Walking In A Dutch Winter Wonderland

In December, Dutch Wonderland transforms itself into Dutch Winter Wonderland. Not only is the park decorated with lights and other such Christmasy stuff but there's a few new attractions as well. The Christmas time park is open for the next two weekends and then also the week after Christmas. At $12.99, it really is a good bargain for a Christmas attraction! The admission price is fair just to get in and see the park's main attraction: The Royal Light Show. The Light Show is a display of thousands of Christmas lights blinking and twinkling to the rhythm of seasonal music. The show just about literally envelopes the audience. When seated in the viewing area, the lights dance not only in front of you but on every side of you including behind and above. It's a great spectacle and nothing like the neighbor down the street who has a couple of lighted trees synced to Manheim Steamroller. This is good stuff! As if that wasn't enough...

...my kids LOVED the new Polar Playground attraction. A semi-outdoor pizza joint in the park has been turned into a wonderland inside a wonderland. The walls depict Arctic scenes of penguin life while hundreds are soft foam "ice cubes" are waiting for kids to play with, build and use their imagination. Elias and Tanner easily killed 45 minutes having a blast inside this seasonal setup. They loved it. We ended up going back to it two more times through out the night. The park did a real nice job of transforming an existing space into something completely different.

Santa's Reindeer-In-Training are also on display in the area usually reserved for pony rides. I guess it has been a while since we've been to an attraction with real live reindeer because my boys flipped when they were standing face to face with Santa's real reindeer. We even got to see a little reindeer scuffle!

Entertainment options during the Christmas season include the live show "Jingle Bell Rock." This is a simple 10 minute show with two very talented dancers knocking out a few Christmas tunes and a few bad jokes. Unlike other shows at DW, this one appeared to be lip-synced however the dancing was a couple of levels above the summer shows. Either way, I can never seem to make it to the Radio City Music Hall Spectacular so this will have to do for me for now.

In the large Mill Stream Eatery in the back of the park, they have set up a Train Display and Gingerbread Houses. You can vote on your favorite Gingerbread House, which were all designed by local kids and organizations. This Smurf Village was one of the more elaborate displays and got a vote from all three of us! The Mill Stream is also open for business as usual adding Baked Potatoes with Chili and Cheese on top! Didn't try one, but if I make it back this season I just might have one!

Another neat little touch were there little houses set up in nooks and crannies of the park, each depicting a little Christmas scene inside. Nothing too elaborate, but it reminded me of the kind of things shopping centers used to do at the holidays when I was a kid.

Duke and The Princess were both decked out in their gayest apparel. Neither of my boys will go anywhere near the Princess if I've got a camera on hand, but Elias did cooperate for a snapshot with Santa Duke. In addition to all the Christmas fun, the park also has a dozen or so of their rides open. There's a list of the available rides on the park's website, but we were very happy to find a lot more that weren't on the list open for business. The kids were delighted to take another spin on the Turtle Whirl, and we took unplanned voyages on the Astroliner and the VR Voyager. Again, a nice little bonus touch DW!

Of course, this trip didn't cost us a dime (except for some Kettle Corn and a round of Shooting Gallery) as DW includes the Halloween time and Christmas event with their season passes. We're hoping to hit up the park one last time before our passes expire on December 30. Even if you're not a season pass holder, Dutch Winter Wonderland is a top notch Christmas attraction worth every penny.

Six Flags Great Adventure Trip Report

After a summer full of kiddie parks and beach boardwalks, it was nice to finally be able to hit up a genuine, full-fledged grown-up amusement park. So Monday, my previously mentioned good buddy Joey Carwash and I made the three hour journey into the wilds of New Jersey to visit Six Flags Great Adventure, one of the earlier Six Flags parks. Joey and I had actually both been to the park together back in 1994 on a college trip but either of us had much memory of the park. The park is pretty big, filled with first class rides and some standard carnival style rides. There are some kiddie rides sprinkled throughout.



The themeing in nice although a little random. There are nine sections (or lands) at Great Adventure which is actually three more than the Six Flags template necessitates. Some of the sections are rich in detail such as a Spanish/Mexican theme region called Plaza Del Carnaval and the standard wild, wild west territory called Frontier Adventures. Movietown is supposed to be a tribute to New Jersey's film making roots - but at this point is mostly just a tribute to Batman. Other sections of the park like Fantasy Forest and Boardwalk just blend in with the rest of the park.



