The Look Of A Princess

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Kristen K.'s picture
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The Look Of A Princess

Reading back through RobynPrincess' trip report again browsing all the pictures and this Ariel stopped me. I remember when I was a teenager and wanted to be a Disney Princess for a job. I researched it and you actually had to look similar to how the character was drawn in order to get the job, your face had to have the right proportions. They wouldn't just slap a wig on any girl and send them out to be the Character. It seems to be that the Princess standard has gotten considerably less strict as the years have gone by.

Now, I'm not bashing this actress, she's lovely. But is she Ariel?

This sort of thing actually does take away from my Disney experience, it snaps me out of the fantasy world and right back into "oh - that's a girl in a costume." Does it do the same thing to you?

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lol yeah we have seen her too and thought the same she isn't as bad as the one we met in Paris, and she had a really strong brummy (Birmingham, England) accent.

I can't think of a celeb you americans would know from Birmingham other than Cat Deeley or Cat Deeley...well you can just imagine meeting ariel and being greeted with

'aye up pets, R ya 'aving a goood time tutday up unt land'

she was lovely and I'm sure she works very hard but is she ariel..........

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Oh dear, quite a miss on both accounts. This goes to the point I just posted in my TR about CM's in general as an area where the typical Disney quality seems to not be as consistent as it once was. I forget which trip it was, but I saw a Mary Poppins who had decidedly Asian heritage. Um, no. That doesn't work. It's just like your Ariel, Kristen. This "Mary Poppins" was a beautiful person and I'm sure she was a lovely actress, but creating the illusion takes more than a white dress and a parasol.

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King Fergus

Lol....When I got my photo taken with this wee Bonnie Lass..She said.." Oh I love your accent." I was tempted to ask her what part of Ireland she came from...LOL.. laugh

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oh dear king, oh dear.

Alice mouse in paris a few years back burt was a 5 foot chinese guy. nooooooot great

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Kristen when i was reading Robyn report and looking at the photos. I thought the same thing she wasn't Ariel to me !!

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I remember on my College Program, my roommates and I all decided it would be fun to go audition for characters. While I didn't get a call back (which to be honest, I was not expecting to, althought it would have been neat to see myself all dressed up like Cinderella wink ) My roommate who had darker skin but was not of Native American heritage at all was called back for Pocahontas. We found it to be a bit strange since we thought of anyone she could pull off Jasmine, but maybe the casting directors just see something different....

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King Fergus wrote:
Lol....When I got my photo taken with this wee Bonnie Lass..She said.." Oh I love your accent." I was tempted to ask her what part of Ireland she came from...LOL.. laugh

Oh that surprises me a bit! I remember quite clearly the press release about them casting in Scotland for Merida.

King Fergus

Kristen K. wrote:
King Fergus wrote:
Lol....When I got my photo taken with this wee Bonnie Lass..She said.." Oh I love your accent." I was tempted to ask her what part of Ireland she came from...LOL.. laugh

Oh that surprises me a bit! I remember quite clearly the press release about them casting in Scotland for Merida.

Hmm...In Scotland they have hundreds of region accents...In the east coast they sing their words...In the highlands it's more towards a Gaelic twist..However myself being born in Glasgow have a completely different accent from my DW who was born in the south west coast..She has a Galloway/Irish tongue...In fact she has been asked many times what part of Ireland does she come from...Eh! eek

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Wow, on comprise my Ariel kinda looks not so bad now haha

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When I was there in February, we went by a meet and greet for Peter Pan. I couldn't get a picture from where we were standing but he was just creepy looking.

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Maybe it's slim pickins these days laugh

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I noticed this week that a few of them were...not much like their characters? But I was meeting them during late night extra magic hours, so maybe they save those girls for the less popular hours? silly

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DH and I were in HS and MK this weekend and we saw more princesses than usual that really looked the part, especially the Belle's. We happened to be sitting on the benches outside of Lights, motors, action! when character palooza started. All the characters walked right in front of us, with many of them stopping to say hi, wave or be a little silly. It was really cool. In that group, the Belle and Snow white looked really good. We saw B&tB and the Belle looked and sounded very good. Also, VoTLM Ariel looked and sounded very good too.

We also went to see Enchanted tales w/ Belle at MK Sunday and the Belle they chose was one of the best Belle's I've ever seen, in all the parks.
I know that Alice isn't technically a princess but we did see the worst Alice I've ever seen at MK. If she was just an average person dressing up as Alice for Halloween she would have looked bad, so we couldn't believe she was a meet and greet!

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Kristen, not a good Ariel. Then again there seem to be a lot more characters running around these days.

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They did re-design the princesses for the merchandise not too long ago so...maybe their casting standards is more towards to how do they look compared to the princess merchandise line products as opposed just to the movies, maybe? confused

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I agree with everyone. The CM posing as Ariel is NOT a true Ariel.

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Ariel seems to be a hard character to cast. We met Ariel in DL, and while she somewhat looked the part, I don't think she acted the part. Ariel to me is young and carefree and happy and maybe a bit silly. The Ariel we met was so stiff and rigid, it really broke the magic for me. Made her just another girl in a dress and wig.

Tinkerbell was another disappointment. I know the requirements are that Tinkerbell be shorter that most other characters (I think her actress has to be under 5'2), but she was as tall as I was. Granted, I'm only 5'3, but it would have been really magical to have met a tiny little Tinkerbell.

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Yikes!!!

