So today was Dad and Gray’s Saturday…Nanny had booked us Jurassic Live!!! We couldn’t wait, Dinosaurs on stage…what more could we want??!
First though, collective family animal feeds where Alaska and Grayson helped to feed their favourite animals (and subsequently argued over who each animal was attributed to)…fab, definitely didn’t slow the morning routine down by half hour or so despite Grayson’s proclamation: “that was the fastest we have every fed them all!!”…ummm, nope, but you can have that one buddy.
Right, we’re on a deadline, gotta catch up with Nanny at 11 to drop off Loo…quick walk to the garage to pick up Jordan’s car first…’oh what I’ve got to walk?!!’…not all the way to Swansea you crazy bugger, just around the corner to the garage mun…swear I was asking him to walk the to the ends of the earth…to be fair I think he was still traumatised from the Train journey the other day where he mentally prepared himself to dump his Great Grandmother on the side of the tracks and trek back home.
As typical Welsh weather would have it, as soon as we left the house, the heavens opened…quick grab the umbrellas…that were in the van…that Jordan now had taken to work. FFS we’ll just have to chance it…Alaska hold on tight, Grayson get your running shoes on…aaaaaaannnnddd Go!!! Bloody soaked mun!! But we were on schedule and headed to Swansea to catch up with Nanny anyways….good start, May as well have showered with my clothes on.
Swansea was no better, hammered down, but we’re not to be deterred, Gray and myself head off to the arena to see the DINOS!!! Couldn’t wait to see how the hell they managed to contain the assemblance of dinosaurs, and get them all to coexist and not cause a rampaging free for all buffet of children for the raptors and T-Rex.
First stop for some coffee and the worlds most expensive bag of chocolate buttons that Grayson just needed to have…apparently in my old age I have become rather inadvertently intimidating as the guy serving me panicked when I couldn’t hear what he was saying and frantically left the massive queue of people to make a coffee especially for me…I appreciated it though…the 20 or so people behind, not so much.
Of course they also had an overly priced merch stand…generic dinosaur plushies, programmes and Jurassic Live T’s and Vests…they looked pretty cool like, and to be fair I desperately tried to convince Gray to get a Ranger vest (more so that I fancied sporting it to channel my inner Chris Pratt), but he was having none of it…One generic dinosaur toy please…and only £15…Bargin 😳…BTW by half time Grayson had decided he wanted a vest, but by then my charity had expired and he’d pissed on his chips…sorry kid, the novelty of paying £25 for a vest that your only gonna wear for the next half hour has now worn off…
Good to see that Grayson had a friend from school he was able to see, especially since he’s been telling us for weeks that he couldn’t wait to go back to school to see all his friends…mind, to be fair, you’d swear that Grayson didn’t have a clue who this poor kid was by the complete lack expression and communication Grayson was having with him…bar the muted ‘thank you’ when he nabbed a sweet off him 🫣
And on with the show…which was not what I expected…but I’ve got to be honest, I thought was brilliant!!
There were Dinosaurs, villains, singing, a little bit of jeopardy and some boss dancing (mainly from myself)…excellent!!!…though the bad wigs and Russian dinosaur thief may have been a bit much.
A few highlights that myself and Grayson found particularly enjoyable was the breakdown of a little girl who was picked to go up on stage. Poor little thing, it’s all fun and games until you’re staring down the throat of a Stygymoloch!! Nice to see the unrelenting rangers who comforted her by handing her a bucked of leaves to then proceed to feed the Dinosaur…not sure she enjoyed it that much, but made for great entertainment…doubt she’ll be scarred for life of anything, not like there are lots of movies about dinosaurs killing people 🙄
Right, now time for a dance-off…who doesn’t love getting up in a packed arena and breaking out some terrible moves to the most catchy song since the Cha-Cha slide…damn parts of that song are now burned in my memory, you know, just incase I’m ever involved in a dance off in the future…I’m now prepared…
Always good to see that your kids mirror your personality too, as every time they asked for a volunteer, Grayson broke out into a panic that he’d get picked, which is exactly how I used to feel…not anymore though, give me a chance to bust out some moves on stage or feed some dinos and I’m there…and I wouldn’t cry like their last volunteer either!
Up steps the most badass 4 year old to take on the Raptor training though, did he follow instructions?? Hell no, he was doing things his way…STOP!!! Raptor didn’t stand a chance, I think he’d been watching too much Jurassic World, and was in full on Chris Pratt mode, facing down the raptor like they were nothing…good job kid.
Oh and here’s the Vet, back again, bursting into song every time he hits the stage…decent voice for a…bad guy!!! Kick his ass Ranger Joe…slo mo strobe fight!!!! Damn this was well done!! Though it did end up in the demise of poor Ranger Joe with a tranquilliser to the chest…the end of the first half felt like a scene from ‘Old School’, and Ranger Joe was Will Ferrell…except there were Dinos instead of a petting zoo…subtle differences and all.
Dramatic end to the first half, and now time for the half time toilet free for all!!!
And we’re back again, with a dream sequence…spangly vests, brooms and dinos dancing…quality…didn’t have a bloody clue what was going on, but that made no difference, we were committed. Turns out Ranger Joe hadn’t met his mortal demise after all (guess it was too much to expect from a kids show), but was just dreaming…phwew, that would have been hard to explain to the masses of children out for a nice afternoon of Dinosaur education, and instead found them selves watching a live snuff show!
Though, we were in the realms of part 2, where things would soon take a darker turn!!! The Raptors has escaped, and the plan to corral them back?! Dress some volunteers up as chickens and sacrifice them to Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo…unlucky guys…Ranger Joe has survived, but your parents ain’t gonna be so lucky!! Like a weird cult we all get up and do the chicken dance (originally patented by Paul Fletcher in 2010), chanted and sang whilst the unwilling volunteers awaited their fate…and genuinely looked terrified when the raptors chased them across the stage. We were assured they all survived, but we never saw them again…hmmmm 🤔
And then the bloody T-Rex broke out down the aisles…kids were freaking out and panicking, the Dinos tails almost knocked out a few to be fair, and Grayson was bricking it…not only didn’t he just watch the live sacrifice of a group of people (which everyone thought was all good), but not he had to try not to get eaten by a T-Rex…stand up for a pic Gray…hell no!!
The show concluded with a reckless Pterodactyl flight to ‘go find help’…which was pretty cool to be fair, and another dance party, complete with pyrotechnics and streamers (which Grayson made me collect for him).
We had an awesome time, and thought the show was great…not at all what I thought it would be, and was pleasantly surprised…even managed to do a meet and greet with some of the cast outside the arena…where everyone literally ignored to bad guy character to have pics with everyone else…I felt quite bad for him, but not bad enough to interact with him 😂
Quick stop for food at Taco Bell…where Gray immediately panicked at what the food would be since it ‘smelled spicy’, but ended up enjoying; ‘Hmm Taco Bell is good’, Gray you only had a cheese wrap mun 😅
Back to the marina to pick up little Loo and back home for a chill evening waiting for Jo to finish work…we had a pretty badass day.
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