Great Adventure is spacious and clean. However, there are large sections throughout the park where abandoned or repurposed structures take up space physically and visually. Near the front of the park sits many unused hanger style buildings that once supported the ride and theme of an airplane based flight simulator. Now the buildings sit there looking like exposed backstage areas of the park. The airfield theme is gone and the buildings look tacky and out of place. The same can be said for several large theatrical venues around the park that are still clearly visible but yet completely unused.



But let's talk about fun! The day we visited the forecast called for rain and thunderstorms throughout the day. When we arrived at the park around 10:30, it was raining pretty heavily. After a great breakfast at nearby Java Moon Cafe, the rain had downgraded to a light sprinkle. We figured the crowds would stay away and at the least we could hit all the big rides pretty quick. So, we paid the insane TWENTY BUCKS for parking (Six Flags should honestly be ashamed of themselves) and got a great parking spot in Daffy Duck section 2. As we entered the park, everything was running except for two of the bigger coasters (which later opened.) As expected, the park was near empty and we didn't wait at all for a single ride all day. Most of the rides were sitting in the station waiting for us. Score!



The main reason for making the trek up to New Jersey instead of just visiting the closer Six Flags park in Maryland was Great Adventure's newest ride: Green Lantern. Joey Carwash is a HUGE Green Lantern fan going back long before the movie ever came out. I was all for making a road trip just to go pay homage to one of my buddy's favorite childhood icons. After all, I just spent a week camping with Yogi Bear. Joey was super excited with all the little touches added to the ride area. There's a giant lantern in the plaza entrance before the ride. The queue area is lined with over sized comic strips telling the origin story of Green Lantern. You'd like to think the ride creators really were passionate about the Green Lantern character but it was more probably based on pushing the new movie.



The Green Lantern coaster is an awesome ride! Standing 15 stories high, the rides drops it's standing passengers 144 ft. at 63 MPH. There are 5 inversions along the track, although to me it felt like there were about 11. I've never been on a stand-up coaster before. As the train left the station I thought to myself, "This isn't any different than sitting down." Once we got to the top of the ride and I was standing 15 stories in the air...yeah, I could tell the difference. The first drop is super awesome followed by a very long ride of very intense twists and turns. When the ride was over I was filled with adrenaline. That was easily the biggest, baddest coaster I'd ever conquered. It felt great. Joey, of course, was an immediate fan and couldn't wait to ride again.



We next took on Rolling Thunder, the parks classic out-and-back woodie. This is a great ride, filled with ups and downs and not much else. A classic roller coaster experience from start to finish. Next to Rolling Thunder is El Toro, a beautiful looking dark wood coaster with a 176 ft. drop at 76 degrees, sending you into speeds of up to 70 MPH. This ride looked awesome but unfortunately I was unable to ride. The safety restraint was a single person lap bar that needed to come back very far. I had no problem getting the bar to click into lock, but they needed to have the bar go back fairly far and I wasn't able to quite make it. Joey felt uncomfortable in his seat, but he said it was one hell of a ride! I'm not sure why I'm able to stand 15 stories in the air, but I can't sit in a car for a wooden coaster. Oh well!



However, I was able to hop right onto Bizarro, a huge twisting mess of track with seven inversions. This was my first time on a floorless coaster, which isn't really scary as much as just an extra element of fun. It was another intense ride, filled with just about every surprise a roller coaster can throw at you. Good times! I had seen this ride's sister model at Six Flags New England on Bert The Conqueror a while ago and I had been eager to ride it ever since. Well worth the wait!



In the Movietown section of the park there are two Batman coasters. Batman The Ride is a suspended looping coaster. It's nice that Six Flags offers a test seat in front of their coasters for larger rides to see if the restraining system will work for them. At Batman there is also a sign to let riders know that people with a 52' or greater chest may not be able to ride. I take a 52' sports coat and darned if the little seat belt was only a fraction of an inch from being able to click into the shoulder harness. No big loss - I was already starting to feel a little queasy from all the tossing and turning of the day so I checked out a gift shop while Joey hopped on the ride. His report afterward was that the ride is way too brief.



