
On Friday evening Brian, Braeden and I made our way to Baltimore for a weekend of fun. We booked two nights through
Harbor Magic to stay at the
Brookshire Suites with a package rate that included VIP tickets to the
Baltimore Aquarium. The tickets also included admission into the dolphin show and their 4D theater experience which this weekend was about the "Shallow Seas".
This was Braeden's first experience staying in a hotel and as a family it was our first experience taking a trip together, just the three of us. Braeden was very excited!
The Brookshire Suites were far less than spectacular. Turns out the hotel used to be a parking garage, I did not know this when I booked the package. Maybe then I would have realized it might not be the most comfortable of environments. The giant bay windows in the room provided absolutely no insulation to the weather nor did they keep out even a decibel of sound. Even on the 9th floor there were times we could hear people talking down on the street. In addition there must have been three dozen times when emergency vehicles drove by during the two nights. And the big metal sheet covering the pot hole right outside the hotel also made for some great noises every single time anything drove over it.
On top of the sounds, the parking garage made into hotel also meant very low ceilings. Brian could touch the ceiling without fully extending his arm. Anyone six feet or over would have had to duck to get through the short doors. Even I was able to look over the shower curtain and into the mirror, and I'm only 5'3".
Oh the fun doesn't end there...
The carpet was also used as trimming around the bottom of the walls. It was folded up and glued, which as I am sure you can imagine did not look good or work out well and it was sort of flapping over. The sofa which was supposed to be a sofa bed looked more like a piece of furniture which had been thrown out on the street after a domestic violence situation. There was what Brian and I deemed a stab wound in the middle cushion and each cushion you sat on was grossly stained. Plus all of the pillows were sewn together AND sewn into the sofa, so you couldn't move them at all.
Then came the complimentary breakfast. There was supposed to be a shark character dressed up in costume for the children, but there wasn't. And the breakfast included cold scrambled eggs, cut up red potatoes (also cold) sausage and what I am surmising was supposed to be fresh toast. On the other side were danishes (probably from 7-11) and slice fruit. You could also choose dry cereal, a bagel or toast. They had three toasters and only one and a half of them worked. To drink they had water, juices, coffee and tea. They ran out of orange juice on the second morning. They also ran out of watermelon during the second morning.
Needless to say we won't be staying at the Brookshire Suites ever again.

Saturday morning we walked to the Inner Harbor, took pictures and looked around on our way to the Baltimore Aquarium. The aquarium wasn't too packed when we initially walked in, but everyone and their brother showed up quickly. We went almost immediately to the dolphin show which was packed and so we had to sit way up high. There really wasn't a bad seat in the house though, and Braeden liked watching the dolphins do their tricks. The show only lasted 15 minutes and I felt it had more talking than dolphin tricks, but it was still pretty cool to see how intelligent the dolphins were.
After the dolphin show we fought the crowds walking around and looking at anything we could get close enough to look at. At times we had to coerce Brae to push his way to the window so he could at least see the fish and ocean life through the windows. He says he liked seeing the sharks, but I think he liked the turtles the best. He ended up buying a stuffed sea turtle which he named Tortoise and a notepad with turtles on it as well.
Before heading back down to the bottom floor for the 4D theater show we attempted grabbing a bite to eat at the top floor cafe. Where I stood in line for 25 minutes (with four people ahead of me) waiting to purchase a $3.50 soft pretzel and $3.00 bottle of water. Nothing had been prepared, even the french fries were fried only when ordered. It was well after noon and so a lot of people were hungry and waiting. But while Braeden was eating his soft pretzel and telling us it was the best soft pretzel ever, what could we do? The long wait and expensive pretzel was worth it to see him smiling.
The 4D show was a 3D movie with extra effects. The theme was "shallow seas" and it was pretty interesting. After we were crammed like sardines into the little theater of course. Braeden laughed nearly the whole time because we were getting sprayed in the face, our chairs were shaking, things were bristling at our feet and we could feel the wind from the movie. When the water snake was coming at us 3D we also felt a poke in our backs, the chairs had all sorts of effects programmed into them, it was really quite interesting.
After the aquarium we walked on the Chesapeake. Braeden chose this ship, probably because it was bright red and placed right outside the aquarium entrance. But it was pretty cool. Although difficult for a 31 week pregnant mama to climb around in. He was curious about everything and was running around looking at things. I think he liked the steering wheel area the best.
Now it was time to take another potty break and eat some food. We went into the gallery at the Inner Harbor. We ended up choosing Chicago Uno's Pizzeria for food. Brian and I shared a deep dish Chicago's Classic and it was delicious. We also had onion straws, also delicious. Braeden ordered iced tea and cheese pizza but he fell asleep on the table before the food arrived.

We stayed in at the hotel the rest of the night. My legs were swollen, I was having painful contractions and it was clearly time to rest up. We weren't sure what we would do when we woke up, but we were thinking about the Children's Port Discovery Musuem. When we found out it didn't open until noon we ended up going to
Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Camden Yards. It was super cool. Brian and I loved looking at all the old toys and comics, everything pop culture related from he 1800s on was in this museum. Braeden was pretty bored in some of the rooms, but he liked the comic book room and he enjoyed the more recent pop culture where he recognized Star Wars, Batman, Superman, Ghostbusters and such things.
Then we drove home. We picked Mya up at my parent's house. And we pretty much sat and watched movies in our pajammies Sunday night. While I uploaded
nearly 200 photos from our fun-filled weekend. Labels: brae, brian, life, vacation