Disney's Beauty & The Beast Activity Center

A gorgeous opening leads to the foyer of the Beast's castle where Belle and Cogsworth, the worrywart clock, and Lumiere, the candle with the Maurice Chevalier accent, are preparing a surprise party for the Beast. Visitors must help the castle's denizens prepare for the party in four different areas. Mrs. Pott's Teatime Table is in the kitchen, where guests must help set the table for three different meals; a rotating table gives this mundane-sounding task a fun spin. It takes good timing and hand-eye coordination to drop scoops of ice cream from high up on the shelf to the dishes spinning dizzily below.

In the ballroom, visitors can pick music, decorations, and a gown for Belle, as well as choreograph dance steps in an activity that teaches sequencing and programming skills. Cogsworth's Library Mystery is another smart activity; players must use descriptive clues to eliminate books, then decide which of the remaining tomes hides part of a key that's necessary to unlock the Beast's lair. Belle's Writing Desk is a non-structured activity in which kids can create stained-glass windows, cards, party invitations, and other masterpieces. The Teatime Table and the Library Mystery have three levels of difficulty, all of which must be mastered in order to adequately prepare for the big payoff--the surprise party for the Beast.

Interestingly, the Beast doesn't make an appearance until it's time for the party. He sleeps in the West Wing, and the castle gang gives explicit instructions not to disturb him. Clicking on his door earns a gentle reprimand as you hear him snore in the background. This patriarchal bit of ominousness may be irksome to parents who seek to teach kids non-stereotypical gender roles.

The lavish graphics slow progress somewhat, and it wouldn't have hurt Disney to include a few more activities; maybe they should have made the Beast get off his couch and go get something nice for Belle. (Ages 5 and older) --Anne Erickson

Product Description
Join all your favorite characters from the popular Disney film, "Beauty And The Beast", when you plan to throw Beast a big surprise party!

However, I could not get the sound to function properly; when it works at all it is choppy, cuts off words, and sometimes even sounds like a broken record. I thought of keeping the software but it the sound is just too annoying and you need it to play the games.

I believe the problem is that I'm running Windows XP, and since this Disney software is a few years old it does not run properly on XP. There's actually a disclaimer in the instructions saying they cannot guarantee compatibility on Windows 2000 (XP is based on Win 2000.) The manual mentions to update all drivers on your computer, all mine are brand new for XP.

For what it's worth, after exhausting the manual and the included product troubleshooting, I found a pretty good troubleshooting page on Disney's website at: http://asp.interactive.go.com/support/disney/index.asp


Fun game   May 19, 2001
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

My daughter enjoys playing with this game. There are various games, and when changing from one game to the other one has to wait for Belle to speak all the options. This takes a while, and my daughter gets impatient. The food game and the one where a dance is created are fun. The best is the guessing game, as it fosters skills like listening, observation, focus on details, deduction, logic, and making educated guesses. All in all it is a good game.


A Beauty or a Beast?   January 7, 2001
C. Crabb (Southwest, WA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is not one of the better Disney programs. It's charming at first, but gets old quite fast. There doesn't seem to be that many different things to do on it. It is fun, however, to make up a dance,arrange the music and hallway, and play the food game, but one can only do that so many times. You also rarely get to see the beast. I recommend this to those with a short attention span.