacks. There was even live entertainment!
We lingered there for half an hour or so before they got all of the footage that they needed and we were able to move on to our next shot. That would be a dinner scene in the Western area. When the doors slid open, we found tables set up throughout the scene and we were to locate our table. We quickly found our table and got settled. We began chatting with some of our table mates, and had a great time. Dinner was a plated meal, served by Ma and her helpers while her boys entertained us. We then had a while to explore this room so they could finish their shooting, before we were invited to take our time making our way to the big finale scene in Oz.
This left us most of the rest of the ride to explore on foot and it was amazing to get to see all of the details up close and to have all of the time you wanted to explore each scene. The only rule was that you couldn’t climb on anything. We did take our time checking things out and took lots of pictures!
When we finally made it to Oz, it was quite amazing! Out of all of the areas, this was the only one that seemed small. When you’re on the ride vehicle, this room seems huge, but with all of us down on the floor, this area seemed a lot smaller and crowded. But, still, they were able to get the footage that they needed, and we were able to get lots of yummy desserts. The end of the evening was signaled by an appearance of the Wicked Witch of the West!
“Auntie Em’s” Apple Cake
“Dorothy’s” Kansas Dirt Cheesecake
“Evanora” Green Pistachio Cupcake with Cannoli Butter Cream
“Theodora” Red Velvet Cupcake
“Glinda” Yellow Brick Road Sweet and Salty Popcorn, Pretzels, White Chocolate and Edible Gold
“Powerful Oz” Passion Fruit Punch with Bubbles, Coffees and Teas
Then we made our way out into the finale room, where we saw the filmstrip that ends the ride, and that was it- the end of an amazing evening. I would definitely do this one again!
