Took my oldest boy to Medieval Times yesterday for their dinner show. Wow!But let's begin with the negative, so I can get it out of my system and finish this post on a positive note: The food was meh, at best. In fact, I'm being generous with a meh. Perhaps bleh is better. They serve chicken, a rib (that's right, a singular rib), half a roasted potato, soup and a piece of garlic bread. No cutlery. All food must be eaten with fingers. I don't object to the gnawing on meat torn from the bone with my fingers, but it must be palatable. This food wasn't. But you know, who cares, because while I was licking my greasy fingers, I was treated to an amazing display...
The show was fabulous, magical and made you feel as if you were shuttled back in time 700 years. For those of you not familiar with this chain-across-US-and-Canada dinner theatre, Medieval Times recreates a good old fashioned tournament, complete with a king, princess, falconry, knights, horses and fighting - not to mention treachery and betrayal!
The horses are incredible. I'm not up on horsey-knowledge, but I believe they use Andalusians - beautiful, delicate looking animals who actually look like they're dancing in the arena. (Hmmm... dancing, prancing -- could it be? Yes!)The guests (that's us) are assigned seating in color coded bleacher-like seats and you must cheer for the knight who wears those colors. We had the black and white priest/warrior knight -- see photo 1. The tournament begins and the knights prove their skill on horseback with jousting, (that's the only one I know the official name of, so bear with me), spearing a target, catching these ringie things with ribbons attached and flag tossing. There's also a good deal of hand-to-hand combat with two handed swords, short swords, axes, maces, etc... They use real, but dulled, weapons, so you can actually see sparks flying as their swords clang. We cheered, jeered and got totally sucked in! Of course, all the fight sequences are choreographed -- no blood or mortal wounds -- and the victor is pre-determined,...
but how sick am I that I wanted this to be real?
VERY enjoyable show. Initially, I balked at the ticket price (eek!), but having seen what goes into putting this production together, it was completely worth the price, even with the bleh meal.And did I mention that horse-riding, long-haired muscular men in leather, faux armor, and heavy weaponry are a total turn-on?
