“Wicked,” in Chicago is taking its final bow. The Chicago company of “Wicked” will play its final performance on Sunday, January 25, 2009, at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre. Upon closing, the record-breaking production will have played exactly 1,500 performances and grossed over $200 million at the box office. “Wicked” started performances on Friday, June 24, 2005. It has become the top-grossing and longest-running Broadway musical in Chicago history. The Chicago company will have performed to an audience of well over 3 million people, representing all 50 states, 2 U.S. territories and over 20 foreign countries.
Canterbury Tours is going to “Wicked” on three final dates before it closes in January 2009: Oct. 25, Nov. 19 and Dec. 10, 2008. It you haven’t seen it give us a call! 815-398-1454 or email us at canterburytours@sbcglobal.net
There is no end in sight to the Chicago production of “Jersey Boys,” celebrating its one-year anniversary Tuesday night, Oct. 14, 2008. Canterbury has taken numerous bus trips to Chicago for this entertaining show. Audiences for the show in Chicago remain buoyant; producer Michael David says the show is doing especially well with men, which is unusual for musicals.
If you haven’t seen Jersey Boys in Chicago yet - please don’t wait any longer! We have more matinee dates available starting with Nov. 12; Dec. 20; 31, 2008 and Feb. 14, 2009. Book your trip soon and sit back and enjoy the ride! Email - canterburytours@sbcglobal.net or call 815-398-1454 for details and reservations
Due to popular demand we scheduled another trip to Mackinac Island Sept. 21 - 25, 2008 - and it was a total success! We had 50 guests on our trip, half of which were new customers. Everyone was thrilled with the hotels, the generous meals and two nights at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. Our itineray is below - please join us next year on another extended Canterbury Tour.We took an exciting step back in time; featuring a two-night stay at the historic Grand Hotel. Built in 1887 it has 385 roooms with no two decorated the same. At 660 ft., the Grand Hotel’s front porch is the world’s longest. We’ll also have wonderful hotel and restaurant stops in Saugatuck, Traverse City, Charlevoix, Escanaba, Kohler and Green Bay, as we circle Lake Michigan.
Canterbury Tours Mackinac Island Itinerary…..
Day 1 – Sunday, September 21: We’ll leave from the Highcrest Centre parking lot at 7:00 am, complete with coffee and goodies from Great Harvest Bread. After driving through Chicago, we’ll have lunch in Saugatuck, a charming resort town, at Il Forno restaurant in Coral Gables. We’ll proceed up Western Michigan to Traverse City, where we’ll stay at the Best Western Hotel - a quaint cottage looking hotel with many modern amenities. We’ll board the motor coach at 6:00pm to enjoy dinner at the Blue Bird in Leland, MI.
Day 2 – Monday, September 22: We’ll travel about an hour before having a step on guide show us the beautiful Earl Young homes in the town of Chalevoix. Lunch is at the Weathervane Restaurant. We’ll then travel north through Petoskey, before crossing the Mackinac Bridge into St. Ignace. We’ll then ferry over to the Island where we’ll take a carriage ride up to the Grand Hotel. That evening you can enjoy dinner in the elegant dining room. (Remember, ladies must wear a dress or a “fine” pants suit and gentlemen must wear a jacket and tie! (dress attire is for any time after 6:00 pm, their rules, not ours)
Day 3 – Tuesday, September 23: This is your “Free Day” on the island for sight- seeing and shopping. Tee-shirts, fudge and more! Two nights at the Grand Hotel which includes two lavish dinners and breakfasts.
Day 4 – Wednesday, September 24: After breakfast at the Grand and some free time, we’ll taxi downtown where you’ll have a couple of free hours for more shopping, and lunch on your own. Then we’ll ferry back to St. Ignace and on to Escanaba.
Day 5 – Thursday, September 25: After breakfast, we’ll travel south to Green Bay where we’ll have a short stop at Lambeau Field. Then south to Kohler where we’ll have lunch at Black Wolf Run at The American Club. We should be home around 5:00 p.m.
Cost for this trip was $950 each double occupancy or $1175. single occupancy. According to our guests that was a GREAT deal!
It was an unforgetable tour… no one was disappointed!
