The Polar Express Train Ride

THE POLAR EXPRESS™ Train Ride is a magical, re-creation of the classic children's Christmas story. Following the events in the original book and 2004 movie, you will be immersed in the Polar Express adventure. When you arrive at the Museum, you will enter our main lobby and walk through the Museum store and small exhibit areas until you arrive at the Lenfestey Center. There, the doors open 30 minutes before the show. During that time, you are welcome to explore the full-size trains, play holiday-themed games, shop exclusive Polar Express gifts, take a photo with a Polar Express conductor or engineer, and stroll among the Festival of Trees provided by area businesses that decorate the Museum during the holiday season. Your show starts promptly at the time your ticket lists. Please be seated by this time. The show begins with the Hot Chocolate Dance, after which waiters will serve a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie for you to enjoy while listening to a dramatic reading of the original Polar Express book. At the end of the story, our conductor calls "All Aboard", inviting you to walk outside to the Museum's depot and Board the vintage train cars for a ride on the Polar Express to the North Pole. On board a real, full-sized train your adventure continues. As the train travels, families will be able to interact with the characters from the story. This is not a train ride where the focus is on holiday decorations outside the windows. Instead, expect an interactive recreation of the book inside the train where you are riding; outside you will travel through cold, dark forests, encounter a hobo, view the Northern Lights and see polar bears in the Arctic Circle. Near the end of the show, Santa will stay on board the train to visit leisurely with passengers on board the Spirit of the Season and the Arctic Circle. Santa will move through the car speaking briefly to children on Glacier Gulch. On the Northern Lights, expect to see Santa wave "hello" and invite you into the depot at the Museum's North Pole, where children will be able to speak to him more leisurely. Children on the Glacier Gulch may also stop in the depot to visit Santa before he heads around the world on Christmas Eve.