East Coast Days #10 & 11 - Sesame Place Review!!!

It's the Tweedle Bugs!!!

Two years ago on a trip to NYC, we missed the seasonal grand re-opening of Sesame Place by a few days. At the time I was crushed because Ryan loved Sesame Street and Elmo. So this year, even though we weren't sure if he'd still be into the characters (but knew he'd be into the rides), we rearranged our trip so that we could be there. However, we could only be there for the grand re-opening weekend, and were therefore fearful of stampeding hordes of people, long lines and chaos...not that I'm worried. I may be short, but homegirl hails from a long line of pushy Chinese people who laugh at the concept of lines.

However, luck was clearly on our side, because not only was the park not that crowded, but we also had clear blue skies and 70 degree warm weather on both days (the day after it poured)! And even better, the park's grand re-opening meant that we got to take a picture with EVERY main character (except the Count) since they had them out in full force for the opening extravaganza. Huge score! I didn't grow up watching much TV...so I never became a fan of any major network characters by Warner Brothers, Disney, Nickelodeon  etc. However, I was allowed to watch PBS and Sesame Street...so I think seeing the characters was much more fun for me than Ryan (who protested after a few of them). It filled me with nostalgia to see the characters that once streamed into my living room large and in person. I caught myself enthusiastically/frantically waving at various furry creatures that probably alarmed them. :-)

So if you're willing to scroll down for an hour, you'll welcome to see nearly every main character of Sesame Street over the years. :-)

I'll post pictures of the rides Ryan went on as well, but I thought I'd include a brief review for those of you who may be thinking about going-

Admission to the park was $60 per person, a bit steep for for a park that size, but I think they usually offer a 'second day free' promo, which then makes it very reasonable. Parking is $15 a day, and meals/snacks are in my opinion, slightly cheaper than Disneyland. However, unlike Disneyland, Sesame Place does allow you to bring in a small cooler, which was awesome...we brought in our own water, yogurt, our fruit from the Amish Market, deli wraps, etc.

The park is basically divided into two separate parts- wet rides and dry rides. This means if its way too cold to go on the wet rides, the dry rides get twice as crowded (as it was the weekend we were there). The rides are also more or less geared to the toddler and pre-teen crowd, which means they're tamer and shorter. They're also much more simple and carnival like. You wouldn't find the fancy-shmancy high-tech rides with multi-million dollar R & D budgets like you would at Disneyland or Universal. It's basically a very simple theme park with one standout feature- their live shows.

Again, they're geared toward kids...so they're short and sweet (20 minutes), dynamic and well-performed. The shows always have a message, lots of song and dance and interaction from the crowd. I thought the characters were flawless performers (this being opening day and all), with Elmo Rocks being the crown jewel of the three different shows to see. I'm not a person with any affection or fondness for silly kiddie shows, but I didn't mind sitting there for 20 minutes with my son, who was riveted, even guffawing from time to time at Cookie Monster (who always steals the show, even from Elmo).

The water park is similar in that it's fairly small, and rides are shorter/tamer than say, Wet N Wild. You know, basically it's age appropriate to the crowd. My little fish just HAD to get wet even though we didn't bring any swim clothes. So on the first day, he stripped down to his long underwear and jumped in (he looked a lot like a little Muslim girl at the beach). The second day we brought a set of regular shorts/t-shirt for him to wear. On both days, after about an hour of being in the water, he was nearly frozen and hallucinating, but euphoric.

My only real criticism is the parade...the floats lack the wow factor, and it's woefully short. I counted 8-9 floats. As short as children's attention span is, I think even they could have handled a longer, faster moving parade (they stop and sing a few numbers in an effort to prolong the experience). It's all a bit underwhelming.

So if I had to summarize- the park is smaller and cheaper than Disneyland (as it should be), and has great (short) live shows but a crappy parade. If it's not crowded and you don't have to travel by air to get there, I highly recommend it. Interestingly enough, if you read Yelp/Travelocity reviews, a large number of people paint the park out to be filled with huge, scary hillbilly rednecks eating deep-fried Ding Dongs. So we walked in expecting to feel like we were in an Arkansas Wal Mart, but in reality- it was fine. Well, as fine as a park filled with thousands of cranky, overstimulated, screeching toddlers can be. So go easy on the park, city snobs. It's not that different from Disneyland (and in fact, is owned by Sea World).

A few of Ryan's favorite rides and experiences at the park-

Elmo LIVE show

The million dollar shot of the trip- Ryan howling with laughter at Cookie Monster rapping.

The parade floats

See what I mean? Pretty...but a far cry from a Disneyland parade experience.

His absolute favorite ride was the roller coaster...I went on once, and nearly puked. I think he went on with Rich about 5 times a day.

Another Ryan favorite tucked away in a corner of the wet park- the self-propelled choo-choo trains!

Again, we had NO plans for Ryan to get wet on either day (the water was freezing), but he begged and we relented for the last hour of each day. Here are a few of the wet rides they went on...and mad props to Rich who offered to jump in with him!

My boy in his modest swimsuit, grabbing his junk because as he told me later, "I really had to pee".

As I'd mentioned earlier, Ryan couldn't have cared less about the characters/theme of the park (we missed the boat on that one), but he sure did love going on nearly every ride (he avoided the baby ones like the plague) from dawn to dusk. All in all...so glad we did it, but also glad we never need to do it again. Two days of any theme park is brutal on the old folk. :-)