BMWK Review – UniverSoul Circus
My father, sister, and I took the kids (my kids and my nieces) to the UniverSoul Cricus here in Maryland on Friday. This is the 4th time we have been to the UniverSoul Circus in the last six years. And of course, the kids had a great time. They enjoyed listening and dancing to the latest Hip Hop Music. The dance contests are always a favorite with the kids. They enjoyed the circus acts and of course the ring master.. who kept the crowd hype in much the same manner that a DJ would at a concert.
I thought the circus was totally RAD!! And RAD does not stand for Radical (as the kids say.) For me, R.A.D means Raggedy and DANGEROUS!!! Unlike the kids, I was less than impressed with this circus. As I stated before, we have been to this circus 4 times in the last 6 years. And the only thing that is changing about the circus is the price!!! The price is going up and the quaility is going down. For instance, the seats were falling apart. My 6 year old daughter gets up to dance and her chair just falls down into the row of seats behind her. Our toddler knocks the person’s seat in front of her with her foot and that person’s chair falls to the ground. We purchased 10 tickets and we litterally only had 8 working seats!! Luckily that night, there were many other empty seats to choose from.. But when I was in line, a man was purchasing tickets for Saturday night and the box office lady said that Saturday night was almost sold out. So I am thinking there are going to be a lot of unhappy people on Saturday night when they find out they have to sit in broken seats!! Also, they made me buy seats for my toddler..which I thought was unusual. Most of the time kids 2 and under can get in free. But nooooo…not at the UniverSoul Circus. So even though my little girl is only 19 months old ..I had to purchase a ticket for her. BUT THE KICKER is, that those bleachers are sooooo RAGGEDY and Dangerous…..that no responsible parent would allow their toddler to sit in a seat alone. There is a huge space between the seat and the floor boards that any kid under four would easily fall through and could potentially get seriously injured. Instead of selling tickets to toddlers..they should require that all parents have to hold on to their toddlers.
Another thing that pissed me off was those Porta-Potties. There is no way to make a Porta-Potty nice….so you already know how gross that was just by me merely mentioning Porta-Potty. As we were walking in, I thought those kids better have used the bathroom before we left home. But with seven kids, you know that one of them was going to have to use it. And sure enough.. my six year old daughter starts squirming in her seat. At first I try to ignore it….like maybe she is just dancing. But nooooooooo, she had to go and she said those dreaded words.. Mommy I have to go to the bathroom. So I take her to the bathroom and of course it is dark inside that Porta-Potty. There is no light in there. And of course I have to lift my daughter into the air so that she can use the bathroon without touching the seat. But guess where her pee went…. Yes, you guessed it.. on my foot!!! So instead of waiting in line to get into that dark stinky Porta-Potty, I should have just took her to a corner and said please just pee on my foot.
So we get back to our seats and I remind all of the kids: Please hold on to your shoes because they can fall to the ground. As soon as I sat down, my neice says: “Aunt Ronnie…my shoe fell!!” So I go down to the bottom of the bleachers and over to the side where a few ushers were standing and I try to explain to them that we lost a shoe. Well I guess this is a normal occurance becasue that was their job…to retrieve stuff from under those raggidy ass bleachers. So your Circus is sooo raggedy that you invent a job!!!! Instead of upgrading…you hire folks to search under the bleachers in the dark to retrieve stuff!! Wowwww!! Anyway, those guys could not speak English very well. So the first time he went under, he came back with a baby bottle and I said …nooo …I need a shoe. He went under again and came back empty handed. He told me: “I can’t find it….you look!” At first I was like there is no way I am going under those dark bleachers with you…but lucklily there were other people like me waiting to find things. So we all went under the bleachers in the dark to find our lost items. I finally found the lost shoe. And went back to sit with my family. By this time you can imagine how my own feet were looking. They were already wet from the bathroom incident and then I had to walkround in the dirt under those dark dusty bleachers. Needless to say, I will not be wearing those sandals anymore.
Now might you say, you are just critisizing the venue…what about the actual show?? Well the few circus acts that they had were entertaining. They had this one Asian group of tumblers that were GREAT!!! However, they did had too many “filler” or “time wasting” type activities. For instance, between acts the Ring Master would shout: “When I say Big Top, you say Circus,” …”Big Top” and the crowd would shout: “Circus.” And then the ringmaster would shout “Big Top, Big Top” and the crow would shout: “Circus, Circus.” This went on for far too long. Also, they had a dance contest, a soul train line, an old school vs. new school sing off and a variety of other activities that required crowd participation. I think those type of activities are a part of the appeal for UniverSoul Circus. But it is far too much of that stuff and not enough of the actual circus acts. And by the way, there were NO CLOWNs this year. I thought maybe I missed the clowns while I was in that Porta- Potty or while I was searching in the dark for that shoe. But no, my sister said there were no clowns. Now what type of circus has no clowns!!
This year, I definitely will not give the UniverSoul Circus a high rating. Out of 5… I would give them a 2. If you have never been to the UniverSoul Circus, I think you would enjoy it…because the first time you experience it is always the best. But if you are a repeat visitor, then I don’t think they will have anything new or entertaining to offer you.
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