The Experience

Before we left for our trip to Chicago, we purchased a family pass to a local museum for about $60. We did this, because we would then be able to get into reciprocal museums for free, or at a reduced cost. If you have visited a museum lately, you know how expensive that can be for a family.

By showing our family pass, we were able to get into The Field Museum for free!

Normally, for us to purchase tickets to this museum, it would have cost our family close to $100. That is quite the savings!

We also knew that there was at least one reciprocal museum that we could go to while we were in FL. So, we decided to go yesterday, which was the last day that "The Festival of Chocolate" would be featured.

When we arrived at the museum, the parking lot was packed out, and they were actually directing traffic. THAT is how busy it was. You had to stop to be let in the parking lot, and a man explained to us that we wanted to be sure to pick up a gold token for parking when we were through with our
experience.

Our experience? Just what exactly did he mean by that? Sounds very....mysterious. Before he said that, I just assumed that my "experience" would consist of eating lots of chocolate, and learning all about how it was made. Now? I began to wonder. Would we be hypnotized and put into a chocolate trance, so that whenever someone said the word "chocolate" we would cluck like a chicken or bark like a dog?

We approached the line, and began to wait our turn to purchase tickets for this so-called experience.

Since we had a family pass, we knew that this pass would only let us get into the museum part, and not the festival of chocolate. That would require some extra cash. We were prepared to pay about $10 extra per person, since that is what it had said on the site. Or so we thought....

When it was our turn, we talked to the lady, and told her about our pass. She mentioned that this was one of the "black out dates", and we could not use it on this day. It reminded me of those funny commercials that talk about the frequent flyer miles, and how you could only use them on select dates.

She mentioned that, since our pass couldn't be used, we would have to purchase tickets to get into the museum, which also included entrance to the festival. So, instead of the $10 each we were planning on paying, it would actually be $20.95 for everyone over the age of twelve, and $17.95 for everyone else. There are three of us that qualify as over twelve (two of us are WAY over twelve) and two of us that are twelve or under.

We would then be required to buy golden tokens for $1.00 each to turn in for every "sample" of chocolate we wanted. When there are five people in your family, that can add up very quickly, especially when you have a bunch of chocolate lovin' girls on your hands!

Unless this experience included a free sample of a chocolate diamond, we weren't buying it.

Since my cousins were with us, and they felt the same way we did about how much it would cost, we decided to have a chocolate experience at Dairy Queen, and play miniature golf instead.

We will go back to the museum on a date that is NOT blocked out, where the total cost for us will be.....FREE! We like that price :)

I guess we'll never know what untold secrets the chocolate experience held. Maybe later on, I will walk around town saying the word chocolate over and over again.

I just might hear someone clucking like a chicken.....
P.S. If you aren't a member of the Blizzard Fan Club through Dairy Queen, you should be! They will send you a buy one get one free blizzard coupon just for joining.