For the past year my husband and I have talked about taking the boys to the Rainforest Cafe. It sounded like a perfect little excursion for us. Snakes, lizards, elephants, and parrots…the excitement. Every time we make plans for our excursion something happens and we don’t go. Seeing we both had Monday off from work and it was a new year we decided nothing was going to get in our way and we would pack them up and go. Our plans were almost squashed due to a couple of over-tired boys acting out. They quickly changed their attitude when they realized we were no longer going.

At noon we loaded into the car and drove for an hour to Burlington. After many “are we there yet”s we arrived. God Almighty! I have never seen a mall parking lot so packed in my life. We spent another 15 minutes driving around and around – “look guys Big Ben.” Instead of playing chicken with the cars in the lot and trying to get a decent space we parked way in the back on a hill and trucked through the cold with the three little guys. Ahh, we made it into the mall where there was heat! I immediately had to put my blinders on while walking through the Nordstrom shoe department. There was a cute pair of flats staring at me and I couldn’t stop to check them out. I had to stay focused, we were here to find the Rainforest Cafe. We have been waiting so long to do this.

At last we found it! Faux greenery hanging everywhere. The boys were so ecstatic to see the motorized crocodile sitting in the fountain. I got in line to put our name in for a table. An HOUR AND 20 MINUTE wait. Seriously!? Well we drove an hour to get there we weren’t going to turn around and leave, so now we had to entertain three little ones in a crowded mall…just freakin’ fabulous! A few escalator adventures, a trip into CVS for some gummie bears, people watching from a bench, a tour through the Rainforest Cafe store, and of course gazing at the gigantic fish tank, it was finally our turn to be seated. My first thought was why the hell did we have to wait so long when there were empty tables everywhere? Deep breath. The elephants were pretty cool, the gorilla robotics were so poor and badly in need of updating, the thunder storms were cool as well. The kids enjoyed the ambiance and the chocolate milk. I had to have a beer, which was refreshing and cold; cold like all the food that was served! I have never had such horrible food at a restaurant. Every thing that came out was horrible. We would have been better off going to the local grocery store and buying items from the frozen food section, cooking them, then letting them sit for an hour before eating. We could have then gone to the local pet shop so the kids could look at lizards, parrots, and fish. It was disgusting. Deacon turned to my husband to tell him that he thought McDonald’s had better burgers, which he would be correct. They were like mini-hockey pucks. Needless to say the kids really didn’t eat, they ate a few fries, which we had to pay extra for…absurd. Two bites of my wrap and I was ready to hurl. My husband ate half of his steak and cheese sandwich (totally made out of frozen Steakums). It would be one thing to drive and hour, and wait and hour and 20 minutes and pay $100 for some decent food, but it was just awful. All in all we were completely disappointed. A five and a half hour excursion for crap. Next time we’re just going to the pet store and my husband can make monkey calls and Logan can trumpet like and elephant because he is just so good at it.