Sesame Place - Dry Attractions

http://sesameplace.com/en/langhorne/play/dry-fun/

With more than half of the park being a water park, there is a pretty strong delineation. Whereas many theme parks will have some kind of ride that splashes you, these rides did not have water, and with the exception of the Mix and Match Twiddle Tracks, they were not even near the water.

(That is because Twiddle Bugs are not monsters. The other rides are monster-themed, and in Monster Land.)

Rides do not specifically work to accommodate larger guests. Some of them can, but it is not a given.

Again, I have to give a lot of credit to the artistic incorporation of the theme. This made the Monster Mix Up my favorite, because seeing the monsters in disco regalia while twirling in the tea cups was pretty cool, and the glittery disco ball and classic disco songs were not lacking.

For sheer artwork our favorite was probably the Sunny Day Carousel. While all of the mounts were horses, they were muppet horses, and looked fantastic. Pictures of non-horse muppets decorated the ride, and best of all there was a bench with Slimey on one side and Bert's pigeon Bernice on the other. Adorable! However, the mounting of the horses was pretty uncomfortable. It may work better for lifting smaller children on that way. Also, it was mandatory to wear the safety straps, which seemed silly for adults.

My sisters thought that Captain Cookie's High "C's" Adventure was the cutest. I'm still voting for Disco Cookie Monster, but the nautical ride was also pretty cute.

My least favorite was Flyin' Fish, and this is solely based on the look of the ride. Elmo is not my favorite monster, possibly because I have no childhood associations, possibly because of the hype. Anyway, this ride has various fish as the vehicles, with variation for the type of fish, like the angelfish has a halo. That could be clever, but also each fish has an Elmo face, and also there is a clownfish, and I find clown Elmo downright ugly. That may be just me.

The other ride I want to mention as pleasantly surprising was the Peek-A-Bug. It is a car on a short arc, and while I have seen them in traveling fun centers, I have never ridden one. Given the shortness of the track I wasn't expecting much, but even though the track does not give the vehicle a lot of ride to move, the body slips and turns on top of it. It gave more bang for the buck than I had thought possible.

There are slides and playhouses and things that can be used for kids to burn up their energy while staying dry, which I'm sure is useful for parents.

They did also have a midway with various games, but we did not really try any of them. 

They are adding two new rides according to the web page, though they appear to be behind schedule.

Sesame Place - It's also a water park

Many of the things that we didn't like about Sesame Place had to do with it being a water park, but I have to give a lot of caveats here.

For one thing, this is very common. There were a lot of amusement parks in Pennsylvania, and it was pretty common for them to have a water park area. Given the humidity, this makes sense. People need an escape from the heat.

We were also there on Labor Day weekend, which is not only a big holiday weekend before the school year starts, but also often when water parks close down or at least change to a limited schedule. Therefore, it may have been significantly more people than usual, though with this being our only day there, we really don't know.

Also, as far as I know they did a recently good job of running the water park. The designs certainly incorporated the theme well, from a giant Rubber Ducky overseeing the water slide to the Count's Castle literally counting down before the giant bucket of water spills over. I imagine that the things that we didn't like are common to many water parks.

There were just a lot of things we found gross.

First off, people don't constantly keep changing. That wouldn't be practical. I get that. What that means is that people might go in the water, then come out to eat, and that could be why all the seats in the cafe where we ate lunch were a little damp, and you had to be careful not to slip.

Water is like that. It is probably for this reason that restrooms that were fine the first time we used them were less appealing the second time and disgusting the last time. Also, restrooms closer to the water attractions were worse.

I won't deny some of these were personal hangups that other people might not even notice. For example, in line for dinner I was behind a man who was only wearing shorts. I had a hard time not staring at the birthmark on his back, wondering if it was a birthmark or a horribly mutated mole. Is that malignant? No, it's probably just a birthmark. Why is it the only part of his back that hair is growing out of? Especially when it is so much hair? Like for that part to be so hairy, that seems like he is a hairy person, but it's all there!

This is quite rude, I agree, but much worse if I had said anything or he had seen me. Part of the problem is that we were in line for such a very long time.

That leads to one other thing that might not be water park specific. We ate lunch at Cookie's Cafe, and dinner at Captain Ernie's Bistro. The menus were basically the same, only Ernie's was worse. There were flies, the vegetables were limp, and they were out of things.

The openness of the setup may have been the reason for the flies. Ernie's was near the water, and so it was a takeout window setup, though at least part of the line was inside. Cookie's was located by the dry rides, and had indoor seating so was built differently. Running out of some food items (like pickles and tomatoes) and having the lettuce be limp, could just be a result of it being later in the very busy day. However, it seemed to go along with everything being grosser when you were near the water.

Sesame Place - Character interactions

As much as we know that there is good writing and music that goes into Sesame Street, what really makes the show is the Muppets. Therefore, their presence is an important part of any visit there.

