Saturday morning saw the Sauriol girls rise and head out bright and early to check out the Vancouver International Children’s Festival. The festival makes its home down on Granville Island, so I was not keen on taking the car. Instead it became a big transit adventure which was part of the fun for the kids.
Adam at ten, felt he was too old for the festival, even the hip hop and other great live performances did not peak his interest, which is a shame. But the festival does seem to attract the shorter of the ankle biters and many of the activities around are geared for the younger set. I was also shocked and relieved that the festival was not INSANE busy – just fun busy and not overwhelming for me or the kids.
The first performance we saw was The Little Elephant. A cute story told by a crazy and enthusiastic Italian fellow calling himself Bubu. Who told the Rudyard Kipling classic by transforming pantyhose into animal puppets. The toddler set LOVED him.
After that we hit the hip hop/street dance show ‘Journey Through Sound.’ The dancing is amazing and Caitlyn loved it since their school does a Hip Hop show every other year. Very fun and very inspiring.
Then it was on to face painting and checking out some of the other entertainments. Again, totally loved that while there was lineup…none of them were TOO insane. The Festival did a great job of ensuring that there was plenty of room at each activity for many kids and parents. That and all the ‘ask me’ people, made it an easy day to navigate.
Granville Island is a great venue for the festival. The kids loved heading over to the market for lunch and watching the crazy performers over there too. We finished off our day by using a water taxi to get us to the Skytrain over at Science World instead of a bus. This was cause for much excitement as Tara had never been on it.
The price of tickets has always caused me a bit of concern with being a family of 5, but when the price of even ONE show gets you in to all the activities and fun, it is a days worth of entertainment that you get for your money. Compared to other family activities in Vancouver, this is probably one that is best for your wallet and fun.
We had a great day and will be there for sure next year.
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