Went to Sesame Place yesterday...some observations

[kaysmommie]

Yep I agree 100%. You were spared b/c you went for Twighlight Hours. Had you been there during the daytime hours

I second that !! It's a cute park but seems like lots of day camps with little supervision and unruly kids and people .

 

[NJFabFour]

Yes, I used to take my kids all summer when they were younger and I still recommend it to families I work with in Early Intervention. There are so many great qualities about it! That said, we had a bad experience once while standing in line for the duck ride (the large family tube ride). The line was horrendous and we were waiting for close to an hour. We noticed a family of 5 -6 that kept pushing through the line, going up to the top, riding and doing it again! By the third time, the gentleman in front of me actually asked them if they had a pass to ride without waiting. They screamed "No and what's it to you!" I was not pleased that my children had to witness 4 security guards physically have to remove them from the park! Sure, rude people can be from anywhere, but it's not hard to miss the volumes of Philly busses filling the special parking lots. BTW, we also had to stop going to Great Adventure when we accidentally walked right through the middle of a gang confrontation! We were in a hurry and I barely noticed these 2 groups of people staring each other down in a narrow corridor as we passed, only to hear by the time we got to the coaster we were headed for that cops were hauling 2 big groups of people out of the park! Won't be going back there!

 

[momtoBrandon&Jacob]

next time stop by the Chick Fil A by the entrance. I know the owners of it and they are great people!

LOL - that's where we had dinner last night! Well, we went through the drive thru .

 

[karapp75]

They were probably from NJ!

Pssst, I'm from NJ so I would know.

Ok I will admit that I "thought" this but I wouldn't have dared to write it so I laughed out loud when I read your post. Too funny. I am originally from Long Island but SHHH don't tell anyone as I have hidden my accent!

 

[tedhowe]

We went to SP for the first time on Wednesday also.

We got there at about 11AM and all day, we found the crowds very manageable. We went right on the Vaopor Trail with only about a 5 minute wait, spent about 15 minutes waiting for the new caruousel - it's really cute with the muppet-styled horses. That wait for the carousel was the longest we had.

We had a good lunch at Elmo's place, rode some more dry rides, the kids spent some time climbing in the big rope playground, and then we watched the elmo show (our little DD had been looking for the "real" elmo all day .

After that we went and changed into our wet clothes and spent the rest of the day (3PM to about 7PM) doing water stuff.

At first, the big family tube ride was pretty crowded, - we did the little Slimey Slides instead. We caught Abby Cadabby's show and then did the lazy river, and finally let the girls go play at Ernie's water works for about half an hour. When we made our way back to the front of the park again, the line on the rubber ducky slide was MUCH shorter - this was about 6PM. We got in line and were up the stairs and back down in about 10 minutes... at the bottom the cast members encouraged us to go back up the stairs again... they said they were trying to set a record for the most people to ride the ride in an hour and that's why they were rushing people through. We did the ride two more times in pretty quick succession - less than 10 minutes each time.

Lots of fun.

We had a great time... Wednesday was a good choice of days. The weather was great, the park was clean and not too crowded.

We didn't really notice any more rude people than you would see in any other park... probably a bit better than most, actually.

One thing I did notice.. enough that I commented on it to DW, was that there seemed to be an AWFUL LOT of people with tattoos. We had our kids a little later than most - after trying for a long time to have DD#1, so were a bit older than the average parents of kids in the target demographic of SP, so it may just be a "generational" thing, but LOTs of parents of small kids seem to be tattooed now... and it was all races, by outward appearance all different socio-economic levels. It's probably just more apparent there because so many people are walking around in swim suits, but it kinda made me feel old.

 

[SalandJeff]

Has anyone been to SP on a weekend in the fall? Is it crowded? Since the water areas would be closed, is one day enough time? I think my 5 y.o. dd would love it.

 

[mrstomrice]

Has anyone been to SP on a weekend in the fall? Is it crowded? Since the water areas would be closed, is one day enough time? I think my 5 y.o. dd would love it.

Yes, we went several times last fall on the nice days. No, it isn't too crowded from my experience. They had trick or treating scavenger hunts last year..pretty cute! 1 day should do it but your pass is good for 2 visits. If you think you'll go back next year, they may still have the deal that a season pass now gets you 2 seasons, the remainder of this year as well as all o fnext. They do this every August, but not before that.

