The Lost Boys and Me: Adventure to Santa? or a journey through Hell?

So....as parents there are thing we feel we must do.

One of these things for me this year was to go to the mall and get Santa pictures.

Mr. Boo's school has a GREAT Santa at their annual Christmas at the Creek but you can't access the pictures digitally. This was important to me because we are a techie family.

We are on Thanksgiving Break (praise) and were planning a trip to North Point Mall for errands and I figured "kill two birds with one stone".

I went online to their website and found this:

"North Point Mall and Dream Works Animation take guests on a never-before-seen, magical experience with Adventure to Santa. Join Shrek and his friends as they take you on an interactive journey to find Santa at the North Pole.

ONCE YOUR JOURNEY IS COMPLETE, YOU’LL VISIT WITH SANTA AND POSE FOR A KEEPSAKE PHOTO OF YOUR UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE!

This 15-minute adventure is a must-do for the entire family and does not require waiting in line! Reserve your spot todayNorth Point Mall and Dream Works Animation take guests on a never-before-seen, magical experience with Adventure to Santa. Join Shrek and his friends as they take you on an interactive journey to find Santa at the North Pole.

ONCE YOUR JOURNEY IS COMPLETE, YOU’LL VISIT WITH SANTA AND POSE FOR A KEEPSAKE PHOTO OF YOUR UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE!

This 15-minute adventure is a must-do for the entire family and does not require waiting in line! Reserve your spot today"

SOLD.

I love Shrek.

I love making reservations.

I hate waiting in line.

Well... we hit a few snags right off.

There were no reservation times showing up online until 8:30 pm but I read/researched further (because I think I am Penelope Garcia) and saw you could get without a reservation.

We planned to arrive at the mall when it opened (Disney trips have trained us) to make sure we got in first.

LIES.

When we got to the counter we had to make a reservation for later....1:42pm. This wasn't awful. We were running late as usual so it was 10:30. We figured we'd do all our errands first, go to lunch, drive so babies could nap and then return refreshed and ready to go at 1:42pm.

We did. We basically had a blast! We rented a stroller in the mall, went to Target, went to On the Border all with relatively few melt downs. Which is a feat. I mean look at these joyous faces in the fire truck stroller:

This nearly worked.

Until we returned to Santa Shrek Hell Land.

This is its new name. I try not to be negative but....wow.

We got there before our reservation time. Then I had to wait in line at the RESERVATION desk to get our passport. This took what seemed like 500 million hours. Fletcher was screaming and searching for something. Meanwhile this place is right underneath a sun roof where the sun was beating down on use baking us like cookies in an oven. So we get our passport and then are directed to an area where we are supposed to take a picture with a Shrek statue. We wait. As we are about to hand our passport to the lady a family cuts us off to take their Shrek picture. We decide this is stupid and head over to the other line. We are scanned in and admitted into the line. Fletcher is still crying like he is being baked from the inside out. Finley is crawling all over everything and trying to eat the Christmas tree.

Finley has never met a stranger

why are you making me sit here?

pick me up!

So that took forever.
Then we finally make it in.
Brandon said "I bet we are going to go into smaller and smaller rooms"

Truth.
We enter a room with a terrible actress and the family that cut us off earlier.
She goes through this dog and pony show about how Santa is missing!
Then Shrek and Donkey appear and say we are going to go to the North Pole to find Santa.

So first we are led into a room where we have to design a sleigh on an iPad.
That is wonderful with 15 month olds.

THEN....it gets better....
we enter a room with a SLEIGH!
Which is a virtual reality sleigh ride.
Picture a really bad IMAX.
With vibrations
and water squirting on you.
Fletcher was TERRIFIED.
Finley thought it was great.

Then we go into a room with 6 iPads and four families.
You get to play a snowball throwing game while you wait to FINALLY FINALLY see Santa.
This is difficult with toddlers. Especially a toddler who loves pretty girls and touching them.
Sorry ladies, Finley means well.

Fletcher was basically a burnt cookie by this point.

So they call our name!
We see Santa.
Fletcher is a sweaty sad mess.
Finley is okay. A little out of it.

I actually love all the pictures.

But getting the pictures was another nightmare.
We finally make it out of that dang place and they tell us the dreaded
"It will be a few minutes".
We stood around forever waiting for someone to tell us our pictures were ready.
This never happened.
I had to be pushy (I hate being pushy). And we got our prints and our digital download code and then got the HELL OUT OF DODGE.