Medieval Times: not just dinner and a show

My youngest son finished learning about monarchies, castles, and England in his preschool a while ago and came home with the question, “Can we go see a real castle, Mommy?”

I estimated the cost of airfare to England, multiplied it by five, added in money for hotels, food and other transportation and wanted to yell, “NO WAY!” Luckily, my husband came up with a more out-of-the-box way to make this happen – Medieval Times.

Getting medieval on you!

What was a great idea! I knew Medieval Times was a dinner theater with jousting and sword fighting as part of the show, but I’d never been there myself. Our boys were going to love this!

During Spring Break we piled the kids in the car and told them we were going to see a castle. Of course, they thought we were going to Disneyland. “Nope! A different castle.”

As we turned into Medieval Time’s parking lot the boys read the signs and saw the castle, but seemed wary. “What is this place? What do they do here? This isn’t a real castle is it?”

Medieval Time’s pre-show activities

We walked inside, handed over our tickets, and got a red, paper crown handed to each of us. We sported our crowns so we knew what group we belonged with and wandered around the huge lobby area. Medieval Time’s website advises you to get to the show early so you have time to explore the lobby and this was good advice. There’s a lot to see: horses, swords, chess sets, two separate gift shop areas along with a place to purchase drinks, both with or without alcohol.

We purchased three tickets to see the “museum of torture,” but should skipped buying a ticket for our middle son. He’s really sensitive and hates seeing others get hurt. Yet, he seemed interested since his brother and Dad wanted to see it. He left the exhibit early and really didn’t like it. The items in the exhibit are graphic, many are accompanied by a photo, and all have a description of how they were used. Definitely think twice about how your kids would feel about seeing torture devices. I stayed out of the exhibit with our youngest son and our middle son came out to wait with me.

Part of the pre-show experience at Medieval Times involves the introduction of the King and Princess to the “commoners,” and knighting of honored guests. My youngest son loved this and wanted to be right up front to see. He was absolutely mesmerized by the whole thing, especially since he learned all about monarchies at preschool. To become a knight himself, we would had to pay an extra fee and decided against it, but it’s available to everyone.

Once the King and Princess were introduced we had a short wait before we were allowed into the arena based on our colored crowns. Since we were red, we entered last, but the wait wasn’t terribly long.

This isn’t like dinner at home

Each section in Medieval Time’s arena is color-coded and each section has a knight assigned to them. The knights compete in various events until they get eliminated. They joust, catch rings with lances, throw spears at a target, and fight each other with swords, all while dinner is served by “serfs and wenches.” You receive no utensils to eat your meal and only one napkin. The entire meal at Medieval Times, including the tomato soup, is eaten with your hands. My boys were in paradise!

Not only do you see the knights compete with each other in different skill challenges, the show also consists of a falconer and horse trainers displaying the beautiful horses performing. The falcon flies around the arena and flew right over my middle son’s head. We loved it.

As the knights compete, each section cheers loudly for their color. Of course, there’s a rogue knight who is the bad guy and everyone boos for him, except the section assigned to him, they still cheer their loudest. Medieval Times’ performances and competitions are woven together with a story of a missing prince who’s gone off to mend the relationship of his kingdom with another. Of course, to make the story interesting, he’s captured and must be rescued. Our knight, the red knight, was chosen to save him and restore peace to the kingdom. When he won the battle, the crowd went wild, especially our section. I just about lost my voice cheering him on!

The tournament at Medieval Times ends with a huge finale of all the horses, knights, pages, and flag bearers. The crowd cheers for their knights one more time, boos the bad knight, and then the show’s over. After everyone exited the arena, the knights came out into the lobby area and posed for pictures. Since our knight won, our boys were pumped up to meet him and get a photo.

We did a little more research on Medieval Times after we got home and, apparently, the knight who gets to fight the epic battle to save the prince is a different color every performance. We just happened to be in the lucky group. Or, was our knight chosen because we were so loud at the beginning and cheered the most as he competed in the skill challenges? We don’t know. We just know we loved the whole evening and had a fantastic time.

When Eileen Calandro isn’t dreaming of her own knight in shining armor, she is the Chief Mom Connector of Mom Central. You can read about other things she dreams about on her personal blog at calandroclan.com and connect with her on twitter at @MomCentralChat and @calandro5.

Eileen Calandro