 

[kaleighmariesmom]

I am looking foward to going to SP... we leave this week...

 

[mrstomrice]

A little off topic, but I read in this morning's paper that there will be a small Sesame park next year at Busch Garden in Williamsburg with rides, characters, and character meals.

 

[mom2aredhead]

They were probably from NJ!

Pssst, I'm from NJ so I would know.

Ok I will admit that I "thought" this but I wouldn't have dared to write it so I laughed out loud when I read your post. Too funny. I am originally from Long Island but SHHH don't tell anyone as I have hidden my accent!

Nah. My money's on Staten Island. Root of all evil.
Just ask the mayor of Belmar.

In the interest of full disclosure for our non-Jersey friends, here's the Belmar mayor's newsletter about the visitors to his town from Staten Island.

http://app.com/assets/pdf/B3112851715.PDF

He has since gone on a whirlwind photo-op tour (which incidently stayed on the much more diverse "north shore" of Staten Island) and has apologized. But since much of Staten Island is still very much offended, I'm thinkin' they're all heading out to PA now.

 

[vcgirl925]

Ok I will admit that I "thought" this but I wouldn't have dared to write it so I laughed out loud when I read your post. Too funny. I am originally from Long Island but SHHH don't tell anyone as I have hidden my accent!

Hey i resemble that remark!

 

[vcgirl925]

Has anyone been to SP on a weekend in the fall? Is it crowded? Since the water areas would be closed, is one day enough time? I think my 5 y.o. dd would love it.

Yes i have and it's great. Anytime not on a weekend in the summer is lovely.

 

[ferrytale]

Ok, haven't read all the posts yet, but I am from Bucks Cty too, and used to work at SP. I LOVED it. There are very rude people and many who feel they are entitled to everything...I worked in Guest Relations, so I know first hand!
The bad attitudes are from people from everywhere, not just Philly or NY or NJ, though everyone has their own opinion.
The best time to go to SP is around 6pm (if you have passes or live close), all the buses leave and the park is practically empty for the last hour or 2. And my favorite time to go is in the Fall for the Halloween stuff.
Also, I had season passes for Six Flags for years and will not go there now. Too crowded w/ out of control teens and language. However Hurricane Harbor is VERY nice - and never seems too crowded.

Jess

 

[justintime]

We have found that SP has been getting better. It is definitely to be avoided on the weekends. For some reason, that seems to bring out the worst case scenerio parents. If you are planning on going, they have a deal now (as they do every August) that with a purchase of a season pass for this year, you can come the rest of the season, as well as all of next season...pretty good deal!

I was wondering about this. I saw on their website that if you buy a season pass for 2009 that you also get to go for the rest of 2008 as well.
But I thought that someone told me something similar to what you mention above. They said that you can upgrade your tickets to a season pass for this year and get 2009 as well. I have a 2 day ticket. I am using the second day next week. They told me that I can upgrade my 2 day ticket to a season pass for 2008 and they would give me a 2009 season pass as well. So if I paid the extra $30 difference between my 2 day ticket and the 2008 season pass, I would get a 2008 and 2009 season pass. Is the same promotion you are talking about?

 

[natnelliesmom]

We recently went to Six Flags New England and we SHOCKED at how the park was run. It was SUPER expensive- the lines were long, people were rude (I mean the staff members!) and staff didn't seem to know anything about the park outside of what they were doing themselves! We asked for restrooms- and three staff members didn't know where the closest ones were! Crazy!

When a character comes out- it's just a mob scene! There is no line- people just run into your pictures or jump in front of you. When I recommended to a character "handler" that they should set up lines line Disney does- she said "We're not Disney." Like that should excuse it! My husband just answered- "That's for sure!".

The park was really unkempt. Many things needed paint or repair, the bathrooms were disgusting and several of the rides kept breaking down with people on them!

Our lunch for 4 people cost us nearly $60.00! And that was at a counter service place. It was insane!!!!

I am definitely a Disney snob! My next trip can't come soon enough.

 

[bobbi565]

We've had a great time every time we've gone to SP. Haven't had any problems with rude people, but our big complaint is the food service. It seems that they don't always keep all the dining establishments open and the ones that are get extremely long slow moving lines. The line chefs seem unable to keep up with the demand, and people have to wait for food to be replenished. We've been there three times and experienced this every time we went. The long wait for overpriced, mediocre food really marred what was otherwise a wonderful experience.