The other day, we took a ride on The Polar Express on the Brightline! It was such an amazing time – and we highly recommend it as a Christmas tradition! I wanted to share some of our favorite things about it!


We’ve never been on the Brightline before, so everything was new to us. Can we just talk about how amazing the Brightline station is?! It was SO gorgeous. What I loved about The Polar Express ride was that they had their own check-in for this at the station. It made it feel special and totally awesome. This area of the train station was decorated, too!
After you check-in (which, by the way is super smooth!), you head upstairs to wait for the train departure. They have fun little activities for kids, here! We wrote letters to Santa and also decorated some popsicle sticks. It was great! They recommend you arrive 1 hour before your departure, and I definitely recommend that, too!
It was finally time to board The Polar Express and on your ticket it says your train car. We were in the Caribou car! I’m not sure if all of the cars are the same, but our train car was decorated SO cute! We didn’t sit at a table, but it was still GREAT seating. We could see everything! It was both of Gracie + Donovan’s Grandmas and Kaity, their aunt! We were all in AWE right when we sat down. Music was playing, and everything was just SO cute!

Our favorite parts were the hot chocolate song and the interaction with the characters! I really was not expecting so much interaction – I loved it! Donovan was NOT a fan of the interaction, though. He had quite a meltdown on the train (I had to take him to a different train car to calm down) but let’s not even talk about that. I’ve already erased it from my memory LOL. Gracie, on the other hand was ALL about the character interaction. She was chosen for SO many things and it made the train ride SO awesome!
I would definitely recommend to either read the Polar Express book or watch the movie before you ride! It will make it that much more magical!

Oh, and I forgot to mention! During the train show, you get a hot chocolate and a cookie!
After the 1 hour train ride, you arrive back at the station. We had fun buying some souvenirs at the cute little gift shop they had! Besides Donovan’s meltdown, we had the best time ever. I would highly recommend this!!!
