Happy 30th Birthday Sesame Place!

This past Saturday, Sesame Place, in Langhorne, PA, opened for the 2010 season, kicking off their 30th year. We were fortunate to be invited by Sesame Place and Mom Bloggers Club to attend this fun-filled day. When my 9 and 7 year olds heard about it, they reacted by saying it was for "babies", but I think they had more fun than the littler ones.

So here is how our day went:

We stayed at the Sheraton Bucks County which is across the street from the park and offers a free shuttle all day that is solely for Sesame Place. Watch for a follow up post as to how wonderful the hotel was. The shuttle brought us to the park just after opening at 10AM. We spent the first part of the day riding the "dry" rides, like the Vapor Trail (roller coaster) and Elmo's Flyin' Fish. The little ones were excited to go on all the rides, but once the rides started, they did not like them so much, even with mommy and daddy right next to them. After a little while, we went back to the hotel and changed into our swimsuits so we could go on the water rides.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous and reached a high of 90 degrees. The water rides were a welcome relief from the heat in the middle of the day. We rode the Sky Splash as a family and the little ones did ok on it, but they enjoyed Slimey's Chutes even more. Their absolute favorite "ride" was Big Bird's Rambling River and the little guy even fell asleep half way through it. Below, is my baby girl on it for the second time, later in the afternoon.
She claimed this as her 2nd favorite ride after the carousel. I guess she is just not into the high excitement rides :)

At 1:00, we met up with the other mom bloggers from the Mom Bloggers Club for lunch at Big Bird's Riverside Pavilion. It was neat being able to see all the bloggers together and meet so many great people. The kids really enjoyed it when Grover and Zoey came and joined us for lunch. Well, most of them did. My little guy thought Grover was trying to eat him when he went to kiss the little guy's head. He got really scared, but then threw a handful of chewed up potato chips into Grover's mouth for Grover to eat instead.

After lunch, we went to play in Ernie's Waterworks. All the kids were having a great time, until the little guy was accidentally knocked down by another little boy. He hit his head on the concrete pretty hard and a goose egg immediately appeared. An EMT came right over and escorted him and my husband to first-aid while a supervisor waited with me as the girls hurried to get dressed. He then brought us over as well. I was amazed at how wonderful the people in the first-aid office were. Each child that came in was treated in the same manner while their ailment was quickly treated and they were on their way. They were not coddled, but their "injuries" were treated as very real, whether it was a head bump, a skinned knee, or even the start of a blister. While, the first aid station is not a planned stop for anyone visiting a park, it is comforting to know that Sesame Place has a competent and compassionate staff running theirs.

As the day was winding down, we still had one big thing on our agenda: the parade. I had read online that kids visiting the park could be in the parades and I was able to get both the older girls signed up for the 7PM one. We reported the parade "step off" at 6:30 and the girls were given vests to wear and wristbands. The wristbands were so that I would be the only one to pick them up at the end. As we were waiting for the parade to start, all the characters came out into the little area and we were able to have an intimate meet and greet with them. The meet and greet is included in the Big Bird and Super Grover Season Pass, so there were a few other people there with us, but there were little to no lines to meet the characters.

















Here are some of the pictures from the Meet and Greet and the girls in the parade. If you look close, you can the little guy's head injury in the picture with Bert.

















We had an amazing time at Sesame Place and I hope that all of you will be able to visit them soon. I also want to say thank you to Sesame Place and Mom Bloggers Club for this wonderful opportunity.