Batman The Ride was built between the second and third Batman movie in the 90's. Across from it is the newer Dark Knight Coaster based on the current string of Batmam films. With The Dark Knight, Six Flags really makes a stab at trying to create a story-driven experience similar to a Disney Parks attraction. Guests enter a Gotham City subway station where TV's air the news while people wait for their train. While D.A. Harvey Dent is giving a press conference on the news, The Joker breaks in and causes havoc. Suddenly everyone is hurried out of the room into some dark corridors beneath Gotham where you board a Gotham City Subway Car. What follows is a Wild Mouse Coaster in the dark with several animated scenes and special effects set out along the track. Again, this was a short ride and the overall effect doesn't make much sense, but it was still a neat attempt to do something a little different. I'm sure it would have been a big hit with my kids!



My favorite ride in the park had to be Nitro...

Nitro has no gimmicks. You sit in a seat, in a train on a track, there are no loops. There is just one big awesome 215 ft. drop followed by 2 minutes of continually breathtaking drops. Nitro is just pure exhilarating fun without all the bumps, twists and stomach turning elements of many other coasters. Loved it! We rode it twice throughout the day and they were both awesome rides!

In addition to a Road Runner kiddie coaster, the park has three other smaller coasters. Runaway Mine Train is a classic Six Flags staple, Blackbeard's Lost Treasure Train is an odd family-style steel coaster with the longest ride train I've even seen. It's kinda fast and curvy and very low to the ground. Skull Mountain is a dark twisty steel coaster in a dark skull shaped mountain. The ride is anti-climatic considering the themeing and build up before the ride.

There's a unique attraction called Houdini's Great Escape which consists of two parts. The first part, which is basically a preshow, is styled after the preshow of Disney's Haunted Mansion. Guests stand in a dark room while some bells and whistles go off trying to build up your anticipation for something scary that never really happens. The effect may have worked better had the volume been turned up. Next guests are moved into a second room where they have a seat and eventually the room starts to spin around you while you stay perfectly seated. It's a modern update on the classic Haunted Swing style ride...still enjoyed at Dutch Wonderland's Wonder House. We also rode their very old Saw Mill Log Flume and Congo Rapids white water ride.

The rain held off for most of the day, and we only had a brief little downpour which didn't bother us as we were already under cover enjoying a hamburger and fries. By the end of the night, the remaining two coasters had finally opened.

Superman - Ultimate Flight is possibly the coolest of all the superhero themed rides at any of these Six Flags parks. For this ride gives you the sensation of flying like Superman. It's a roller coaster...a big roller coaster at that. The seats are suspended from the track without a floor underneath your feet. The real kicker is right before the ride starts the seats raise up at an angle so that you are facing the ground. You then leave the station and proceed up the chain lift looking straight down at the Earth you are no longer standing on. I have to admit when the seats first locked into their ride position - I freaked. I would have gotten off if given the chance but I wasn't given that opportunity and I'm glad I wasn't. When the train lets go of the chain you are treated to a 100 ft. drop - head first, you then zoom up from the ground and travel through over a track that takes you on an experience very similar to what Clark Kent must feel like flying through the skyscrapers of Metropolis. It is a truly awesome experience! I love when theme park attractions can really tap into the property they are based on. The red, white and yellow color scheme of the coaster is nice. The comic book graphics all over the queue and loading station are also a nice touch. But experiencing the feeling of flying like Superman - something everyone has dreamed about is a really cool feat to pull off. My only complaint with the presentation of the ride was the generic FM radio music blaring over the speakers throughout the attraction. The familiar orchestration of John Williams' Superman The Movie theme would have been the ultimate touch to top off this attraction.

We rode Superman late in the evening. After a day of nothing but pretty big coasters, I was feeling a bit beat up and woozy. I didn't want to be a party pooper so we took Green Lantern for another spin almost immediately after Superman. (We spent at least a good 20 minutes in the Superman gift shop.) That second ride on GL did it for me. I felt like crap after re-riding that super intense roller coaster. I could have easily thrown up if years of drinking hadn't conditioned me to better control such an urge.