Please call us at Canterbury Tours - 815-398-1454 - for more information on our upcoming extended tours.
Canterbury Tours departed the Highcrest Centre on Aug. 23, 2008 at 3:00 pm to get to the Ravinia Festival Park by 5:00 pm when the gates opened. It wasn’t easy to spot a blade of grass with more than 16,000 listeners covering every square inch of the place. At 82, Tony Bennett, is still a crowd magnet as the greatest living balladeer in the pop-jazz tradition. Many songs stood out: “But Beautiful,” “Maybe This Time,” and his first major single in 1950, ”Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” were all extraordinarily done. Tony Bennett sang a great rendition of ”Fly Me To The Moon,” during an intermissionless, 90-minute show ending a 24-song concert with the finest ballad of the latter part of his career “How Do You Keep The Music Playing?” It proved that Bennett remains, improbably, near the height of his powers, more than half a century later. The pavilion seats, including transportation were $120 each and the lawn seats were $55 each. The food at the newly renovated Resturants were fantastic and those of our guests who ate at Mirabelle were pleasently satisfied. We were out of the parking lot in a very timely fashion following this wonderful concert and back to Rockford at 11:30 pm. Another perfect motorcoach trip with not a care in the world, great seats for the concert and a comfortable, worry free ride home. Thanks again Canterbury Tours - the only way to travel!
Our trip into Chicago was perfect! Doug, our driver, got us in safely and on time; everything ran smoothly and stated in the itinerary. Drop off locations enabled everyone on the bus to take advantage of the day! My wife and I walked south boarding a boat for the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s 90 minute tour of Chicago Architecture as seen from the Chicago River. Next, we walked to the Grand Lux Cafe. Afterward we stopped at Filene’s Basement across from Watertower Place (looking for deals). We walked back to Sac’s (and Doug) were actually early! Other passengers were on time so we headed for home! Being able to relax, read, nap and watch a dvd worry-free while on the bus contributed to an extraordinarily enjoyable trip! We would recommend this “free day” bus trip to our friends and would definitely take it again. Sincerely, Fred and Becky Pelley
Canterbury Tours of Rockford was invited to the House of Blues for the launch party for the U.S. premiere of the international stage hit Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage by Eleanor Bergstein, writer and co-producer of the phenomenally successful movie. The National Tour of Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage will premiere in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre beginning in September, 2008.
Following record-breaking seasons in Australia, New Zealand and Germany, Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage opened in London’s West End in 2006 with the largest advance sales in theatrical history. The production received ecstatic reviews from the UK critics and every performance to date has been completely sold out and the Toronto production opened in November last year to record-breaking advance sales also.
Writer and creator Eleanor Bergstein spoke to the invited guests in Chicago, “I originally wrote the movie because I love to dance. Since the movie opened, the audience response has made me believe that everyone has a secret dancer inside them, one they feel could connect them to the physical world in the way they dream. As I learned how many people watched the movie over and over, I began to think that what they really wanted was to share more intensely in the event, to step through the screen and be there while the story was happening. Writing it for the stage, I was also able to add more Baby and Johnny scenes, more about the family, more songs, and, most exciting of all - more dancing.”
Canterbury Tours is happy to announce the theatre trip dates to Chicago for Dirty Dancing-The Classic Story On Stage - Oct. 4, 8, 18; Nov. 1, 15; Dec. 10, 20, 27, 2008. Cost ranging from $130, $140, and $145 each, depending on the date. All motorcoaches leave the Highcrest Centre parking lot. To get more information or to make reservations please call Canterbury Tours - 815-398-1454 or check the web site: canterburytoursrockford.com.
Canterbury Tours of Rockford was invited to the House of Blues for the launch party for the U.S. premiere of the international stage hit Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage by Eleanor Bergstein, writer and co-producer of the phenomenally successful movie. The National Tour of Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage will premiere in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre beginning in September, 2008.
Following record-breaking seasons in Australia, New Zealand and Germany, Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage opened in London’s West End in 2006 with the largest advance sales in theatrical history. The production received ecstatic reviews from the UK critics and every performance to date has been completely sold out and the Toronto production opened in November last year to record-breaking advance sales also.
