We live in a town next to Cherry Hill called Maple Shade (welcome to NJ in advance!), I grew up in Philly and was a teacher in Cherry Hill before DS5 was born. Feel free to ask whatever you want! There is no such thing as a bad question...just the teacher in me talking.
Will you definitely be living in Cherry Hill? It is one of the larger towns in this area, but there are also many nice towns all around. The PATCO high speed line runs through quite a few of them, and when my DH worked in Philly years ago, he drove to a PATCO station and took the train into the city to avoid the hassle of city traffic, gas prices and expensive parking. In what part of Philly will your DH be working?
Cherry Hill is in Camden County, but Burlington County is right next to it and that is where we are. We chose it because property taxes and car insurance are a bit lower (both are disgustingly high in NJ), and it is less built up than Camden County. Moorestown in Burlington County and Cherry Hill and Haddonfield in Camden County are among the higher-priced towns, property wise, and there are a few towns that you may want to avoid. But there are lots of towns in between that are also great, many with a very 'small-town' feel but still close to everything you'd want. We LOVE our 'small town' of 20,000!
Cherry Hill has a good sized, new library, a hands-on children's museum (
http://www.discoverymuseum.com/), an aquarium nearby (
http://www.adventureaquarium.com/), nearby farms where you can pick your own or go on hayrides (
http://www.johnsonsfarm.com/ and
http://www.springdalefarms.com/), just lots to do with little ones within a relatively short distance. We had a membership to the Discovery Museum when my boys were the ages of your children, and they absolutely loved it. There is a special fenced-in area for toddlers/preschoolers, all hands-on, that you can give them some freedom and still watch them as they explore. They never got tired of it! There are also a wealth of great museums and a zoo in Philly if you don't mind driving in the city.
There are two malls in the immediate area (Cherry Hill Mall and Moorestown Mall), and many, many shopping centers. Just about any store, or type of store, you can think of is within a 10-30 minute drive, depending on traffic/time of day. Markets include Shoprite, Wegman's, Pathmark, and Superfresh. Lots of restaurants, from fast food to five star and everything in between.
As a PP said, traffic congestion can be an issue, and right now it feels as if they are doing construction everywhere! We're one of the only two states in the country where you are not allowed to pump your own gas
! From here we have about a 1 1/2 hour drive to a variety of nice towns "down the shore" (what we call the beach). Many people in South Jersey are transplants from Philadelphia, so you need to learn the lingo...most say "Iggles" for the Philadelphia Eagles football team, and "crick" for creek, among others. Good Philadelphia cheesesteaks, hoagies and soft pretzels can be found all over the area, just ask some of your new neighbors and they'll point you to a good place.
Let me know what else you'd like to know, and I'd be happy to share. Good luck with your move, and have a great time in WDW. We were there last year Dec. 12-19, and it was fantastic!
