Spokane, WA

Lions and tigers and bears oh my. Well not exactly. But they did have elephants, bears, horses and ponies. Along with motorcycles, acrobats and clowns. I am talking about the Shriner’s Circus that has been in town at the Spokane Veteran’s Memorial Arena.

The Shriner’s Circus is not as big as the Ringling Brothers Circus, but for our kids under 2, it was perfect. The show lasted about two and a half hours, which included about a 40 minute intermission.

A girlfriend and I took our two toddlers to the Saturday matinee show. They had both napped and eaten lunch so we were hoping they could handle sitting that long. They did great. The tickets were reasonably priced and were between $10 and $20 per seat. The only part that was discouraging was tickets were required for anyone over 1, when in all honesty, my 20 month old sat in my lap the whole time.

The circus started off with the ringmaster energizing the crowd and introducing the first act, a swinging acrobat act. There were also many juggling acts, and other family acrobatic acts.

After a few acrobatic acts they brought out the bears. The bears put on a great show. They could walk on two legs, sit on chairs, ride a motorcycle, play on a seesaw and more. The kids loved the bears and watching them play. After the bears the motorcycles came out and did their amazing tricks in large hamster type ball. My son, being the boy he is, thought it was just so exciting. He kept wanting more and more of the motorcycles.

During the intermission we made our way down to the floor where there were elephant rides, pony rides, pictures with the bears (separated by a plexi-glass wall), face painting and jump castles. Everything cost between $5-$8 to participate in. We just let the kids watch everything. We will wait and spend the money when they are older and can appreciate the elephant ride. We did take our picture with a clown though and it went over better than Santa pictures did at Christmas. <

The second half finally started and we got to see a horse prance around, the ponies perform and there was more stunning acrobat moves. Finally at the end the elephants appeared and performed. The kids went nuts when they saw the elephants. My friend’s daughter makes an elephant sound and I was pretty sure she was going to faint from all the elephant noises she was making. The show finished with another motorcycle act that involved a motorcycle, a long board perched high above the ring and a stunt woman. My son thought it was the greatest.

All in all the circus was a fun event for us to take the kids too. I am sure in years to come we will all have more fun, but it was definitely a great way to spend an afternoon.