On Broadway

"Broadway at the Beach" is a place one finds all walks of life looking to be entertained. There are shops for touristy souvenirs, themed eateries and bars, amusement rides, theaters, an aquarium and even miniature golf -- all rolled into one massive indoor-outdoor complex. It is where the masses go to see and do things other than enjoying Myrtle Beach's #1 attraction - the beach. Spent the day there Saturday. I have to say it's great for people-watching.

I got a little thrill riding "The Pirate" -- which swings to and fro and gives you a little g-force lift at the top... and I dangled my bare feet high over the crowds on the "Wave Swinger". We had a typical amusement park lunch of corn dogs and pizza, followed by (why not?) funnel cake - AFTER the rides.

The main thing we went to Broadway at the Beach was to go to Magic Quest. Suffice to say it's a great place to drop the kids off for a couple hours for some hard core energy busting. It's like a dungeons & dragons meets Harry Potter video game, but you're in it accumulating points by solving riddles and finding clues around a 10,000 sq ft maze of castles, crypts, dungeons and fairy princess cages. Add 150 little kids and cranky parents who've just been steamrolled into spending half a fortune on magic wands and admission and you've got Chucky Cheese on steroids. Oy. My kind of place, right? Here's my magic wand and paperwork I had to fill out before we got started.

In my opinion, the ROI on the $90.00 it cost for 3 of us to play for an hour was nil, with the possible exception that I now know I don't ever need to go there again. Sorta like the ROI from "The Farmer's Daughter" - quite possibly the WORST restaurant in Myrtle Beach that we mistakenly spent $60 on their buffet dinner a few weeks ago. I've been avoiding going to Ruth's Chris here at the Marina because it's "so expensive" - but the fact is they have a 2-for-$90 special they run on week nights that would have been sooooooo much better than the $60 we spent on the slop at Farmer's Daughter, and certainly would have been a much better way to blow $90 than at Magic Quest. Oh well, live and learn.

On the way out of Broadway we stopped in at the candy store. Couldn't help it - it smelled so good it was like the siren song calling to us. We nibbled free samples of pralines, filled a couple small bags with assorted gummy, sweet and sour things, and a hunk of fudge. They make most of their candy in house, which is a plus, and had the salt water taffy machine going, which was interesting (?) to watch this old piece of machinery cut, roll and wrap the individual pieces of taffy and spit them into a bucket.

In the end, Broadway at the Beach is just part of the Disneyfication that has become the *new* Myrtle Beach. I found this article in a back issue of Charlotte's Creative Loafing, which chronicles the growth and corruption of the Grand Strand with cynical detail on how this city has become what it is today. I share similar fond memories of family vacations to *the old* Myrtle Beach that the author describes, and frankly prefer to forgo all the shiny new (and extremely over-priced) touristy venues for a day on the beach - any day of the week. BTW, the B&C Co. referenced in the article also developed the marina where I'm now living part-time. Great.