Family Night Out To Medieval Times (Exploring NJ)

When my family and I moved to NJ, we were excited about exploring all the attractions and popular places in our new home state. We were expecting a new addition to our family, and I believed it was a perfect way to get out the house during my maternity leave. 

However, my fantasies of weekend road trips around the state were quickly replaced with the reality of late nights and takeout runs with a newborn in the house. 

When this summer rolled around, I was determined to make good on my promise to myself from last year. I have shared our adventures around the state both here on the blog and on my social platforms.

We recently had the pleasure of visiting Medieval Times in Lyndhurst, NJ on one of our family days out and had a blast.

I was the only one of our bunch who’d ever been before, so it was great to enjoy seeing my family’s reaction to the entire experience. 

What Is Medieval Times?

Medieval Times is a family oriented dinner show theater that’s been around since the early 80s. The first theater was built in Orlando, Florida (which was the one I went to when I was younger), and has since grown to around 10 different locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The show is based on medieval-style games and currently features a queen instead of a king as it had been in the past. The shows have live animals and actors performing all the tricks.

The show is around 2 hours and includes a complete meal, dinner, and non-alcoholic drinks. Alcoholic drinks are available to purchase before and during the show.

Our Dinner Show Experience

Finding our way to Medieval Times was easy and grand due to the castle tower that you can see from the highway. My son saw the tower and couldn’t wait for us to get there.

When we entered, there were a fair amount of people also coming to the 7:30 P.M. show, so the line was a bit intimidating at first. However, the line moved very quickly and we were on our way to the main hall much quicker than we initially thought.

We were assigned our seating which was separated by colors and patterns. Each color and pattern correlated to a knight we were to cheer for during the show. We were to root for the red and yellow striped knight based on the crown colors and section we were seated in.

The show itself was different than I had remembered when I was younger. Of course, there was the classic knight tournament style games which included jousting and sword fighting. However, the main difference was in the inclusion of a Queen as the focus of the show.

Once we were seated, we were greeted by our “wench” more commonly known as our waitress. We were told about the menu which was a fixed selection of items. It included soft drinks and lemonade and water, tomato soup, garlic bread, roast chicken with potatoes and corn, and the dessert of the day.

The waitress did ask if there were any food allergies or vegetarian meal requests. The vegetarian meal includes includes hummus served with warm pita bread and an assortment of fresh carrots and celery sticks, a hearty three-bean stew with fire roasted tomato and brown rice, fresh fruit or Italian ice, hot coffee and two rounds of select beverages. Vegetarian meals are available upon request. This ensured all in our party were covered based on diet of choice.

The meals were tasty and more than enough for us to leave feeling satisfied.

The show lasted about 2 hours, which was the perfect length. My 9 year old son had so much fun and was entertained for the entire show. My 1 year old was also fascinated by the lights and animals used in the show. However, it was just long enough where it was coming to the end as she was starting to get restless.

Overall, we had a really great time. It was a great way to spend a family Friday night together and an even better way to end the summer. Thankfully, the dinner show is open all year round and I could easily make for a great escape from the cold during the winter season.

Have you ever been to Medieval Times? Leave a comment below letting me know if you have and about your experience.

FTC DISCLOSURE: This post was sponsored in part by Medieval Times. We were invited to attend and capture our experience. As always, my opinions are my own.