As you probably saw from my last post we are in Dallas now! We are having so much fun exploring our new city. Our newest Dallas adventure was to visit the Dallas Medieval Times! My family had been to a Medieval Times before but we were still very excited to go.
*I received tickets in exchange for my honest opinion of the Medieval Times experience.
Just look at those faces!
This is what my kids looked like just waiting to get to our seats. When you first enter the castle (yes it actually looks like a castle, how cool is that?!?!), after checking in, you wait pretty much in their gift shop. They have things for sale like fun dress up outfits for your kids and real swords for the Medieval Times fanatics. They also have a bar where you can buy drinks while you wait.
A piece of advice I would give when arriving is to arrive early. They told me on the phone to arrive an hour before my show. I then thought that that was probably too early so I scheduled for us to be there around 30-45 minutes before the show. We showed up about 30 minutes before and literally only minutes after we entered the waiting area they started letting people to their seats. It was great that we didn’t have to wait but as we were getting our tickets I could tell that if we had shown up earlier we would have gotten closer seats to the arena. We may have even been lucky to have gotten seats at all if we had shown up only 10 minutes later. So it is highly recommend that you show up at least 45 minutes before the show if not an hour before.
The tickets we received were the royalty tickets.
These tickets cost $12 more than the regular tickets. It includes priority seating (you will be seated in the first or second row), a Medieval Times towel (a small hand towel), a VIP pass (this gets you in for seating first), and a cheering banner (like a small flag). I think that the VIP pass and the priority seating make the extra $12 worth it. I will definitely be going with the Royalty tickets the next time we go, oh and there will be a next time!
What happens at Medieval Times?
If you have never been to a Medieval Times than you may be wondering why you should be spending your money to go. Well let me tell you what happens, because it can be easy to think it is something else.
At Medieval Times you will enjoy a dinner and a show. The dinner consists of food that would have been eaten in the Medieval times. Pictured above is what they serve. First you will get a drink (which you will get refills of). They have a choice of pepsi, unsweet tea, water or you can buy a drink at the bar which an attendant can bring to you once you are seated. Then they will bring you your garlic bread (which was yummy) and tomato soup (which was ok). For your main course you get a HUGE serving of roasted chicken (which was delicious), about half of a corn on the cob and a potato wedge (about 1/3-1/2 of a potato). The main course was my favorite and it was a TON of food so we had some to take home to enjoy later.
Finally for dessert you get a pastry and in my experience it can be different either by location or maybe even the time you go. When we went in Atlanta we got an apple turnover type of dessert. In Dallas they served lemon cake (I preferred this since I don’t like warm fruit, weird right?). This dinner got a rating of 9/10. Everything was excellent but the tomato soup which kind of tasted like campbells.
The red knight is the best!
While you eat you will watch the show as the guests of the king and his daughter, the princess. When you get your tickets you are assigned a knight which can be one of 6 knights. There is the blue, green, yellow and black, yellow and red, black and white, or red (which is the knight we were assigned so it is the best knight, of course). You then cheer for your knight as he fights for the honor of being the knight to save the kingdom. You are also told which knight is your knights arch enemy (or something like that) and you boo that knight (the green knight is just the worst).
The show is not just watching the knights battle.
Don’t get me wrong the fighting is AWESOME but the other things they add in are also a ton of fun. There are a few shows put on by horses, which the horses they use are all gorgeous. They also have a hawk that flies right over the crowd, my son loved this part. My daughter’s favorite part of the whole show was when our knight threw her one of the flowers he got for performing a task well. She would not put it down all night! Oh and just watching your kids enjoy the show is a show in itself.
Of course the most exciting part of the night were the jousts and sword fights.
This part of the show is truly fantastic. Everything they are using is real. Of course it is choreographed but still there is that gut feeling where you know that things can go wrong. A safety net is put down in front of the crowd so pieces of the jousting sticks don’t fling into an eye or other body part. They also use real weapons that spark as they collide with one another. You would think that watching this once before would take the thrill out of it but I found myself sitting at the edge of my seat the whole time, especially when our knight was in the arena.
I would go back again the next time I get the opportunity to. Of course it is a little pricey so it is something that is hard to go to often but it is totally worth the money to go at least once. They do however usually have a deal going on or you can wait until your birthday month and take advantage of their best deal which is buy one get one free!
The only thing that wasn’t the greatest was ALL of the extra fees that could have been added like the souvenirs in the gift shop or any pictures they took of us. We were super disappointed when they told us how much the picture they took of us was going to be because it was a cute one, unfortunately I didn’t want to pay 1/3 of my ticket price for a piece of paper.
If you have been to Medieval Times let us know in the comments below! If not tell us when you plan to go, because it is definitely a bucket list activity for sure!
We haven’t been to Medieval Times in years….but we had so much fun when we went.
It is such a fun place!