I'd say the true like-ness is hit or miss. We saw some that looked amazing this trip - Marry Poppins (looked and spoke like her) and Belle. A few others we saw, we were Puzzled

A theater friend of mine from school actually attended UCF and worked as Prince Charming PT in the MK. He told me it was very strict and each week, all face characters are measured to ensure they are maintaining their physique. They are also revisited about every three months to determine if they still "fit the part". He said it was fun, but it's mostly college students and he was paid about $11 per hour to be the prince. He did say that the better you fit the part, the more important gigs you got. He was in all the MK parades v. just being present for photos with Cinderella at a location in the park.

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Philhowelldesign wrote:
oh dear king, oh dear.

Alice mouse in paris a few years back burt was a 5 foot chinese guy. nooooooot great

oh my. that's just no good at all. Here are two Alice's that I've met

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VelcroPooh

I definitely think that if they don't "look the part" it takes away from the character experience. All of ours were really good, except one. The "Belle" at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall, to me, did not only not look anything like Belle but also had the personality of a wet mop. You could tell she was just wanting it to be over.

Case in point (look how fake the smile is as well)

VelcroPooh

This Belle was awesome

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Much better than the other Belle!

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I'm kind of nervous about the Ariel meet and greet because I have a whole Little Mermaid outfit planned... It would make me sad if I met the awkward, not-so-Ariel Ariel waiting

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Wonderland Katie wrote:
I'm kind of nervous about the Ariel meet and greet because I have a whole Little Mermaid outfit planned... It would make me sad if I met the awkward, not-so-Ariel Ariel waiting

Ariel is hands down my favorite princess and the Ariel we had was AWESOME! Of course, it was during the Fantasyland testing/preview so she may have moved on to bigger and better things then the meet and greets, but there are some good ones out there!

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Belle at Akershus was a miss for us in 2011 too which was a huge disappointment for me since she's one of my favorites. However, Snow White was awesome. Perfect personality, voice, and look. We loved her! Mulan in China was also great on that trip.

For this trip I'm hoping for a good Rapunzel (we couldn't meet her last time since the lines were huge) and of course Anna and Elsa for my girls. Though Elsa's hair really irritates me...

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Does anyone else find that having a really great meet & greet with a character that you had previously considered "B-list" make you appreciate other things that feature that character more? I was never a big Snow White fan (aside from in a historical perspective), but we also met her at Akershus and she was the most genuine of the lot. It really made me develop more of an appreciation for the character and the movie. Not gonna lie--I'm still about 10x's more likely to watch sleeping beauty, but Snow White has at least gotten some screen time at our house since that character meal.

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Allie wrote:
Wonderland Katie wrote:
I'm kind of nervous about the Ariel meet and greet because I have a whole Little Mermaid outfit planned... It would make me sad if I met the awkward, not-so-Ariel Ariel waiting

Ariel is hands down my favorite princess and the Ariel we had was AWESOME! Of course, it was during the Fantasyland testing/preview so she may have moved on to bigger and better things then the meet and greets, but there are some good ones out there!

Oooo your Ariel does seem awesome, Allie!

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alicemouse wrote:
Does anyone else find that having a really great meet & greet with a character that you had previously considered "B-list" make you appreciate other things that feature that character more? I was never a big Snow White fan (aside from in a historical perspective), but we also met her at Akershus and she was the most genuine of the lot. It really made me develop more of an appreciation for the character and the movie. Not gonna lie--I'm still about 10x's more likely to watch sleeping beauty, but Snow White has at least gotten some screen time at our house since that character meal.

I agree with that. I felt that way after I met Rapunzel on my last 2013 trip. Now I'm not gonna lie. I haven't seen Tangled in its entirety. I've seen parts of it so I know the basic story and characters. But I never really considered Rapunzel someone I would put on my top 5 heroines list...that was until I met her for the first time ever on that aforementioned trip although I have to come clean, I was asked by Ariel to "tag" her so that was the sole reason of meeting her. But it was worth it though! yay Long story short, she complimented my drawstring bag and asked if I kept a frying pan. When I said it was too big to fit, she went on how her kingdom is designing fold-able frying pans! laugh And then when I told her that she was tagged courtesy of Ariel, she said how Ariel is a fast tagger. Anyway, it was a really good experience and I truly appreciated Rapunzel's persona and character as well as Tangled.

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jw24 wrote:

I agree with that. I felt that way after I met Rapunzel on my last 2013 trip. Now I'm not gonna lie. I haven't seen Tangled in its entirety. I've seen parts of it so I know the basic story and characters. But I never really considered Rapunzel someone I would put on my top 5 heroines list...that was until I met her for the first time ever on that aforementioned trip although I have to come clean, I was asked by Ariel to "tag" her so that was the sole reason of meeting her. But it was worth it though! yay Long story short, she complimented my drawstring bag and asked if I kept a frying pan. When I said it was too big to fit, she went on how her kingdom is designing fold-able frying pans! laugh And then when I told her that she was tagged courtesy of Ariel, she said how Ariel is a fast tagger. Anyway, it was a really good experience and I truly appreciated Rapunzel's persona and character as well as Tangled.

That's awesome! Hopefully we get a similar Rapunzel. Wink

We had a great experience with Tink and Terrance in 2011 too. Terrance even went out of his way to go interact with my shy son who refused to go up to meet them. I will admit it made me appreciate that character in the Tinkerbell movies a lot more!

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King Fergus wrote:
Lol....When I got my photo taken with this wee Bonnie Lass..She said.." Oh I love your accent." I was tempted to ask her what part of Ireland she came from...LOL.. laugh

My son said the Merida he stood with didn't even have an accent. He didn't ask because he figured the pic couldn't talk!

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