The Polar Express

Max LOVES the movie The Polar Express.  We watch it year round at our house.  This year we got him tickets to ride the Polar Express in Elkins, West Virginia for his birthday.  Our train ride was on December 8 at 7:15pm.  We ended up driving there on Saturday and spending two nights due to an ice/snow storm expected on Sunday.  This turned out to be a great idea since we got quite a bit!  We arrived before the storm hit and left on Monday after it was over.  We stayed at the Iron Road Inn.  It was an independently owned place that was train themed.  They had a nice lobby/sitting area with board games for families to play and a buffet style restaurant within walking distance so we had a nice dinner and played games in our downtime.  We headed to the train station early on Sunday and had dinner at the Railway Restaurant.  It's on the second floor of a building so you could look out and see the Polar Express train pull in to the station as you're eating dinner.  We got some souvenirs in the gift shop and then walked around the winter lights display outside the station.  After that we headed inside the train station where they had some activities for the kids while we waited to board.  The ride itself was AMAZING!  We had hot chocolate (complete with the "Hot Chocolate" song and dance similar to the movie . . . it felt like you were in the movie!) and cookies.  We stopped at the "North Pole" where Santa boarded the train.  He gave each of us a bell as a special Christmas gift (just like in the movie).  The conductor punched our special tickets.  They read the story.  We got to check the stocking from Mrs. Claus to see if we were naughty or nice.  Max was a little worried, but luckily he pulled out "nice."  :)  They had a lot of little things planned throughout the ride so it was never boring.  We all had a great time!