ICE!

The first of many lines.

A Living Social deal came across my inbox in November.  The offer was for tickets for ICE! at the Gaylord in National Harbor.  I forwarded the email special to Jeff and asked if he thought this would be good for us to do on Christmas day.  He agreed and I bought the tickets.  Our entry was for 1:00pm on December 25, 2012.

B I G  M I S T A K E !!!!!!

I am pretty sure this was the first time in our 8 years as a family that we were all on the same page.  Saying we were miserable is an understatement.

We arrived and parked at the garage nearest the ICE! exhibit.  As soon as we walked out of the garage we quickly spotted this HUGE line of people waiting to get in.  We didn't realize it, but ICE! on Christmas day didn't open until 1:00pm.  We also didn't realize it would be this popular.  Surely families would be at home enjoying their new toys and spending time together, and not taking up space at ICE!, right?  Nope!  That was not the case.

We get our place in line (at 12:45pm) and we are still in good spirits.  We make small talk with the people behind us.  Before we know it, the line starts moving.  It isn't until we turn the corner that we notice there are two lines going inside.  Chatter among the people in line begins on what each line means.  Some people say the lines are equal and other people are saying that one line is for the 1:00pm group and the other line is for the 1:30pm group.

This is where the confusion and chaos begin.  Once we make it inside, we are given wrong information by the attendants.  We wait in the line for those who have tickets and slowly make our way to the top of the line.  Only to find out we needed to stand in the much, much longer line to get to the box office to turn in our printouts and get different tickets.

At this point, there is wall to wall people in every which direction and no one in my family (me included!) is happy about standing in another line again (this one 4 times as long!).  By the time we make our way to the box office window, we've stripped the kids of a few of their layers so they wouldn't overheat.  We are dressed and ready for 9 degree weather!  However, where we are standing, plus the sheer number of people around us is making us quite warm. We are now getting grumpier and grumpier.   The box office lady tells us that our tickets she is handing us will be for the 3:00pm entrance.  I am not sure who yelled first, me or Jeff.  3:00pm was not going to fly!  It was now 1:49pm and we had been in multiple lines for an hour only to find out we weren't officially getting in until 3:00pm.   Not to mention the tickets I purchased were for 1:00pm.

After a heated discussion, the lady stationed next to the one helping us, said to give us the 3:00pm and to just go in now.  I said, as long as that works, we are fine with it.

At this point, we have to get back at the end of the line (the one we originally stood in) to hand in the tickets.  Jeff gets right behind this woman who keeps telling him she has a family of 10 coming in front of him.   Ugh.   Jeff is not getting it and the woman keeps saying it two more times.  Jeff is still standing there and not making way for this woman's 9 other family members.

I've had it and we are all frustrated.  I tell Jeff, Ian and Sam to follow me and I get out of the area we are standing in and walk to the front of the line.  I proceed to tell the woman collecting tickets, "I don't care who you have to talk to, but we demand to be let in right now.  We've already stood in this line once and we are not standing in it again."  Without hesitation, the woman lets us in.

Momentarily we get excited about being in.  We start to re-layer the kids (hats, gloves, sweaters, jackets) and make our way through another set of roped mazes.  We find ourselves in a holding room with at least a hundred other people, if not more.  This time we are made to listen to an employee tell jokes and introduce a film on how ICE! is made.  No one in my Toppall family is amused.  We keep all our layers on so we are ready to go the minute they let us in.

Finally, the film has come to an end and we are let inside the exhibit.  Not so fast, we now have to stand in another line of roped mazes to get to the parka area.  Even though we've come plenty prepared for the 9 degree temps, you have to take a coat with you.  This line moves at an excruciatingly slow pace.  Again, we delayer the kids so they don't overheat.

It has been over 1.5 hours of lines for something we thought we'd be able to walk right in on.   Ian is wearing a shirt, a wool sweater, his winter jacket, and the heavy-duty parka they hand you.  Sam refuses to put on their heavy-duty parka and we carry it for her.  As we are entering through the main exhibit doors (FINALLY!!!!), Ian is in tears crying and Sam is all shades of upset at still being there.   We find out Ian is crying because he is so hot.  I quickly take off his parka and hold on to it.  Both kids are miserable and frankly, so are Jeff and I after everything we'd been through to get to this point.  We.  Are.  Done.   We could've been walking into a room filled with unlimited, free candy all you could eat and I don't think this would've been worth the wait.

We all come to the same conclusion.  Let's get out of here.  We power walk through the ICE! exhibit to get to the exit.  Waiting in lines to get in = over 1.5 hours.  Walking through it as fast as we can to get out = less than 5 minutes.

Through some of those 5 minutes, Jeff is trying to point out to the kids some of the cool displays as we are flying by them.  No one cared.  No one wanted to stop for a closer look.  I have to say, I felt the same way as the kids.   The lack of signage, lack of organization on where to go, the wrong instructions on which line to get into, the overcrowding all for the same timed entry was hard to overcome. 

Once we finally made it back outside, Sam let out a big scream, "I DIDN'T LIKE THIS IDEA AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"   We all laughed and I told Sam, get it out.  Scream all you want.  Scream for all 4 of us. 

Sam upset with our ICE! experience. She is screaming and throwing Pinky around in protest.

Ian doing his best to give me his "upset" look for the camera. And, no, he is not cold. He is finally cooling down.

 I am not sure if we had walked right in, didn't encounter any lines, and it wasn't crowded if this would have made our experience better, but we will never find out.

We promised the kids we would never do that again.  Never.  Ever.