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Precious little Georgie and her mom Susan were strolling along down Sunset Boulevard and were about to pass the Beauty and the Beast stage area. The Beauty and Beast show was on brief hiatus for some light refurbishment, so seeing the show was out of the question. They saw a line trailing down from the hill to Sunset Boulevard, but initially didn’t think much of it. As they walked past a second time, Susan decided to venture into seeing why all these people were in a line. Most people just join the line, not having a clue what’s at the end. I once saw 6 or 7 people in line, not knowing it ended with a survey taker. She saw Beast and Belle at the end of the line and learned that they were rotating with Lumiere, Cogsworth and Chip. Susan said, “Good thing I’m nosy or we’d have missed it. It seemed a bit on the down low. No one else in line seemed as excited as I was about the enchanted friends. Several families gladly went ahead of us to see Beast and Belle while we waited for the others to return.” In a few years the families who were willing to meet Belle and Beast may be sad that they missed this rare opportunity to get a photo made with these three rare meet and greet characters!
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Rob
Wednesday 16th of January 2013
Beauty and the Beast will resume its normal schedule starting with today's 3:00 show.
This comes from both the sign outside the theater, which has been changed since this morning, and the Cast Members positioned at the theater entrance.
Ironically, the Times Guide for this week was changed to say that Beauty and the Beast is "temporarily closed for refurbishment" all week. A couple of days ago it had the normal show times listed for the week.
kennythepirate
Wednesday 16th of January 2013
Follow the bouncing ball :) Thanks for the updates!
Rob
Wednesday 16th of January 2013
Sign at DHS entrance says no Beauty and the Beast shows today. Seems safe to assume that the characters will again be doing meets, but I do not know that for sure.
kennythepirate
Wednesday 16th of January 2013
Thx Rob!
Meghan
Tuesday 15th of January 2013
That's so cool! Wish I was there for this. These guys are my favorites.
susan
Monday 14th of January 2013
Georgie's mom here! She's excited about seeing her pic on your blog. I agree, this was much more exciting than the LTM thing in Canada. The characters in their "Canada" wear are very cute but my daughter was a bit disappointed by the "snow" of which there was very little. Not complaining or anything, still very fun!
Glad others got to meet the characters with short waits today. We had to wait about 40 mins total yesterday as we got in line just a few mins before the enchanteds were ending their set.
Rob
Monday 14th of January 2013
Because of this blog (supplemented by information provided by other posters), I made a quick side trip to the Studios today, after taking in Winter Wonderland at Epcot.
The Cast Member positioned at the theater entrance basically just kept informing everyone that the show was canceled for the day and that they were in line for a meet and greet instead. He definitely did not look like he was having too much fun, probably because the refurbishment was expected to be finished by now, so the show times were once again listed on the Times Guide - this led to many confused/upset guests.
Whenever anyone asked why the show was canceled, he informed them that the stage had been torn out and was not fully replaced yet. He also said that he had been told that the stage would not be ready for tomorrow, and that there was less than a 50% chance it would be ready for Wednesday. While I have no reason to doubt him, given that he gave out this information so readily, we are all left to our own opinions to decide if this was the truth or if it was a "Disney approved" answer.
My 1st time through the line Belle was meeting with Beast and Chip. It was the 3rd time through the line for the people behind me, because their first time through there was only Belle. I guess not every set was the same, but I only waited twice to meet all 5 characters.
Just a head's up for anyone else who happens to do this awesome meet, none of the characters give autographs, not even Belle. I guess this is to make the entire experience more uniform, as opposed to having to explain to a child why some of them are giving autographs and some aren't. The bright side here is that the line moved very quickly as a result. Only waited about 10 minutes each time. I'm sure this was helped by the fact that most people didn't even know this was taking place. Also, PhotoPass was there, for anyone who might like to know.
I realize I have already written a lot (and do not blame anyone who has not made it this far), but my final thought is a simple one. If Disney had planned to do this during the originally scheduled refurbishment, why not announce it as Week 2 of Limited Time Magic. Given the rarity of the characters, it certainly qualifies, and instead they allowed many to believe that the follow-up to Bling in the New Year was nothing for a week, then finally Winter Wonderland. I think most character hunters would agree that this would have been nicer if it had been promoted, and surely announcing something simple is better than announcing nothing at all.
Monday 14th of January 2013
This was not planned and they did not do meet and greets on the days of the scheduled refurbishment, as I understand it. These greetings are now happening because of the delay and the fact that the show times were already published in the times guide. It's a great surprise, and ironically better than the actual limited time magic!