Help SJ.com!!! - Sesame Place in Philly

Smart man...

 

Great advice everyone.

We were thinking of the Crayola Factory. Is Please Touch better? I guess there is a duck boat ride? We will try driving home late Sat afternoon. I know, 95 will be a mess southbound, right?

 

Haven't been to either, but Please Touch is very interactive and in Philadlephia. http://www.pleasetouchmuseum.org/

Crayola Factory is in Easton, Pa., next to Allentown, a good 90 minute drive NORTH of Philadelphia.


In terms of how bad 95 South will be, that will depend if there's a Phillies game or anything else going on at the complex. I'm not sure how South Philly and Delaware County traffic is on weekends - maybe one of the Philly peeps can tell you.

 

A relative with a 3 year old says Please Touch is great.

As for traffic on 95, it's always a crapshoot, but the Philly-DC portion shouldn't be too bad on a Saturday.

 

Just got back today, and here are a few quick thoughts...

The place is like crack for kids. Lil 93 freeking loved the place. It is a perfect first amusement/water park for a child.

I will say that if we just bought regular tickets and bought nothing else extra the place would suck. We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and left this morning. As the week went on, the lines got progressively worse. Wednesday and Thursday were not a problem, but Friday would have been a mess if I did not pay extra for special passes that allowed us to jump the lines. For an extra $25 a person (I know that is a lot), we were able to just walk on to any mechanical ride we wanted to. People were holding toddlers in line for 25-30 minutes for a short ride, but all my daughter had to do was point, and we were on. It was almost unfair, but if you are shelling out huge money, you might as well do it right.

We saved money (about $300 total) by staying down Route 1 away from the park, down the road from the new casino. The $300 we saved there I reinvested in better passes and character breakfasts. The character breakfasts are the shit. If you do not sign up for them (about $60 for a family of three) you really have no chance of getting up close with the characters. It sounds shitty, but that is the way the place works. Also, the amped up passes allow us to be the first into a show, so we got front and center each time.

So this is a great place if you spend the money. We did the Big Bird Season Pass with character breakfasts and an Abby Magical Que for one day. If you want to go on the weekend in July or August and are not prepared to get those, I would just try to go in June or during the week.

Also, this place is a water park. Hot days are much more enjoyable here. The water areas are great.

You are also going to see a ton of fat people and a lot of their skin.

The shows are very good, and the high schoolers who are basically the staff are pretty good. The food is OK, but if you get the BB pass, you get 30% off of everything and free parking.

Forget the VIP parking. That is a rip off.

You really do not need to rent a locker or a stroller. Borrow a stroller from a buddy that has twins - the biggest you can find.

We ate at The Dining Car (Guy Fieri) and it was very good. We also hit Steve's Prince of Steaks, and I thought that was OK.

All in all, a great trip, and I think we might try it again next year if everything works out OK.

 

You should have stopped in Camden. It's a really cool place.

 

And you can puke on him, but you'll land in jail.

93 - Sounded like a lot of fun - congrats. My wife and I wanted to take the kids there, but they got too old too fast.

 

I would say ages two to five is the window to go. Younger than two and they might not be able to do much and older than five they might be ready for the bigger parks.

 

Having grown up down the road from Camden, I always wanted to go to the Walt Whitman house.
Still have never been.

 

Camden is one of the unsung gems of NJ. The Walt Whitman house is nice but you really want to see the Mike Rozier and Milt Wagner houses.

 

Will your daughter even remember this trip?

 

Nope. But, my wife and I will.

Is this a building block for her as she matures from a toddler to a young child? Yes.