Polar Express

Remember the 5 W’s for old school book reports? Here they are for our amazing trip to the Polar Express… Who? The Polar Express is for young kids, but also adults who love the magic of Christmas.

When? Tonight’s fun (Dec. 10th) all began back in September!! Yes, my friends, that’s how early you need to begin thinking about this fun outing.  The “easiest” way to get tickets for when you’d like to attend is to either become a member of the RR Museum, or find a friend who is already a member! Each member can purchase up to 10 tickets. Even WITH a membership early log-on code, it still took my friend and I about an hour to purchase tickets on the same day, same time, same car. We decided to splurge and go First Class. We had heard that it was worth the extra dough. While I have nothing to compare it to, First Class AND the event itself was simply amazing!!

Where? The Polar Express train ride is hosted by the California State Railroad Museum in downtown Sacramento.

Why? Because it is simply magical for any child, especially mine, who is head over heels in love with trains!

What? My friend had the fun idea to print out copies of the Polar Express tickets, found here, and have them mailed by Santa to her kids. Since my son isn’t quite old enough to understand that concept, we printed out a ticket and told him we found it in his copy of the Polar Express. We gave it to him in the car on the way. I printed it out ridiculously large…just for fun. Here he is squealing with excitement: And here he is staring at the ticket for the remainder of the 40 minute drive: Everyone is encouraged to come wearing your pj’s. With first class, we were able to enter the train first, and sat in a semi-private car. Upon entering, our personal “chefs” came to inform us of the evenings festivities. They also said that there were at our beck and call…which proved true! They brought hot cocoa, served in commemorative mugs that we would get to keep, along with a choice of cookies! Along with this, they offered bottled cold water to help cool down the hot chocolate for the kiddos. Fabulous!! AND…the hot chocolate was still in the to go cups inside the mugs so that the kids could drink relatively spill free. =)

Next up, the conductor came around to punch the tickets as well as sign our personal copies of the Polar Express. Here’s Cooper holding up his ticket to be punched (and you can see the mug in my hand): Then, the “chefs” came tap dancing through holding trays of cookies. All the while, the music from the movie The Polar Express, is playing in the background. After a brief stop at the “North Pole” (aka a stage along the river), we actually got to watch the engine back up and reattach to the back of the train. Sounds simple, but to a little boy who loves trains, it was amazing! The engineers stood out back with us, explaining the entire process. Here we are on the rear deck, watching the train magic! Santa came through the train handing out silver bells to all who believe, and finally, the “hobo” came through attempting to listen to the bells…claiming he heard no ringing at all. It was definitely helpful having watched the movie beforehand. Thankfully, we have an unusual 2 year old who LOVES movies and will happily sit through a full length feature.

The entire train ride is about an hour. We ended our evening with some dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. It was simply amazing. I’m pretty sure all 3 of us were on Cloud9 on the walk back to the car. =)