After much deliberation, I decided to sit out the evening's final roller coaster, Kingda Ka. As the tallest coaster in the world and fastest in North America I really wanted to conquer this ride but my stomach and my heart were telling me it wasn't a good idea. I decided to finally play my "recently had a heart attack" card and grab a seat on a nearby bench and let Joey hit this one up alone. I really wanted to ride it...honestly! But I think I made the right decision. I was not feeling well at all. I even passed up the opportunity to drink a few beers earlier in the day! Joey said the ride was just about the most awesome he's ever been on and at 456 feet high and 128 MPH I'm sure it was. Next time I'm at a park I'm going to try and get on their big one first and work my way backwards.Six Flags Great Adventure is a good park with an impressive collection of first rate roller coasters. Nice touches: Six Flags licences the Warner Bros. stable of characters which include the Looney Tunes and DC Comic Book characters. The park put these cartoons to good use as park mascots. The Super Hero attractions are full of nerdy detail for fans of the properties. We even found a fake phone booth waiting for Clark Kent near a Super Hero merchandise store. The Looney Tunes are well represented with two sections of the park devoted to kiddie rides featuring Bugs and the gang. There's plenty of stuff to buy all over the park with Superman, Batman, Bugs and Daffy all over them. Neither of these sets of toons are high on my list of interests but Joey Carwash dropped over $100 on Green Lantern and Batman paraphernalia.

The park was clean, spacious and well maintained. Some of the non-Superhero roller coasters had their own theme music playing in the station which was nice. You can even tell that employees are told to interact nicely with guests, except for the security guard in the parking lot who told us, "You picked a crappy day to come to the park!" "Thank you sir!"

My complaints: 1) $20 bucks for parking is legally considered rape in most states. Not a pleasant way to start off a day. 2) Too much crappy FM music blasting throughout the park. If you're going to go to the trouble of visually themeing areas of the park, the music should support your theme. Hearing Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson doesn't drive home the illusion that I'm in Adventure Seaport. 3) Why is there a therapeutic massage parlor smack in the middle of the park? It looks like the kind of place you go for "special services" I'm not sure why that would be in a theme park next to a store that sells Bugs Bunny t-shirts. 4) Not a single XXXL shirt sold anywhere in the park. It's New Jersey, I've heard they do have fat people there! 5) Mr. Six (the dancing old guy from their commercials) is creepy and nobody really likes him. Be gone with him!

Can't wait to go back.

Party of Five at DW: A Trip Report

Wednesday was our 9th visit to Dutch Wonderland this summer. I'd say we got our money's worth out of our season passes. The kids were extra excited about trip #9 because for the first time this year Mommy went to the park with us. They were very excited to show her all their favorite rides. As we were driving up to the park that day, my good buddy Joey called me and he was doing nothing so he ended up meeting us up there too to hang out for the day. It was a fun day for all of us with an extra large touring group. The park was PACKED that day. The parking lot was full as was the overflow parking. I managed to grab a spot in the very last row of the parking lot. Still, even all the way in the back it's not a long walk to the castle entrance.





The boys were very excited to take Mommy on the Turtle Whirl. They can't drag me on that spinning death trap but Mom's a big fan of the ride and the kids were so happy to have somebody to ride with. They actually had to wait in line through four rides before it was there turn. We've never see a crowd like that at the park.

One of the main reasons Joey and I have been friends for so long is that we both like acting like big kids. Needless to say, Joey had fun on all the rides big or small.

Here's Elias on Dragon's Liar. This is a neat shot of him because it's taken from outside the park.

In Duke's Lagoon, Tanner was climbing up the side of the play structure and swinging from a rope. Instead of getting a picture of him doing it, I was only able to grab a snapshot of one of the lifeguards telling Tanner to stop. (Tanner's on the stairs.)

Elias has been dreaming about getting his hands on this huge Slushie glass from Day #1. He was very excited when I finally broke down and bought it for him. After Season Pass discount, it was only $3.50. I guess I could have sprung for it a while back.

My wife was all about getting her some Dole Whip. Dole Whip is a staple of any true Disney World fan's trip and it was pretty cool that Dutch Wonderland opened up a Dole Whip Junction this year. It's a delicious pineapple soft serve ice cream served with pineapple juice. It's the very definition of Good Eats!

