The Hubby's Birthday Bonanza

Yesterday was Hubby's birthday! We had a very nice day. It started off with birthday cake from Hi Quality Bakery. Yes, I know the better thing to do would have been to bake the cake myself. However, I ran out of time and at least Hi Quality Bakery is local. They make a very nice carrot cake with cream cheese frosting with "Happy Birthday Rick" written on the top. Quite nice. I also succumbed to my rumbly stomach and got a couple of caramel pecan rolls. I know, I know.

Hubby wanted to see Avatar, so I thought it would be fun to try out that new ICON theater in St. Louis Park. That meant a drive up to the Cities, but hey, it's his BIRTHDAY! So, I went online and reserved tickets for their VIP lounge. This section is the balcony section that is only for +21 folks, serves alcohol and has a restaurant. Ticket prices: our afternoon matinee with VIP seating cost what an evening movie ticket would be elsewhere.

We got the theater for their 3:30pm matinee showing of Avatar 3D. Since I printed the tickets from the website, we didn't have to wait in line. We went right to the ticket-taker. After going upstairs, we came up to the restaurant. Quite busy and full. We checked out their drink menu (which didn't show any of their beers - so a knock for that). Their wine list and prices were comparable to most restaurants. We didn't order any food, though so we can't comment on that.

We brought our drinks to our seats (some folks brought in a whole bottle of wine). The seats are VERY plushy - oversized and soft. There is a lot of leg room (no worries about someone thumping your seat from the back!). The seats are set together by 2s with a nice-sized "table" between each set of 2. The drink holders hold your glasses and there is ample room for food. Servers will bring your food to your seat up until the movie starts, but you have to order and pay at the restaurant beforehand. The food we saw brought in looked pretty tasty.

The movie was pretty good - visually stunning of course. Even though it was in 3D (yeah, doesn't work for me), it was still fun to see. I did notice a couple of times that I had my mouth open - the rendering and animation were really great. Yes, the storyline was predictable and a cross between Dances with Wolves, FernGully, and Star Wars. But, it was still a good time.

One nit - we went in the afternoon when there were a lot of "folks of many years" attending who needed to get up to go the bathroom several times during the movie. Get a seat at the front of the balcony or go later in the night.

After that, we went to Cooper Irish Pub (just outside and down the block). I'll do another post on that later.