Writer and creator Eleanor Bergstein spoke to the invited guests in Chicago, “I originally wrote the movie because I love to dance. Since the movie opened, the audience response has made me believe that everyone has a secret dancer inside them, one they feel could connect them to the physical world in the way they dream. As I learned how many people watched the movie over and over, I began to think that what they really wanted was to share more intensely in the event, to step through the screen and be there while the story was happening. Writing it for the stage, I was also able to add more Baby and Johnny scenes, more about the family, more songs, and, most exciting of all - more dancing.”
Canterbury Tours is happy to announce the theatre trip dates to Chicago for Dirty Dancing-The Classic Story On Stage - Oct. 4, 8, 18; Nov. 1, 15; Dec. 10, 20, 27, 2008. Cost ranging from $130, $140, and $145 each, depending on the date. All motorcoaches leave the Highcrest Centre parking lot. To get more information or to make reservations please call Canterbury Tours - 815-398-1454 or check the web site: canterburytoursrockford.com.
What a GREAT TRIP!! We had a motor coach group on May 8, 2008to the“Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer,” Exhibit at The ArtInstitute of Chicago; Edward Hopper (1882–1967), creator of art that novelist John Updike described as “calm, silent, stoic, luminous, and classic,” is one of the most enduring and popular American painters of the 20th century. A pivotal artist who was intensely private, Hopper made solitude and introspection important themes in his paintings, which have been celebrated as a part of the very grain and texture of the American experience…Edward Hopper and its companion exhibition, Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light, provide a survey of the American realist tradition and chart the growth of modern subject matter—from Homer, America’s first modernist, to Hopper, the nation’s best known 20th-century realist.We departed the Highcrest Centre parking lot at 9:00am; we viewed the exhibit starting at 11:30; we had a choice of staying at the Art Institute until 3:30 or shopping and lunch on Michigan Ave. - we enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the Grand Lux Resturant, above Ann Taylor… YUM! We were home about 6:00pm and the cost was only $60 each… what a deal!
Canterbury Tours of Rockford was invited to the House of Blues for the launch party for the U.S. premiere of the international stage hit Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage by Eleanor Bergstein, writer and co-producer of the phenomenally successful movie. The National Tour of Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage will premiere in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre beginning in September, 2008.
Following record-breaking seasons in Australia, New Zealand and Germany, Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage opened in London’s West End in 2006 with the largest advance sales in theatrical history. The production received ecstatic reviews from the UK critics and every performance to date has been completely sold out and the Toronto production opened in November last year to record-breaking advance sales also.
Writer and creator Eleanor Bergstein spoke to the invited guests in Chicago, “I originally wrote the movie because I love to dance. Since the movie opened, the audience response has made me believe that everyone has a secret dancer inside them, one they feel could connect them to the physical world in the way they dream. As I learned how many people watched the movie over and over, I began to think that what they really wanted was to share more intensely in the event, to step through the screen and be there while the story was happening. Writing it for the stage, I was also able to add more Baby and Johnny scenes, more about the family, more songs, and, most exciting of all - more dancing.”
Canterbury Tours is happy to announce the theatre trip dates to Chicago for Dirty Dancing-The Classic Story On Stage - Oct. 4, 8, 18; Nov. 1, 15; Dec. 10, 20, 27, 2008. Cost ranging from $130, $140, and $145 each, depending on the date. All motorcoaches leave the Highcrest Centre parking lot. To get more information or to make reservations please call Canterbury Tours - 815-398-1454 or check the web site: canterburytoursrockford.com.
We had a wonderful time on this tour! This trip featured stops at Windsor with lunch at the CN Tower, the tallest building in the world and a sunset dinner at the SKYLON in Niagara, overlooking the Falls. The Maid of the Mist boat trip around the Falls was a crowd favorite and the array of gourmet food kept everyone on our trip smiling.
We “Thank” all of our regular travelers and the many NEW travelers that went with Canterbury Tours this year!!
We had a memorable time and can’t wait to see you all again.
Canterbury Tours is working on an extended tour to Mackinac Island in September of 2008.
Give us a call with any questions or details on any of our trips… 815-398-1454.