The Radio City Christmas Spectacular deserves it's name!

We left home at 9:30 on Friday morning, and arrived in Manhattan about 11:30 am. We drove down the Saw Mill Parkway into the Henry Hudson, and parked on West 97th Street. I found a great website to locate cheap parking within Manhattan. It was only $17 for the day; a real deal.

We walked one block to Central Park West and took the B train down to Chinatown. When we got off the train we noticed the overpowering smell of fish, and had fun checking out the fish market right there. The live crabs were cool. We had headed down to Chinatown because I was looking for a new setting for my engagement ring. We only got through a couple of stores though before I realized that to continue would not be fair to the boys. So we got some Chinese pastries instead. B and I wanted to eat lunch down there, but R was pretty insistent that we have pizza.

So we hopped back onto the train up to the Rockefeller Center area, and ate at Pronto Pizza. Then we headed over to Radio City for our Stage Door Tour. It was interesting, but certainly not worth even the group rate we were charged (whole thing was set up by a homeschooler here in Connecticut). I was very disappointed to not actually see the real back stage and witness up close the hydraulics the stage uses. They showed us a video. They also had us up above the third mezzanine looking down from a window at the stage while they told us about what we weren't seeing back stage. The boys were more interested in seeing the show which was in progress, than in listening to information about stuff going on behind that stage.

"E, why don't you want your picture taken with the Rockette?"
"I just want this tour to be over."

We had time between the tour and the show, so we headed over to Rockefeller Plaza where the boys played some tag and enjoyed a three dollar pretzel. It was cool to see the scaffolding all around the big tree. We also went into Duane Reade to get some cheap sodas, which we were glad to have done since sodas in Radio City were $4.50!

Radio City did a "check" of our bags which was a joke really, since they said nothing about my camera or the sodas we brought in. I guess they only cared about weapons.

We were happy to run into some friends in the lobby, and made arrangements to meet them during intermission. But there was no intermission, so we did visit some more after the show.

The show itself really does deserve its name. Spectacular is the perfect word. E's favorite scene was the 3D movie of Santa flying around. (They gave out glasses in the programs.) R's favorite scene was the Nutcracker dance starring people in bear costumes. My and B's favorite part were the Wooden Soldiers. I also really enjoyed the use of the screen in the background to make the three rows of Santas look like hundreds in the Here Comes Santa Claus scene. And we all thought the moving stage was very cool - not to mention the ice skaters.

Back when B and I lived in New York, we had gone to the show two years in a row and were really aggravated to have spent that much money on the same show twice. We assumed it would change every year. But it doesn't. I was very happy to hear during our tour that some of the show is new this year, and I was pleased that the changes were great. I was surprised though, on how much of the focus was on Santa Claus. The Living Nativity scene at the end actually felt gatuitous. The boys thought the camels were cool. Click on the photo above to see a larger version.

We did meet our friends in the lobby afterwards, and had a short visit with them before heading back downtown to the East Village for Indian food. B and I enjoyed the meal we had so much last time, that we went back to the same place. During the walk between the train station (subway for all you non-New Yorkers) B remembered he wanted to stop at Pommes Frites to have some fries next time we were down there. While B was in there, the boys and I went two doors down to Love Saves the Day, one of my favorite stores in Manhattan. Hanging from the ceiling right inside the front door was a giant Peewee Herman sitting on Chairy. Peewee was the size of E. The thing was $1200. If I were rich, and I had the room for it, I would buy it. I almost bought the smaller sized version which they had, but it was in the box, and I would have felt guilty taking it out to play with it. So the one I have, with the broken pull-string, will have to continue to suffice. The boys had a great time in that store. R was very intrigued by the small box of gummy penises, but he ended up buying a Pez dispenser of Hammy from Over the Hedge. And E bought himself three action figures, chosen out of a giant box of them.

Dinner at Taj was great. This time there were even two performers, one on some sort of string instrument (no, not a sitar) and one on percussion. After dinner we walked all the way over to the west side to catch the B train uptown. It saved us having to switch trains along the way. The boys played tag all the way, which kept their minds off how far a walk it was.

We took the express train to Columbus Circle and got off to wait for the local. That's when E started doing the "I'm going to pee in my pants any minute" dance, so we decided to exit the subway and look for a bathroom (luckily we had purchased all day subway passes, so paying again wasn't an issue). When we got to the top of the stairs there was a police station (yes, within the subway station). Luckily the cop behind the counter could see that at 10pm a six-year-old dancing in his station really was an emergency and he let both boys use the restroom. New Yorkers really do like tourists.

We headed back to the car and pulled out of the parking lot at 10:20 pm. R was mad when I told him he couldn't listen to his book on tape on the way home, because I wanted him to go to sleep. "But I never fall asleep in the car, sniff, sniff." Here he is "not sleeping" in the car. At least E doesn't live in denial and settled in right away. We got home at 12:05 am; not bad at all.

A "spectacular" day overall. Follow the link at right for more photos.