Last Christmas, Megan gave me tickets to see The Lion King musical spending the night at The Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia.  I couldn't wait!

After what seemed to be years, the time finally came.  After dropping Floppie and Ebony off to spend the weekend with Kenzie and Dora at their Grandparents, Megan and I where on our way into Philly.  Instead of going directly to the hotel, we decided to make a couple of pit-stops on the way since we'd be in the city.  First, we grabbed lunch at the Reading Terminal Market.  Since it was Megan's first time there, we walked up and down the aisles allowing her to take in all the different foods before deciding on what to have for lunch.  We finally decided on Chinese and after an order of Beef and Broccoli and Chicken Fried Rice our belly's were full and we were on our way.  Our second stop was a little more personal and intimate.  We hopped in the car and drove a few blocks, after parking we took a stroll down Jeweler's Row.  Yes, Jeweler's Row.  We're happy and in love, what do you expect!  We spent a few hours engagement ring looking and then back to the car and off to the hotel.

A few blocks later and we're at the valet parking in front of The Rittenhouse Hotel.  Wow, these people are really nice.  After being escorted into the building, we meet the lady at the front desk.  These people know how to make you feel special, down to the point where the guy standing next to me was serving champagne and chocolate covered strawberries.  Get our room keys (oddly enough, we didn't grab any champagne), hop on the elevator and venture to our room – no – our suite.  Our suite had a living area, sitting area, huge bathroom and bedroom.  It was just beautiful. Since we were up late the night before and early that day, we decided to nap for a few hours in order to be rested up for the show.  My god was the bed comfortable.

A few hours and a cab ride later, we're standing outside of the Academy of Music on Broad Street waiting in line with hundreds of other people to see The Lion King.  Realizing we have some time before the doors even open, we decided to find somewhere to grab a cocktail.  I know, imagine that.  Two $9 Rum & Cokes later (by the way, Megan doesn't like Captain Morgan.  How can you not like the Captain?  Arr!), we found our way back to the show and grabbed our seats.

Our seats were great, about 25 feet back from the stage and on the left hand side so we sat perpendicular to the stage (well, not entirely, we just faced the stage at an angle).  It's funny, you see all the people sitting in the front few rows who were probably rather happy because they were so close, but I think they had the worst seats in the house.  Not only do they sit about a foot beneath the stage, they sit in front of the orchestra pit making their viewing even more difficult.  Anywho, now on to the show.  It was incredible!  Imagine the opening scene of the movie, all the animal going to Pride Rock and, for the first time, getting a chance to see the new born Simba.  They did that!  But, not with real animals obviously.  The cast was dressed up as Lions and Panthers and Birds and Elephants and, get this, even Giraffes!  Because it was a musical they couldn't follow the movie line by line, but they did do an exceptional job reenacting the key parts of the movie allowing everyone to follow the musical without getting lost.  And all parts (ahem, they're scenes – it's a musical I forgot) were followed almost exactly like the movie – well except for all the singing.  There was one part though that wasn't in the movie and provided a little comic relief.  If you can remember from the movie, there was a part where Simba and Nala were trying to go to the Elephant Grave Yard but they couldn't because there were being followed by Zasu.  In the movie they jumped around and did all sorts of "stuff" (ie I don't remember) to lose Zasu and continue on to their destination.  Well, in the musical, they dropped down a curtain that had similar markings to what they used in the movie.  About halfway through the scene Zasu turned to the audience and said something to the affect of "This wasn't in the movie…  It looks like a shower curtain from Target!".  Laughter spread through the audience!  There are so many other parts I want to write about, but they are so hard to put into words.  From the actors playing the Cougar and Giraffe's, to the actors becoming live fields of grass and the masks that Mufasa and Scar wore – it was just really impressive all around…  From the music to the costumes, the singing to the stage and lighting.  It was just really, well, great!  Thank you Megan!!!

Here are a few Lion King links that you might find interesting:

• The Lion King (Movie)
• The Lion King Google Musical Images
• The Lion King Wikipedia
• Controversies???

So we grab a cab and head back to the hotel and boy are we hungry!  We head down to the bar where supposedly they have late-night snacks, but after ordering our drinks we learn that they stop serving these snacks about 10 minutes before we got there.  After chatting with the bartender for a few minutes, we learn that there's a place attached to The Rittenhouse that is still open for dinner.  Rock on – let's go!  So, this Smith & Wollensky place, I wonder if they have good food???  Well, we started off with a thin-crust pizza for appetizer.  It was really good, but no Thinzelli!  Then onto the main course, we each had a delicious Filet Mignon Au Poivre and shared a side of Mashed Potatoes.  While the filet was very good, the potatoes were incredible.  I really think I would go back just to have them again.  Yummie.  So dinner is over and we're stuffed, but still need something sweet and decide to take something back to the room either for later (mind you it's about 1am now) or in the morning.  Well what else is better then Chocolate Cake?  Huh?  Crazy Pie?  No.  Better yet, an $11 piece of chocolate cake!  We grabbed our cake (which was HUGE) and headed back to the room.  Megan crashed and I began watching that movie again, um, I forget the name.  The one with Mandi Moore where she's dying of cancer and meets the "cool" guy who falls for her and her sweater.  You know what I'm talking about?  I think it's A Walk to Remember.  Anyway, now we're both sound asleep and the chocolate cake is sitting on the table.

Morning time!  We both take showers, pack all of our stuff back up and head out the door.  Yes, with the cake.  After a quick stop at The Boat House in Conshohocken for lunch, we headed to Megan's parents house to pick up the pups.  After spending some time there we returned home, unpacked and whatever.  What a great weekend!!!  Again, thank you Megan!

Some of you are probably wondering what happened to our cake.  Well, after spending the night on the coffee table at the hotel, then sitting in the hot car for most of the day on Sunday, I brought it into the house and placed it in the refrigerator thinking that our now practically melted slab of cake would somehow magically reform itself back into the $11 masterpiece it once was.  We tried eating it Monday night and it was horrible.  All dry and yucky.  All in all though, that was the only bad thing from the whole weekend.  I think we had leftover peanut butter pie that night instead.