This past weekend my wife and I took a trip to Grand Rapids, MI to see a concert. Although the weekend didn't go entirely as I had planned, we still had a great time.
You see, I had originally intended for this to be a romantic weekend away with my wife, but thankfully, she had other plans...
When I saw that Midland, Brett Young, and Thomas Rhett were coming to the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, I knew it was a country music show that we wouldn't want to miss.
My wife and I really enjoy going to concerts as you can see from the ticket frame we made several years ago.
The frame is about two inches thick and we cut a slot in the top so we can drop our tickets in there after each show. You can't really see it in the photo, but there are probably 15 years worth of tickets packed in that frame. Everything from Bon Jovi, Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, and The Goo Goo Dolls, to Willie Nelson, Sugarland, and Darius Rucker.
Our musical tastes are vast and we have the ticket stubs to prove it. We have never been to Grand Rapids together, but I have travelled there for work sevral times. As I said before, I wanted to make it a special weekend, so I booked us a hotel room with a king bed and was getting ready to purchase the tickets.
That was when my wife messaged me and said, "we should take our nieces". Diverging from how I have things planned in my head is very hard for me. Even harder than that though is telling my wife no so I promptly purchased the four tickets and called the hotel back to change our king room to one with two queen beds.
It soon came time to let our nieces know what we had planned for their birthday's. What we didn't know was that the concert fell on the same date as our oldest nieces Freshman Homecoming.
We gave her the choice and were not at all surprised when she told us she wanted to attend homecoming. We let her know that we understood and asked her if we could buy her dress for her instead of the concert. She said that would be fine and my wife got to go out with her to pick out a dress a month or so ago. It was a really nice time for them.
This meant we now had an extra ticket, but as fate would have it, we also have another niece that was old enough to go to the concert with us. With our plans finalized, we prepared for the weekend.
We drove the two hours or so from where we live to Grand Rapids. When I visit the city for conferences, there is one hotel that we usually stay at.
I knew that was where I wanted to stay with my wife so around 4:00 PM on Saturday, we pulled into the parking garage of the Amway Grand Hotel. There is a skywalk from the parking garage to the Amway and the kids were immediately in awe.
Apparently, there is a huge art festival in Grand Rapids called Art Prize. I didn't realize this when I made the reservation, but the hotel and the streets were packed with people looking at the art.
In all of the times I have been to Grand Rapids, I have never seen the streets that busy.
Although a bit pricey, if you ever get the chance to stay at the Amway Grand, I highly recommend it. The kids were in absolute awe of the place. The word oppulent doesn't even describe it.
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Yep, that is a fountain in the lobby and the grand ballroom which I wasn't able to get pictures of is amazing. My one niece was trying to tell her parents about where we stayed and they told me she said "we stayed in this magical hotel with fountains and chandeliers!"
It is a Hilton property, so if you are an Honors rewards points member that is a benefit of staying there. I had booked us a river view room, but when I got there to check in they told me the river view rooms weren't available yet. They offered me a room with a slight view of the river for a discounted price.
I figured we really weren't going to be in the room much since we were attending a concert, so I happily accepted. I have been posting pictures throughout this post of our view from the room, and here is the slight riverview they mentioned.
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In contrast here is the view from an actual riverview room I had when I was here for a conference last year:
All checked into our room, we began to get ready for our night on the town. I am going to end this post there because it is getting kind of long. Check back later this week when I tell you about the rest of our awesome weekend!
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