Navy Pier

Over the weekend, I had the unique pleasure of taking my daughter to the Children's Museum located at Navy Pier. When you look at the picture, it looks like a wonderful place, doesn't it? It conjures images of old town fairs or childhood circuses or carnivals. In reality, while the museum is great for kids, the rest of Navy Pier is the kind of place that no one should ever visit. Ever. The people are rude; the parking is way too expensive; the food is slightly less than mediocre; and the stores are completely worthless. In fact, the only good thing about walking through Navy Pier is that there are things to look at outside. There isn't ten minutes worth of quality on the inside of Navy Pier. You want specifics? Here are the things that made no sense to me:

1) First of all, trying to figure out how to get to the Children's Museum on the second floor, with a stroller, is a joke. There is a huge staircase and a huge escalator, but no elevator. After searcing for several minutes, we finally found an elevator on the opposite side of the building from where the Museum was. So, we go up in the elevator, figuring that we would simply walk the 12 steps to the entrance of the Museum. As we were about to start walking, an employee sprints over to us and points out that they are setting up for a wedding and we can't go through here. The conversation went like this:

- Me: "I can see you're setting up, but no one is here yet and the entrance is right over there."
- Douchebag: "We're setting up for a wedding."
- Me: "Right. Well what if we just run right over there and you pretend that you don't see us."
- Douchebag: "We're setting up for a wedding. You can't go there."
- Me: "Ok, fine. Can you tell us another way to get over to the Museum?"
- Douchebag: "I don't know."
- Me: "That's very helpful; thank you." (Spoken like I want to light him on fire and pour his remains into the wedding's fondue fountain)
- Douchebag: "You're welcome." (Spoken like he has no idea how much I hate him)

Would it have been so hard to let us walk the 12 steps to the Museum? Would it have been so hard to train this employee to know where the other elevators in Navy Pier are located? Unreal.

2) After the Museum, we noticed that there was a magic store outside. Magic happens to be a hobby of mine, so I thought that we would walk in for a minute and see if they were selling anything interesting. We walk in and there is one employee standing there. We wait patiently until he is done talking to the only other customer in the store. He then looks at me and the conversation goes something like this:

- Me: "What new tricks do you guys have?"
- Waste Of Space: "We don't have anything new."
- Me: "Really? Nothing new... at all?"
- Waste Of Space: "Our inventory has been the same for the last 15 years."
- Me: "How exciting! Could you please show us your best trick?"
- Waste Of Space: "We do product demonstrations once an hour."

Umm, ok. This guy hasn't had a new product since the early '90's. He sits around waiting for people to come into his magic trick store... hoping to buy magic tricks... and then tells them that he can't show them the magic tricks. What exactly is his job?? Putz.

3) Every store in Navy Pier sucks. Seriously, do people really buy magnets? Or caricatures? Or hats with flashing lights on them? Or 3-gallon buckets of cheese popcorn? You know what would be cool? If there was at least one thing at Navy Pier that didn't make me want to leave the building immediately.

4) We finally went to Joe's Be-Bop Cafe for dinner. The menu looked decent and there were plenty of kids around so we thought this place would be fine. We were sitting at the table for about 10 minutes when the live music started. To say that the band was "loud" would be like saying that the stock market is "down"; it doesn't even scratch the surface. My daughter must have thought there was an earthquake; we couldn't hear each other talk... even when we were yelling; the waitress couldn't hear our dinner orders; you get the idea. We all basically sat there eating silently because we couldn't have heard each other anyway. Note to restaurant owners: if the music is so loud that it impacts your digestion, try turning it down a notch, ok?

5) Why are churros only sold at lame places like amusement parks and Navy Pier? Either churros completely suck and they shouldn't be sold anywhere, or churros kick ass and they should be available everywhere. What am I missing here?