Thursday, January 31, 2019
One of the things we got the kids for Christmas this year was a trip to see The Lion King on Broadway. Another is a trip to Europe which will grace the pages of this blog in about 5 months from now. We’ve gotten to the point with children and their electronics where they no longer need, or even want, much of anything. They have most of what they want in the form of their small electronic devices and the couch. Long gone are the days of pouring over a Sears catalog and meticulously marking what exactly you want for Christmas. To combat that, part of what we like to do for the kids is to give them experiences. This, a trip to Broadway to see The Lion King, was one of them.
D had found some half price tickets for the show during Broadway Week, which was a relief because full price for a family of 5 can be a costly endeavor. We picked up the kids after school on Thursday at 5:00 then pointed the car straight to the city for the 7:00 show. Dragging the kids into the city on a school night makes for a later night. But it’s not something they can’t handle.
As we often do, we got a coupon for parking from Icon Parking to help alleviate the insanity that is NYC parking. It’s not exactly cheap, but it’s better than full price. Just one avenue and 3 streets later we were at The Minskoff Theatre, currently home to tonight’s production.
I love Broadway.
Will call tickets were an easy grab then the line to get in was pretty short. Up a few escalators and we are in our seats in short order. In the end, we left home at 5:00 and were in our seats by 6:45. Pretty good door-to-door time given we were going into the city after work during rush hour.
The show was great. There’s a reason this show is so expensive and it’s been on Broadway for so many years. You can read the history of the show on Wikipedia here. You can find all the details there but the one thing to take away from this is that it’s the 3rd longest running show ever on Broadway. So yeah, it’s got something going for it. If you’re on the fence about it, you should go check it out.
Of course we all know the story, so you’re not going in blind. You go in for the production value which is pretty high. I don’t think it’s fair to say they wow you with explosions or anything like that. To me, the quality of the set, the quality of the costumes, the quality of the singing, and the quality of the choreography of the show makes this really something amazing.
Everyone enjoyed the show, it was a great family experience, and in this guy’s opinion, a fantastic Christmas present for everyone. If we had an ideal setting we would have made it a bit of a longer day, with maybe a walk in the park and a meal. Having to squeeze it in after school might not be the best way to relax and enjoy the evening. But a lot of that is our society’s preconceived notion of what you can get away with on a school night.
Walked to the car on one of the colder nights of the year in about 10 minutes, and we were on the way after paying for the parking and waiting for the car to appear. GPS quoted 45 minutes to get home and ended up being almost totally on-point. It’s pretty much unheard of to make it home in that short of time.
In all, it was a bit of a busy run into the city but I love exposing the kids to this kind of stuff and hopefully they will grow up wanting to do more of this when they get older. It’s obviously on the pricey side when you add it all up, but like I said, it was a Christmas present for the family and D got the tickets half price. So really, it wasn’t so bad. And the experience was well worth it. These are the things we remember as the years go on.
Like I said before, I love Broadway. Every time I go in I think about when I can go back again.
Traveling Normandy 
[…] think a day night trip like this would qualify for an entry in this blog, But much like the Broadway show post, this event, at the current time, is something “abnormal” for us. Just the act of […]
LikeLike