We arrived at 5pm for the pre-show which began at 5. 15 pm. We already had pre-paid tickets but still had to wait in line for about 15 minutes before getting to the cashier and exchanging the tickets for our seat row tickets. You are shepherded into the show with the obligatory stop for a souvenir picture, which at $20 is a bit steep! You are then taken through the gift shop to get to the bar for pre-dinner drinks. At this stage we had to pay, as the unlimited drinks were only for the meal with the show. We had some frozen cocktails and a couple of beers and it came out at $20 or so for the four of us, the cocktails were served in a “free” brittle plastic souvenir boot!
We then found some seats on the upper level of The Carriage Room and waited for the pre-show to begin. Well, where do we start! A movie of Australia comes up on the huge screen – relevance? The star of this part of the show is called Greg Anderson and yep he is an Australian cowboy! In the land with a population of 260 million and the home of the cowboy, it seems they could not find an American cowboy! For approximately 30-40 minutes we were entertained with some singing, clever whip work on 2 ‘volunteers’ from the audience and horse skills. The best for the audience being when he and his horse, a quarter horse called Starstruck, came up two flights of stairs and then back down again! Both horse and rider were lit up like a Xmas tree. At the end of the pre-show, he sang ‘Only in America’ and it was spot on - only in America would you have an Australian cowboy at the Dixieland Stampede. Kids and the older members of the audience loved it, we were of the opinion, it was a bit Cheesy!
We then moved into the main arena for the show at 6. 30 pm. This was based on the North versus the South and the whole show consisted of competitions, with medals being awarded to the winning side. Pig racing, ostrich racing and wagon racing, were among the tasks that pitted the teams against each other. There was a bit of comedy and audience participation hosted by a nice Southern lady. The food was surprisingly tasty and consisted of a vegetable soup and cheese scone, a whole (small) chicken, a slice of pork, corn on the cob and a couple of small potatoes. The unlimited free tea, coffee, Pepsi, beer and wine was very poor; one glass of Pepsi and one of wine was all that was provided.
The show then became very glitzy and of course the South won in the end, after being 4 medals behind! Finally, Dolly comes up on the screen and sings a patriotic song. All the Americans stand up, with one hand raised, lots of horses and Stars and Stripes, and all a bit OTT in our opinion.
We are glad we eventually made the visit and it is one of the better dinner shows but only worth the one visit! This is from an adult’s point of view and all of us were of the same opinion but the kids will definitely love it, as there is lots of jeering at the other side and feet stamping!
YEEHAH!