My kids will never pose for a picture with the Princess of Dutch Wonderland. Luckily, I had my buddy Joey with me - whose always down for snapping a picture with a pretty gal. After we took the picture, I told her I was gonna put it on Facebook and she said, "Make sure to tag me!" Nice touch, Princess Brooke!

Here's a picture of the Sunoco sign they recently added to the Sunoco Turnpike ride. Everytime we visit the park, they've added something new to this rechristened ride.



And finally, you know you're getting old when...

...you get so excited about a good parking space that you take a picture of it. This photo was snapped right at the park entrance and look at my red van over there - just steps away from the gate! I moved the car later in the day when I went out to get bathing suits. You can't beat a spot like that folks!

Revenge of the Dutch Wonderland Trip Report

Summer Vacation officially started for us this past Thursday afternoon when Elias got home from school. For a stay at home parent, Summer Vacation is like tax season for an accountant or Christmas for Santa Claus - it's the busy season! We decided to start things off with a bang with an all day visit to our new summer home Dutch Wonderland. We had beautiful weather and a very light crowd as most schools are still in session for at least another week or two.

For the first time in Dutch Wonderland's history, they've split their parking lot into two sections are are now charging $10.00 to park in "Preferred Parking" or the lower lot as it's commonly known. These are the handful of parking rows located directly in front of the castle entrance. The parking is still free about six lanes up from the entrance, it's a pretty silly idea to charge for slighlty better parking. Honestly, the furthest spot in DW's parking lot is closer to the entrance than most theme park's best parking spot is to theirs but obviously when you start to charge for something that's been free (for almost 50 years) people are going to get upset. Dutch Wonderland has tried to quiet some of the upset guests by including the preferred parking as a Season Pass privlage. I assume it was an afterthought since this perk was not mentioned in any of the literature when we signed up for our passes.

I don't really care one way or the other. The walk from the lot is not bad, in fact the kids enjoy following Duke the Dragon's footprints across the crosswalk. But since I can park down front for free - I'll take `em up on the offer. The lower lot was not nearly full and the handful of dashboards I examined all had Season Pass parking tickets displayed instead of the $10.00 ticket. For all the ill-will it's buying Dutch Wonderland, I doubt it's worth paying someone to sit at a ticket booth to look at season passes when the average person is not going to pay $10.00 to park a few rows closer to the castle doors. Dutch Wonderland isn't exactly the hangout for big spenders!

But beyond the parking lot, we had another really great day!

Tanner has turned into a real daredevil. He had earmarked a dozen rides that he wasn't going to ride because they were too tall, too fast...or whatever other reason he decided. He's five years old, so you can't hold it against him, right? Well, he's been picking off those rides one by one. This visit he conquered The Twister - a Tilt-A-Whirl/Scrambler variation. It spins round and round in both directions while raising and dropping to the ground. I can't handle spinney rides - I get sick way too easily but the kids loved it and rode it several times. The Twister was moved to Dutch Wonderland a few years ago from Hersheypark where it was named the Rodeo for many years. Tanner also overcame his fear of the Flying Trapeze - a high flying swing ride which he had labeled too high. Even though last year at the beach he cried and cried because he wasn't tall enough to ride the big swing ride with Elias.

Tanner was also ready to ride Kite Flight, one of the park's two new rides this season. This was the first ride for all of us on this new addition. It simulates hang gliding by riding in vehicles laying down on your tummy. The ride spins round and round while ascending and descending. I got a little dizzy near the end...the kids rode it two more times. I didn't get a good picture of the ride, but I'll try next time.

One of the things I really admire at Dutch Wonderland is their appreciation for their own history. They have a small section called Memory Lane where a few old ride vehicles are on display. This train car is from Old 99, a really fun little ride that you could still find at some old parks. It was active at DW until fairly recently, it's footprint was where the current Thomas The Tank Engine theatre is. The ride took the trains on a twisting track around a garden with a couple of hidden gags. Sensors in the track would activate gags such as a stack of barrels falling on the train or a cow popping out of of hiding onto the track. The cow now resides in the back of the park on the Gondola Boat Ride and I'm happy to say they went to the trouble of hooking him up to the boat track so he can still surprise guests.

The park's resident ducks continue to be a popular time consuming attraction for my kids. On this day, we found three baby ducks walking the path near the space rides. I gotta admit the little ducks were pretty darn cute and my kids and others went nuts following the little peeping ducks all over the area.

