A Fantasy Weekend with Basspro and Harry Potter

This past weekend I had a lovely time enjoying some fantasy with my daughters and mother. On Saturday we went to Patriot Place, it is an outdoor mall built on the same site as Gillette Stadium where the New England Patriots football team play. There are a lot of great shops and restaurants but our primary destination was Basspro, which I have previously written about in this post Basspro or Disneyland. Our venture was at the request of my 20 year old daughter. She wanted her picture take with Santa and it is free at Basspro. We pile in the car and she drives us the hour it takes to get there and we get a ticket to see

Santa.....at 5pm. It is currently 1pm and the 15 year old wants to be home by 6pm to babysit. We are discussing what to do when a gentleman [think Massachusetts version of a redneck] over hears us and says he would trade us his 2:30pm ticket since he just lives up the road. There was a big thank you and he asked we just do something nice for someone else. When our time came we did let some younger families infront of us and then found out we were in the wrong line. I was also very nice to all the clerks in the store which can be difficult. You might remember this Justifiable Homicide story. We did a bit more shopping in the Christmas Tree Shops and then headed home well before we planned.



Sunday was the big day however with a day trip planned to Boston to see the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Museum of Science. The girls and I are big Harry Potter fans and my mother asked if we would be going because if so she wanted to come with us. Of course we were going so as a Christmas Present I brought my mother [my mother is a nerd too, love it]. She came down for the weekend since she lives in New Hampshire and again my daughter drove us all into Boston with only one little blip when got a bit misdirected going home. [yeah I know I should have printed reverse directions]

If any of you reading this live anywhere near Boston I highly recommend a trip to see the Exhibition. It is fabulous, awesome and very interesting. You have to buy tickets to go at a certain time so the crowds are kept at a minimum. Once in you can stay as long as you want so there is no rushing people through. Before you go into the show, there is a short introduction and the speaker had one or two children get "sorted". My youngest was chosen as one and of course got put into Gryffindor [Harry's house] Pictures are not allowed so I didn't get one of her with wearing the sorting hat.

Then the grand doors open into the exhibit. There is no way to miss anything the way it is laid out and we rented two "devices" to listen to the audio tour which was well worth the price. [$4 for members]. We shared them between the four of us and it gave insight to why characters and ghouls were designed the way they were and how, and a lot of other interesting tid bits.

Included were costumes for most, if not all the main characters along with all the corresponding wands. A lot of set pieces were available to see all set up in a mini Hogwarts Castle. It is impossible to describe all the items included. There is a brief gallery on the official Harry Potter Exhibition website to give you some idea how it all looks and is presented.We spent over two hours looking at everything.

The next stop for the Exhibit is the Ontario Science Center in Toronto, Ontario with more locations to follow. So I highly recommend you get on your broom and fly to the museum nearest you and see a bit of fantasy that is Harry Potter.

I will add that for small children or children that scare easily there is a section of the exhibit that is rather dark and a bit creepy. There are models of the dementors , deatheaters, kreacher and other characters all set in a dark gloomy setting. I was a bit creeped out by the dementor myself. There would be no way to avoid this part of the exhibit to get to Hagrids Hut or the Great Hall as it is set up in Boston.
There is also a beautiful, extensive and pricey gift shop unavoidably located at the end of the tour.

I even managed to get some Christmas shopping done while I was at the museum.




Top picture is a picture of the picture taken by Basspro, my scanner decided to be a pain
Second picture is youngest in the Christmas Tree Shops, the HO HO HO lit up
Third picture is in the main hallway of the Science Center... all the Hogwart house flags
Last picture is oldest near a display in the Science Center.