There are three main ways of interacting with the characters, not counting their representations in the rides and decoration.

One is the characters roaming the park. "Roaming" might not be the correct word, as there are generally specific areas where the tend to be. However, if you happen to be heading down the street the same time as Big Bird, you can walk with him. That is a thing that happens.

 The areas they head to are logical areas. For example, we found Oscar near Oscar's Garage, a souvenir shop.

Actually, the main areas all seem to be on "Sesame Street" the part of the park where the buildings resemble the show's set. We also saw Bert and Ernie here, but they were finishing a stint and we could not get in line. There are multiple stints per day, so if you have a specific character you can make it happen.

We did not want a lot of pictures with characters, but also some of them happened on phones, so I can't find the picture of my sisters with a honker. However, that was one that happened closer to the entrance of the park.

Another way to see the characters is in the parade.

This is a place based on an educational show, so if you see some people with letters and numbers, those will come up for songs that incorporate counting and sounds. When the parade stops for musical numbers, they are interactive, with dancing, counting, and singing back. There was even some jump roping.

Because they would stop and dance, characters did not always stay on the same float. So here is Murray in the cookie jar, but you knew it was generally Cookie Monster's spot, and he ended up in there later.

Finally there is 1-2-3 Smile With Me, a photo queue. It has two sides, but you are in line for both at once. When we got in line it was toward the end of the day. The first character was Big Bird, and the second was Elmo. Just as I was thinking that I would have wanted Cookie Monster most, Big Bird left and was replaced by Cookie Monster. I would have liked a picture with Big Bird, but I was really glad to get Cookie Monster. Then we left, because we didn't really want pictures with Elmo.

One annoying thing with this area is that personal cameras could not be used beyond a certain point, because they want you to purchase pictures here. We took our pictures from behind the line, and did not purchase anything.

There are plenty of options for meeting your favorite character and for capturing the moment on film.

Langhorne, Pennsylvania - Sesame Place is cute!

http://sesameplace.com/en/langhorne/

Sesame Place is adorable. I want to make that point first, because there were things that as I write about them will be critical. While there are things that they could do better, they do incorporate the theme well, and it is an adorable theme.

These means that you see artwork of the characters everywhere and it looks right. The soundtrack is also music from the show, and you start remembering how much there is to pick from as you hear the variety.

The 2-D artwork looks good, but then when it is brought into 3-D, including plush, food, parts of the ride, and characters you meet, that looks good. The block of Sesame Street buildings are probably the least "right" - I think the scale might be off - but I believe children will care more about the characters, and the characters look great. Even the topiary is pretty good.

So that's important to remember. If you have any fondness for Sesame Street the show, looking around is delightful.

If I then spend several posts talking about various things about the park, and am thus able to use more pictures, I see no problem with that.

Between PHL and Lower Bucks County

I'm just going to start off and say that outside of Philadelphia and Bloomington, there would be a lot of advantages to having a car. There will be more about that as we get further outside of Philadelphia.

Our first transport need was from Philadelphia Airport to Langhorne, Pennsylvania. The airport site has a fairly extensive list of ground transportation options:

http://www.phl.org/passengerinfo/transportationservices/Pages/shuttlesLimousines.aspx
 
Langhorne is in Lower Bucks County. We called a few of the shuttles in advance. One number was never answered, one had never heard of Langhorne, and one sounded fine but they had really bad reviews. Also, shuttles are usually per person, so it adds up. The hotel page estimated that a taxi from the airport would be $40. That seemed excessively low, but it had room to be higher and still be the best deal. We decided to try that.

One concern was that we were getting in pretty late. Our flight was scheduled to land around 9:30 PM local time. We didn't think a taxi would be thrilled to head out thirty-six miles into the night with low chances of a return fare, but not having to worry about scheduling in advance, in case we were late or needed to eat, seemed wiser. We have taken taxis from airports before, and it's usually a pretty simple process. You walk out to ground transportation, find the taxi rank, and wait your turn. Not here.

Shuttles, buses, and all other forms of ground transportation were on one side, and taxis were on the other, except the taxi side was remarkably dark and empty. I was a little worried about that, but then a driver behind us called and asked if we needed a ride.

He had a town car service and the group he was supposed to take to Atlantic City was a no-show. We agreed without asking how much it would cost, which was foolish, but it felt safer than heading into that darkness.

I don't regret that. He was a good driver and we had good conversation. Actually, it was mainly about football. People in Philadelphia are very aware of the Ducks now that they have Chip Kelly. Explaining about the Ducks and the Beavers, but how we really hate the Huskies most, led to a nice discussion of how everyone hates Bill Belichick. Also Tom Brady. Unless you are from New England.

I believe we also discussed sport with the taxi driver who took us from Langhorne to our hotel in Philadelphia. Both drivers were friendly, answering questions and pointing out interesting things as we drove past. We appreciated that.