The antique car ride has been rechristened Sunoco Turnpike with plenty of product placement all over the place. The cars are now sporting not only the company logo on the hood of the car, but are also outfitted with a fake speedometer and gas gage. Nice tough I thought. Almost every park has an antique car ride, and I think Dutch Wonderland's is one of the most scenic although it's a bit brief.

Duke's Lagoon - the water park section of the park - opened on Memorial Day weekend. We had decided to leave the swimsuits home this visit but we ventured across the bridge to the Lagoon to check it out. The boys jaws dropped to the ground when they saw this enormous collection of Slush Puppy machines. The Slush Shack in Duke's Lagoon let's kids mix and match from over 10 different flavors of Slush Puppy. They even have some DW related drink recipes if kids want to make their own cocktail. The nice thing is they let you use your regular refill cup from the park which saves you a couple of bucks. Well played, DW!

Our First Trip As Royalty

Even though it's essentially a kiddie park, I'm gotta say that I'm pretty excited that we got season passes to Dutch Wonderland this year! As a huge amusement park fan, I've always wanted to be a season pass holder to anywhere. Growing up we didn't live close enough to a park to make it worth while and later on in life when I worked at Hersheypark and could go whenever I want - I was too fat to ride anything. The nice thing about Dutch Wonderland is most of the attractions are designed for families to enjoy together and as as a stay-at-home dad an amusement park full of rides for my kids is a great way to kill many long summer days of daddy duty! So this past weekend, the boys and I headed up to Lancaster, PA (about an hour drive for us) and spent the day at the park. It was nice to have the more relaxed approach to visiting and not worrying about getting everything done in one day. We took our time around the park and I pretty much let the kids dictate where we went and what we did. They had a blast!

Since there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of blogging about Dutch Wonderland out there, I thought I'd do some trip reports when we make it out to the park. This was the second weekend of the season and there was a good turn out at the park, but certainly far from crowded. The weather was absolutely beautiful and I simply enjoyed being outside and feeling the gentle warmth of the sun.

One of the things that I really like about Dutch Wonderland is that they can take a simple ride and elevate it slightly by it's presentation. Off-Road Rally is a pretty simple "off the shelf" kiddie truck ride, with a train of trucks that travel around a slightly off-oval track. I've seen this ride at other operations simply dumped on a gravel lot or grass. I've always liked the nice way DW has framed this ride with lush landscaping. (Elias and Tanner are in the green car.)

The highlight of the park for most older kids is the Kingdom Coaster. Opened in 1992, this family coaster delivers quite a ride for a park known for it's no-thrills. The ride is pretty much a full sized wooden roller coaster minus the first drop. There are alot of twists and turns in this 90 second ride as well as a decent amount of air-time.


This was the first year Tanner worked up the nerve to ride it and he was an instant fan! That's Elias hand (with the watch) going no-handed down the second, slightly bigger drop.

One of two new rides this year is Huck Finn's Leapin' Frogs. The kids dismissed this at first as just another round-and-round ride but then we noticed it was actually a variation of a dune buggy ride they LOVE at the beach. While traveling around-and-around the frogs hop up and down. This is achieved by a wheel traveling along a track inside the rides center mechanism. The track lifts the cars up and then drops them which creates a bouncing sensation. The kids swore this frog version was a bit more souped up than the dune buggies and perhaps they were right as the frog cars looked a bit heavier than the beach cars. Either way, Leapin' Frogs will be a must ride for Elias and Tanner on future visits.

Whenever we go to a park for the day, we always seem to miss the shows because we're too busy trying to squeeze so much else into our day. I made it a point to finally see some of Dutch Wonderland's entertainment offerings. We hit up a 4:00 performance of A Dragon's Tale, one of the two shows performed in the Aqua Stadium. High-Dive shows used to be a staple in most amusement parks so it's nice that Dutch Wonderland still has one since most have been retired at this point. A group of five divers act out a silly tale about a princess and an evil knight, to a prerecorded soundtrack. As you can imagine, I saw alot of theme park entertainment when I was younger and I've always marveled at the bottom-of-the-barrel low brow, corny humor these shows maintained. I'm happy to say that the Dutch Wonderland show is about as corny as they come. It has some really funny moments mixed with bad puns, slapstick and current pop culture references. It's not many kiddie parks that you'll find a group of medieval knights dancing to Beyonce's Put a Ring On It. High-Diving is a feat that seems to impress young and old and the show is incredibly entertaining for everyone. I'm looking forward to seeing the park's other high-dive show.

