Medieval Times

Last Monday I took Brent to Medieval Times in celebration of his 25th birthday! In the time that I've known him, I've heard him talk about wanting "to go do that someday" plenty of times that by spring break of this year I had determined to take him for his birthday. In the midst of my planning I decided to make it a surprise...a surprise worthy of a blindfold.


I adorned his blindfold at the CSUN parking lot, the starting location of our exciting and mysterious travels. I zipped around many turns as I maneuvered my way through the CSUN campus to end up heading north on Reseda, and by that time Brent admitted that he was totally disoriented and had no idea in what direction we were headed. I was headed to the 118, of course, and as we drove off of the on-ramp and gained speed Brent proudly declared that we were on the freeway. He eventually declared that we were either on the 101 north, the 118, the 5 south, or the 210. Fabulous guesses Brent.

I took the 118 to the 5, and at one point on the 5 there is a signature bottle-neck. Brent was wise and guessed that we must be on the 5 at that particular traffic jam spot. I didn't like that he knew we were on the 5, so my attempt to get him to think we may, just may, be on the 101, was to start making exclamations like, "Oh, such a wicked accident," or "Poor people!" or "I'm a little nervous about this detour because of the accident...I hope I know how to get back on our way..." My attempts didn't really seem to work, he believed me that there was an accident and I was on a detour, but he still believed we were headed in the 5 south direction. Fortunately, he was convinced that I was taking him to Disneyland for what I have mentioned before as what would be the perfect date: early dinner at Blue Bayou, perfect seating/viewing of the fireworks, and Haagen-Dazs ice cream on the way to a movie at Downtown Disney. I'm so thankful he was wrong.

The view of the Medieval Times castle as we were about to turn in to the parking lot was just too amazing to pass up, so the revealing of the surprise was at that moment. Here he is before he knows where he is:


And voila! Surprise!!


Here we are excited to be together at such an exciting destination.


Ok, Medieval Times is ENORMOUS fun. Let me just say that. But before I show you any more pictures or describe any more of our time there, let me give you a disclaimer. If you go to Medieval Times, expecting it to be pretty cheesy and ready to play around and have fun with the cheesiness, then you have a ton of a blast and come away really impressed with the Dinner & Tournament. That said, here is how the rest of our night went. :)

After we registered, we were given yellow and red striped crowns. We had been assigned to the red and yellow team, for there were about five different teams at the tournament. The red&yellow team, the green team, the blue team, the black team, and the red team.


Intimidation before we were allowed to enter the castle:

My guess is that this sign was announcing the court of flags, though I'm not sure I remember seeing a court of flags...
We arrived at the castle about an hour before the show was to start, so we had time to mosey around the souvenir shops (which turned out to be pretty darn awesome) and do things like give Brent a birthday card:

It says, among a few other things, "Happy Birthday, my quarter-of-a-cent-ury old Brent." :)

I was pretty impressed with the themed bathrooms, but sadly, the picture does NOT do it justice. Here it stinkin' is anyway. :)

They had a totally cool sword shop, with swords that were selling for $300-$500!!! And the shopkeepers were totally nice in allowing us to hold them and pose with them! The one I chose was REALLY heavy and had a ruby gem in its handle thingy. All the swords were named cool things like "Lionheart" or "Robin Hood." Sadly, I forget what mine was called.


The battle-axe was SO AWESOME. Really top heavy too...the handle was made of wood and the axe part was made of really heavy metal, so the weight distribution was so weird. Somehow it made it feel authentic in my hands, though.


Since we didn't think it would be necessarily a good idea to buy a $400 souvenir, Brent bought me a totally cool letter opener from the sword shop. It's so cute and intimidating at the same time, it looks like a miniature version of a Scarlet Pimpernel sword. And it comes in totally handy for me, one who is prone to demolishing envelopes as I try to get at their contents...now I can open an envelope with one quick noble sweep!

Brent had fun taking pictures of me in pretty medieval princess hats:


When the show was set to start, the king allowed us to enter the jousting area to be seated one team at a time. At our seats we found this table setting.

On the menu was tomato bisque, yummy crusty garlic bread, chicken breast and thighs (with bones), ribs, a roasted potato, choice of drink, and a pastry of the castle.

The show was entertaining the entire time. And not only entertaining, but involving. Each team had one knight assigned to it, so of course our red&yellow team sat in one section and cheered for our knight in every competition and fight and booed anytime another team's knight did well or beat our knight up. Brent and I really had fun getting into character and getting passionate about our knight winning.


Chowing down on the medieval meal. Remember, no forks, no spoons, no utensils whatsoever.




At one point one single horse was the sole entertainment. He did SUCH a good job doing his tricks. He entered the arena walking on his hind legs, front lets and neck held high and proud up in the air. He walked that way for about 30 seconds or more...I had NO idea horses were capable of such things. He spent a while prancing and dancing around to the beat of medieval music, and demonstrated his ability to bow to the king. WOW. I was laughing and loving the horse the entire time he was out there.

The royalty:
After most of the games between the knights, the knights who did well were given flowers from the princess. Each knight took their flowers to their respective teams and threw them to the ladies in their audience. I stood up and waved my arms to him and he threw me the beautiful carnation. Brent sighed and said now he needed to go beat the knight up. :)


Our knight:
A kind man took our picture after the festival was over. To me it's the perfect pic, it captures the giddy spirit we were in after such a fun birthday date.


And Brent got a souvenir from me too. I bought him a cool, heavy mug, perfect for hot cocoa on a cozy night.

I totally recommend Medieval Times!!!