Meeting Thomas the Train!!
Dear blog, before I was a mom it never crossed my mind that I would be making reservations to meet a train!!!! Not just any train, Thomas the train! This cartoon is one of my son's favorite shows to watch. We use Netflix as our TV entertainment, so we have watched the same episodes many times, he even knows the song at the end; he brings us the remote to start the next one. Well back to meeting Thomas, we bought a DVD of Thomas an Friends from Target; while we were watching the commercials before the movie, I noticed a commercial about " A Day with Thomas the Train". At first I wasn't sure what it meant and if it was they even held events in the states: Thomas is a British cartoon. Anyway, I began researching the event, sure enough they do have events in the states. By the way, the DVD stays in my car with our Phillips (similar to ours) DVD player we bought from Best Buy to use when we travel. So, back to my research, I found an event in Chattanooga, TN. Once I bought the tickets, I started to let my son know that he was going to meet Thomas. Of course he didn't understand what I was saying, he just got very happy when I said Thomas.
Finally the day to meet Thomas arrived; we were up at 2:30 a.m that morning and on the road by 3:00 a.m. Let me tell you, we didn't realize Chattanooga is in the Eastern Time Zone, so we were instantly behind schedule. The planner in me was going banana's; all I could think was "I'm a horrible mom, my son won't get to meet his favorite cartoon" :(. I also did a lot of praying and made several phone calls. To make matters worse, we hit several areas of road construction and a bad accident near Nashville, TN. We arrived at our destination thirty minutes late but the event workers were so helpful and nice. Since we were late for our train ride we explained to them what had happened. They were so helpful they exchanged our tickets for a later ride. I couldn't stop thanking God and them because I was really freaking out. We had already paid for those tickets and had driven 6 hours to get there.
My son was over the moon; he was just pointing at every picture of Thomas around. I know that he had an amazing time and I had an amazing time seeing him smile and being so happy. Now there are some things that I would change, the train ride wasn't very exciting. The only characteristic that made it a Thomas train ride was the front engine was Thomas. The other train cars seemed so out of place next to the bright blue engines. There was no Thomas theme song, no story reading by Mr. Perkins (the engine driver from the newer Thomas videos), or even a simple recording of Thomas speaking to the passengers. It was a bit disappointing, my son actually fell asleep during the ride. There were different stations to visit around the train depot when waiting for the next train ride; a drawing station, story time station, meet Sir Topham Hatt, playing with trains station, a magic show, and a gift shop.
That night we stayed at the Best Western Heritage Inn. It was fairly clean and in a good location. Also, I love that our room had three beds, my son had a blast playing on all three. We booked it through Hotels.com, we had a good experience at the hotel and with the website.
Above, I mentioned that I wanted to go to the event before his birthday because his birthday theme is Thomas and I wanted him to have a picture with Thomas. I actually want to take him to Thomas Land in Massachusetts. I still haven't been able to convince my husband to take us. I understand where he is coming from, it is a 24 hour drive. But hopefully we can take him in the near future. I think my son would also enjoy the Thomas Land park; he would point out every Thomas around lol. If you have a little one who likes Thomas the train, you should check out these events; maybe it's a bit different in other states.
Finally the day to meet Thomas arrived; we were up at 2:30 a.m that morning and on the road by 3:00 a.m. Let me tell you, we didn't realize Chattanooga is in the Eastern Time Zone, so we were instantly behind schedule. The planner in me was going banana's; all I could think was "I'm a horrible mom, my son won't get to meet his favorite cartoon" :(. I also did a lot of praying and made several phone calls. To make matters worse, we hit several areas of road construction and a bad accident near Nashville, TN. We arrived at our destination thirty minutes late but the event workers were so helpful and nice. Since we were late for our train ride we explained to them what had happened. They were so helpful they exchanged our tickets for a later ride. I couldn't stop thanking God and them because I was really freaking out. We had already paid for those tickets and had driven 6 hours to get there.
My son was over the moon; he was just pointing at every picture of Thomas around. I know that he had an amazing time and I had an amazing time seeing him smile and being so happy. Now there are some things that I would change, the train ride wasn't very exciting. The only characteristic that made it a Thomas train ride was the front engine was Thomas. The other train cars seemed so out of place next to the bright blue engines. There was no Thomas theme song, no story reading by Mr. Perkins (the engine driver from the newer Thomas videos), or even a simple recording of Thomas speaking to the passengers. It was a bit disappointing, my son actually fell asleep during the ride. There were different stations to visit around the train depot when waiting for the next train ride; a drawing station, story time station, meet Sir Topham Hatt, playing with trains station, a magic show, and a gift shop.
That night we stayed at the Best Western Heritage Inn. It was fairly clean and in a good location. Also, I love that our room had three beds, my son had a blast playing on all three. We booked it through Hotels.com, we had a good experience at the hotel and with the website.
Above, I mentioned that I wanted to go to the event before his birthday because his birthday theme is Thomas and I wanted him to have a picture with Thomas. I actually want to take him to Thomas Land in Massachusetts. I still haven't been able to convince my husband to take us. I understand where he is coming from, it is a 24 hour drive. But hopefully we can take him in the near future. I think my son would also enjoy the Thomas Land park; he would point out every Thomas around lol. If you have a little one who likes Thomas the train, you should check out these events; maybe it's a bit different in other states.
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