Sesame Place

I will admit the horrendous truth - I'm really not into Sesame.  In fact, I find a lot of Sesame quite annoying.  I appreciate the work Children's Television Workshop does worldwide, but I really don't find Sesame Street terribly interesting.  Despite the fact that he watches very little Sesame Street (at the grandparents' house), ChaseKBH does love several of the characters, though he inexplicably wants to punch Grover, and is convinced Cookie Monster will eat him (he chose a Cookie Monster toy to give his little sister when he first met him, and somehow this has transformed into Cookie Monster wanting to protect BeaABH and eat ChaseKBH).  Of course, living anywhere near Philadelphia, we did have to make the obligatory Sesame Place trip at age three.  We went with another family from ChaseKBH's preschool, which made it easier, as the kids entertained each other, and the parents had some distraction and amusement.

Jamie, however, loves Sesame Street.  He has fond memories of watching Sesame Street as a kid, and apparently Count von Count is responsible for his entire life's work.  As well as the inspiration for last year's Halloween costume.

This explains the trepidation some of his students have when taking his classes - he'll spend hours giving them extra help (usually unwanted since they're undergrad non-majors who just want to check a box and graduate), but his goal is to instill a lifelong love of math, which rarely happens.  Of course, he's trying to do the same with the kids, which might be going a bit better.  Anyway, back to Sesame Place...

Half the park is a water park, which ChaseKBH enjoyed splashing around in, but wasn't all that different than the pools at home.  When he's a bit older the slides and such might be more exciting.  The other half includes dry rides.  ChaseKBH rode his first roller coaster - the Vapor Trail - a dozen times.  The lines in the summer, however, are insane.  Absolutely crazy - there are lines for rides, lines for food, lines for bathrooms, lines to meet characters, and lines that seem to have no actual purpose whatsoever.  The park offers a pass to bypass lines for $30/per person per day.  I'm not a fan of the idea of such a pass, I don't like what it teaches kids, and the execution of it at Sesame was less than stellar.  However, the second day I broke down and bought them - and ChaseKBH did get to ride the roller coaster over and over.  If we do go again I'm going to try going on a weekday during the shoulder season with fewer lines and less heat.  The food is overpriced and pretty terrible, even for a theme park.  They do allow you to bring coolers and snacks, so the obligatory granola bars, cheese sticks, and milk.juice boxes were liberally consumed.

At 3 and 9 p.m there is a parade.  While the kids seemed to like the music and dancing, I did notice that the parents seemed to be connecting with the characters and reliving their own youth.  Its interesting as a shared cultural experience.  Of course, I was too short to see much, but ChaseKBH was seven feet tall.  I wasn't organized enough to stake out parade space and wait that long with two very small, squirmy kids.  The ride lines are also fairly short after the parade, so its a good chance to do things that are super popular.  Sesame Place doesn't open until 10:00 a.m., so unfortunately the advice to "go early" isn't that much help with small kids - they all seem to get up at the crack of dawn.  One big value, however, is the "preferred" parking - at $18/day, its only $3 more than the standard $15/day parking, you don't have to cross the street to get to the park, and its practically as close as the VIP $30/day parking.  It was worth it to skip a locker the second day and it was nice to have an airconditioned escape with the baby if needed.  The tickets are the same price for one day and two days, and there are reasonably cheap hotels in the area, so it really is worth it to stay overnight.

ChaseKBH was completely worn out before leaving the lot.