I don't remember which driver answered the airport question, but this is important to know.

Apparently regulations do not allow the taxi rank to be outside the doors. You have to tell the person at the desk that you want a taxi, and they will phone for one. The taxis are nearby, and it's not a long wait, but that is not on the web site, it is not posted anywhere, and the person who pointed us to the exit for the taxis, and who may actually have been the person who makes the call, did not mention that. That seems like an oversight, and one that made us wonder about Philadelphia being named the third least friendly city in the United States:

http://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-ranked-unfriendly-cities/

We found friendlier people later, but that night it seemed true.

We did not get a chance to test what the driver said about the taxis, but some basic searching seems to show a preference for PHL Taxis and calling them yourself. It is easier to find tips for taking the train and then getting a taxi at the train station: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g60795-s301/Philadelphia:Pennsylvania:Arriving.And.Departing.html.

Sabbatical Overview

This travel blog was started after my sister Julie's first sabbatical. There was a lot to write about Australia and New Zealand that if I had tried to cover it on the main blog it would have taken me away from blogging about anything else for quite a while.

It took a while to hit my stride with this blog, just like it did with the other two. Now I enjoy the function it fills, where I have a regular day to write about places I have been and think critically about them.And it has now been long enough for us to his Julie's second sabbatical.

This trip was not as long or exotic as the first one, but we visited several new places that we had been wanting to see for a while. This is what I will be writing about for the next several weeks.

We left on September 5th, 2015. Our first flight sequence took us from Portland to San Francisco to Philadelphia. Once in Philadelphia, we used a car service to take us to Langhorne, where we stayed at the Courtyard Philadelphia Langhorne.

The next day was spent at Sesame Place.

Monday we headed back to Philadelphia via taxi, settling in at the Residence Inn Philadelphia Center City. This was right near City Hall, so that and Kennedy Plaza were the first places we explored. We had gotten the Philadelphia City Pass, which included a city tour through the Big Bus company. In addition to touring through the city you can get on and off at various stops, and we had two days to do this, which helped us see many different sites.

We caught an early morning Greyhound on the 10th to Easton Pennsylvania, home of the Crayola Experience. The bus terminal is very near the factory tour, so we explored Crayola before even checking into our hotel, taking a taxi to the Holiday Inn Express.

Reversing that, the next day we had a taxi take us back to the bus terminal, catching a Greyhound to Harrisburg, from which we took a taxi to Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Simmons Motel. After leaving our bags we walked over to Hershey World, which you could just as easily call Chocolate Heaven. We stayed overnight, the next day visiting Hershey Park and the adjacent ZooAmerica. Pouring rain and a love of chocolate sent us back to Hershey World.

We had a taxi take us back to Harrisburg, this time for the airport. We were flying to Minneapolis via Chicago. A taxi from the airport took us to the SpringHill Suites Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport/Mall of America, which has a shuttle to the Mall itself.

Our first day there we just looked around at different stores and features, but the next day we did several attractions as well, exploring the Aquarium, playing a round of mini-golf, and surviving the Amazing Mirror Maze.

 

Tuesday, September 15th, we checked out and took a hotel shuttle back to the airport. This time our layover was in Phoenix. We arrived back in Portland around 7:30 PM.

If you think that sounds exciting so far, just wait for the details!

Portland Metro Area - Beaverton Chuck E. Cheese

http://www.chuckecheese.com

Every now and then we like to play skee ball. We're not particularly good at it, but we still like to try it. This generally leads us to Chuck E. Cheese, and it occurred to me this time to write it up, and evaluate it.

For the purposes of skee ball alone, Chuck E. Cheese may not be the best place. This is where a kid can be a kid, so an adult trying to be a good might find that the balls are too low, and it doesn't take like for your back to start hurting.

Chuck E. Cheese still ends up being a good place, because then they have so many other things that are fun, and you can get a pretty good deal on tokens, allowing you to try many different games. I thought the mice racing bikes was cute, but feeding peanuts to the animals was also fun, and something you could get better at.

The pictures focus on video games, but there were also football and basketball throwing games, and generally a good variety. It is not as big as Big Al's, John's Incredible Pizza, or Dave & Buster's, but there is a charm in that. I think there is also a greater focus on customer satisfaction. One thing we really appreciated was that all prizes at the redemption center could be purchased outright and the prices were reasonable. For anyone who has ever had not quite enough tickets, you know how valuable that can be.

Adults can get in and get out in a relatively short amount of time. Kids may want to stay for the show, and to dance with the mouse, and that's okay.

One reason we went was that we heard the menu had been updated with more sandwiches and things, but we ended up sticking with pizza, which is always a good choice.

The other thing I will say about the food, and this will sound negative but is not intended to be, is that in a place swarming with children you should not use the salad bar. We saw a couple of kids pick things off the salad bar with their bare hands. This is not at all surprising, and it's kind of common sense that it would happen.

Just stick with the pizza.