Day Out With Thomas: Thrill Of The Ride Tour 2014

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Disclaimer: I received complimentary tickets for my family to attend A Day out with Thomas in order to facilitate my review.  All opinions are 100% my own.

On Sunday we went to see Thomas the Train at Greenfield Village (part of the Henry Ford) for A Day out with Thomas: Thrill of the Ride Tour.  This was the third time that we’ve gone.  The first year Nick was barely 1.  He enjoyed the outing, but he didn’t really know what was going on.  Last year he had fun, but he still didn’t quite get it.  This year was a whole different ball game though.

Nick was sick over the weekend, and he had his birthday party on Saturday, so he wasn’t feeling great when he woke up on Sunday.  It took some time for him to get passed that icky morning feeling, so I didn’t bring Thomas up until just before we were about to leave.  I should have said something sooner because as soon as I mentioned it Nick perked right up.  He could hardly contain his excitement.  “We’re going to see Thomas the Train!” was said more times than I could even count.  With that kind of excitement I’m sure you can only imagine what it was like in our car when Thomas went by us as we were driving in to park at Greenfield Village.

Nick’s excitement continued to bubble over as we loaded him into the stroller and made our way to the entrance of the park.  He kept saying that we were going to see Thomas and that he could hear him.  It was so cute and we could hardly contain our laughter.  My grandfather joked that he was next generation in a long line of people that get over excited since my grandmother, mother, and I are all the same way.

Our tickets to ride on Thomas weren’t good until after noon, so when we got in we followed our usual path in The Village and went left to visit the working farm.  It wasn’t the warmest day, but there was still work to be done on the farm.  One woman was working in a garden and some men were finishing sheering a sheep just as we got there.  They weren’t doing a whole lot that day though in observance of it being Sunday.  Nick loved seeing all the animals.  In the barn we even got to see four baby lambs.  They were so sweet.

While we were at the farm Thomas came by pulling another load of passengers, so we took Nick out to see him.  When Thomas was almost next to us he blew his whistle.  It was a bit loud and Nick had a moment of not being so sure about that big Thomas.  At that point we decided it would probably be a good idea to get seats towards the back of the train when it was our turn.

When we were done at the farm we went to visit a few other buildings, but it was nearing 12:00, so we figured that we should get some lunch before the lines got too long.  As we were walking Sir Topham Hatt was leaving his post for a break.  On his way he stopped to say hi to Nick.  Nick really wasn’t so sure about him.  One thing we’ve learned with Nick is that with characters he needs some time to visually see them before they get too close.  Truthfully though I don’t think Nick really even knew who he was.  Nick knows Thomas mostly just from books that we have, and those books hardly mention Sir Topham Hatt.

After lunch we decided it was time to really focus on the trains.  One of Nick’s favorite parts every year is going to see the model trains.  This is a special activity that is put on by The Detroit Historical Society every year when Thomas visits.  Truthfully the men that put it on have as much fun as the kids!  One guy was walking around with a remote and he would make the model Thomas train stop in front of the kids.  Someone else would then tell the kids that they had to say “Go Thomas!” really loud to make him go again.  I lost count of how many times it stopped in front of Nick.  He loved it.  Of course one of his favorite Thomas books is Go Train, Go!, so he loved telling Thomas to go.

The only way we were able to get Nick to leave the model trains was to tell him that it was time to go ride Thomas.  He was so excited that the time had come.  We got on the train only a few minutes before it was to pull out of the station.  A very good thing when you have a little one that doesn’t really want to wait.  Nick loved the train ride although it was a very cold ride.  The train doesn’t go too fast so you get a nice long ride, but when it’s only in the low 50’s and breezy you kind of want it to be done faster.  OK at least the parents were ready for the ride to be done.  I don’t think most of the kids felt the cold.

Since we had sat at the back of the train we were one of the first ones to get off, so we made a bee line to have our picture taken in front of Thomas.  We didn’t get a great picture though because Nick was too busy looking around.  Maybe we’ll get a good picture next year!

After we said good-bye to Thomas it was time to head to the gift shop.  Evey year we buy Nick a Thomas shirt to wear the next year, a toy, and a big Thomas balloon.  The balloons aren’t cheap, but he plays with it a ton so it’s worth the cost to us.  The day before we went to see Thomas this year Nick received the Mega Bloks Thomas Visits the Castle bag, so we knew exactly what type of toy we’d get him when we saw that the gift shop had other Mega Bloks that went with the set.   We didn’t want to buy him anything too big since he had had his birthday party the day before, so we chose the Mega Bloks Percy car that also comes with a tunnel.

After shopping we visited some more of the houses in the park, but we didn’t stay too long.  It just wasn’t very warm and it was so windy.  We go to Greenfield Village a lot, so after a little bit we decided to call it a day.  Nick was getting worn out anyways.  While it was far from our warmest trip to see Thomas it was yet another success.  We’re already looking forward to next year!