4 years old has been a really fun age. We seem to have been lifted out of the fog of having to do absolutely everything for our child.
She can choose her own clothes, dress herself completely, eat independently, play by herself, and needs much less supervision. She even buckles herself into her
With growing awareness of her surroundings, she also seems to enjoy events a bit more.
Fun Events For 4 year Olds
An emerging tools for finding area events is Google Events. I don't even think it's being widely marketed because it's not that easy to find. When you google “Google Events” a list of Google company related events pops up.
“For you” seems to provide a recommendations section based on where you live and often visit. And you can scroll through the categories from there.
The events are strangely not sorted in chronological order, and going through them can be time consuming. This was how I found the Disney On Ice event in our area the night before the show.
Disney On Ice: World Of Enchantments
World of Enchantments featured appearances by a several group of Disney characters – Woody and friends, Elsa and Anna from Frozen, the Cars crew, and of course Mickey Mouse and friends. It was a delightful show of Disney worlds colliding that had my kid thoroughly mesmerized.
Classic Disney stars Mickey and Minnie Mouse kicked off the show.
The audience was wowed by the stars from Cars actually driving on the ice.
Mater was the only car where you could kind of picture the driver.
The audience surrounded the show in a U-shape with the performers skating out from one side (the back). We used seat finder maps for the arena to figure out what the view would be (google the arena name and “seat view”). I recommend facing the front of the stage if possible, though we were on the side and close enough to have great views.
Show time was roughly an hour and a half, with a halftime break. The story line was simple yet entertaining and it was hard trying to get my kid to even blink.
Cost
When we were buying seats, the cheapest was $20 per ticket. Decent value for the experience. Parking cost us another $15 or so.
Snacks
Most arenas won't allow food and drink brought into the stadium, so just be aware. There's plenty of junk food for sale, though we managed to sneak in a little box of raisins.
Months later she still talks about the show, pretends to skate on ice, and remembers random details.