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Tag Archives: Sesame Place

Sesame Place – 2017 Review

03 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by Nora in Family, Travel

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Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Sesame Place

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We spent a week in Philadelphia this past August.  Over the next few Fridays I’ll review where we went.   Here’s the link to the review of our last visit.  So, some of the places we had been before and some were new.

Unlike our previous visit, we did no shows this time.  We didn’t even watch the parade.  We did have standard two-day passes.  The second day isn’t really necessary, but we spent two low stress days vs trying to cram it all in.  As before, we ate lunch at Captain Ernie’s Bistro.  This was the first time we had been in August.  The weather wasn’t too hot (which it certainly could have been) and the place seemed less crowded then when be had been before in June.

The older boys spent almost all their time on the water slides.  The Count’s Splash Castle was the hands down favorite.  This was reasonably popular with the younger ones too.  Though, this time we gave the older ones a bit more freedom to move between the rides even if we weren’t necessarily with them.

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Everyone who was tall enough (this included the four year old) loved the Vapor Trail roller coaster.  Cookie’s Monster Land area was also popular, especially among the younger set.  Oscar’s Rotten Rusty Rockets was by far the favorite with the Honker Dinger Derby and Monster Mix-Up coming in next.

Newly available to us was Abby’s Magic Queue.  This allows you priority boarding at most of the dry rides throughout the park.  Frankly, we didn’t see much use for us.  It usually saved one cycle of the ride, but none of these rides are very long.  I have seen reviews online where people report saving 30 minutes, but this definitely was not the case when we were there.  Now, if it could be used on the water rides that would have been a different story.  Those lines have always been much longer when we’ve visited.

While we like Sesame Place, and if we lived closer we would go more often, its probably time for us to branch out.  With the kids’ ages, we expect this to be our last trip unless the youngest develops a strong Sesame Street connection.

Sesame Place – 2015 Review

31 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by Nora in Family, Product Reviews, Travel

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Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Sesame Place

This will be the first of a few reviews covering the various places in New York and Pennsylvania we traveled to in June.

I wrote a preview of Sesame Place based on our previous visits roughly two months back.  This, therefore, is more of an update than a complete review.

We had a wonderful trip to Sesame Place.  Once again we purchased a standard ticket which gained us two days entry to the park.  I did, this time, have a few “free” passes which I’d “purchased” via my Pampers diapers points so we did not need to actually purchase tickets for everyone.  We had intended to be there Friday & Saturday, with Sunday in Philadelphia, but it rained hard on Saturday so we chose to go to Philadelphia instead and Sesame Place on Sunday.  The weather both Friday and Sunday was lovely – warm enough to enjoy the water rides, but not so hot as to be unbearable.

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In general we enjoyed the changes to the park.  The biggest downside was that the cargo nets have been replaced by the Monster Clubhouse, which is not nearly as interesting.  In fact, my guys weren’t interested in visiting it the second day.  But, the new rides underneath were enjoyed by all and a definite improvement to the dated climbing structures that were there earlier.

That being said, they’re obviously not quite done because while Big Bird’s Balloon Race has been renamed Flying Cookie Jars and the balloon tops have been repainted, the bottoms are original and should be redone to look like cookie jars.  Moving through the park we didn’t observe any other significant changes.  Now the twiddle bug areas look the most in need of revamping as the Twiddle Tracks and Silly Sand Slides feel dated. The boys did take in more of the water slides, which were much enjoyed, as they are now older, taller, and better swimmers.

The younger two and I took in two shows – Elmo Rocks! and Elmo the Musical! (which were new to us and quite good) as well as Let’s Play Together! which we did last time also.  We also enjoyed the parade both days and got photos taken with Big Bird and Elmo.

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The food remains fairly dull amusement park fair.  We ate lunch at Captain Ernie’s Bistro both days.  The weather was nice for outdoor seating and it avoids the pitfalls of going indoors – tables set for 4 and little stroller space.

In summary, a positive trip, though we’re reaching the point where two days may no longer make sense if we can figure a way to get enough one day tickets.

Sesame Place Preview

06 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by Nora in Travel, Twins

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Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Sesame Place

Well, I’m gearing up for summer!  Planning is underway for our summer trip which looks to be a short one to eastern Pennsylvania.  As such (and because we intend to visit again), I thought I’d recap our previous two trips to Sesame Place.  This will remind me of what to expect and hopefully interest/educate.

We first took our older three boys Sesame Place (outside Philadelphia) when they were not quite 2 (x2) and not quite 4.  The main logic behind this timing kids under 2 are free, and we had two such candidates!  The second time we went was after our fourth child turned two as going before his second birthday really wasn’t feasible.  I hadn’t been since I was single digits so I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect.

Sesame Place has water rides and dry rides. Two days is really the right amount of time. (Conveniently a base ticket option is a free second day).  We drove down the night before and back at the end of the second day so it was 2 nights/2 days. There was a lot more water than I remember.  That gave us one wet day and one dry day; if you are driving direct do the wet day first.   They don’t have changing rooms (unless you pay for a cabana). The coed pavilions are fine for kids to change, but not really for adults so if you want to change out of wet stuff you end up in the bathroom.  It would have been better to do the water stuff on the first day and plan to stay dry the second. Of course, if you’re staying another night in a hotel it doesn’t matter. And, it wasn’t that big a deal, just one thing to deal with. We also didn’t do naps those days; we were at the park until roughly 4 each day.

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While not technically a ride, the cargo nets are a favorite for my guys (you can see two of them up there).

My oldest never got into the character thing, but the younger ones did and when they were toddlers really enjoyed seeing the characters. The park is generally manageable with twins/strollers. The only issue we found is that a lot of the rides required one adult per kid. (From rides to dining, the entire place is really set up for families with 2 adults and 2 children.) We managed to work around this the first time by keeping the twins on the smaller rides where they could go together with an adult, but I imagine this could be an issue for somewhat older kids. So, there were a few rides the little ones couldn’t go on, but they didn’t notice because they were so excited by what they could do.  By the time we went back, the twins were plenty big to go on their own so we were back to a 1/1 ratio with the youngest (where it mattered)!

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About Me

Welcome! I’m Nora. We have 5 boys and 1 girl. I write about the practical stuff that we call life – managing school, sports, and all things suburban. I get everyone where they need to be, with their stuff, when they need to be there and write about how that all gets done.

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