Travel Review: Sesame Place

If you're looking for a fun little vacation for pre-school aged kids who are not quite ready for Disney, then Sesame Place may be the place for you. Located in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, about 40 minutes north of Philadelphia, Sesame Place is a theme park focused on fun for the 2 to 4 year old set. Like Disney, there are rides, shows, parades, character breakfasts, and the like but set on a much smaller scale for younger children.

The majority of the attractions are water rides, so best for both children and parents to come in a bathing suit and sandals and bring along towels. There are also dry rides and events, so you may want to time it so that you have a dry day and a wet day or dedicate your morning to the dry stuff and the afternoon to getting wet. Germ-phobic moms and dads may want to avoid Sesame Place as, like any other water park, it does get very crowded in the summertime and hygiene is not a big concern among toddler visitors.

One of the highlights of our trip was the character dining experiences. You can choose to have breakfast with Cookie Monster or Elmo or have lunch or dinner with Big Bird. We had breakfast with Cookie Monster but Bert, Ernie, and Big Bird showed up as well. This was great for photo ops. Tickets for the dining events must be purchased in advance. My son also loved the Elmo show, which is basically a live version of the Elmo's World segment on Sesame Street. It comes complete with Dorothy in her goldfish bowl and Mr. Noodle doing all kinds of silly things.

Among the dry rides, my son really liked Grover's Vapor Trail, a medium sized roller coaster that the adults seemed to enjoy too. He also enjoyed the net climb which a series of nets and suspended tunnels three stories high. Much of the other dry rides were typical of what you would find in a neighborhood carnival: tea cups, balloons that go around and around, tilt a whirl, but when you package them up with Sesame characters they seem much more appealing. The character parade is cute but my son had a hard time sitting still with so much to see and do.