Along the back end of the park runs the Mill Stream which is home to several species of water foul. The ducks at the park are just as big of an attraction as all the rides and fancy other stuff. This little family of ducks we saw brought ooooh's and ahhh's from many families.

Did I mention my kids loved the Kingdom Coaster. I was going to keep track of how many times we rode it this summer, but I already lost count. I think we rode it 12 times and then the kids went an additional two more times. Three or four times around at once is about all I can handle. At the end of the day, the guy running the ride was just letting everybody stay on and didn't even stop the train in the station. The cars just whizzed by the empty platform and we rode again and again. Pretty cool.

Elias and Tanner in the second to last seat, riding without Daddy. This was the last ride of the day and ending to a great first visit as Season Pass holders at Dutch Wonderland.

Atlantic City is Allegedly Always Turned On

I had a blast in Atlantic City, NJ this past weekend with my good friend Kevin. As I mentioned Friday, we went up to see one of our comedy idols Don Rickles perform live at the Borgata Casino. The show was fantastic as expected. He performed in The Music Box theatre which is a small 1,000 seat auditorium. Before Rickles came out, singer Tony DeSare entertained with classic tunes and voice that was at times a dead ringer for Frank Sinatra. He put on a very entertaining set, singing some modern songs like Prince's Kiss and also Springstein's Fire - both in a jazzy new arrangement. When Don Rickles took the stage, the crowd was on their feet to welcome the entertainment legend. Mr. Rickles sang, danced, told jokes and most importantly yelled and ridiculed the audience. It was a fantastic evening. I snapped a handful of pictures, as nobody was really enforcing the "No Flash Photography" rule. He never did get around to picking on Kevin and I, as we had hoped. But we still laughed ourselves silly.

I'm also giving a "thumbs up" plug to two places we ate at: The French Quarter Buffet at Showboat and the Fiesta Buffet breakfast at Tropicana. Both of these venues are high quality buffets with plentiful choices of very good food.

Hersheypark In the Dark

This weekend is the last chance you have to visit Hersheypark In The Dark, Hersheypark's annual Halloween event. We were lucky enough to make it out to the park this past Saturday with an extended touring group and we all had a good time. The park was extremely crowded with long lines at just about every ride, but we still managed to ride just about everything we wanted and got some trick or treating in as well.

The whole park is decorated for Halloween in a family friendly way. You won't find any zombies or scary clowns or insane midgets at Hersheypark. All the Halloween fun is played strictly for laughs and there is nothing to make even the most timid child squeamish.

The centerpiece of Hershey's Halloween spectacular is Treatville, a fairly elaborate little town set up just for the holiday. Kids under 12 are given a trick-or-treat bag and make their way through the many merchants of Treatville collecting various bite sized samples of Hershey products along the way. For a regional theme park, Hershey has done a very impressive job bringing the town of Treatville to life. Theatrical lighting, top notch sets and the fun Halloween soundtrack make the attraction thrilling for kids and adults.

Hersheypark in the Dark also features a few Halloween-themed entertainment offerings as well as a chance to visit ZooAmerica in the dark. Unfortunately, due to the crowds this past weekend we had to skip on shows and the zoo. We did hit up most of the major coasters in the park. It was my first time on Lighting Racer and the Wildcat. Both of these wooden coasters are outstanding rides as well as the classic Comet, which I'm pretty sure I haven't rode in at least 20 years. I only wish the lines weren't so long so I could have gone for a second spin on all three of these great rides. All of us in our party rode the Trailblazer, which is a smaller runaway mine cart-style coaster. It was nice that we could all ride together, even though we couldn't quite coordinate getting us all on the same train.

I only wish we had more time to enjoy the park. Hersheypark in the Dark is open Friday 4-10, Saturday 2-10 and Sunday 2-9. The tickets are $26.95, $17.95 for kids. You can buy discounted tickets at area Giant Foods stores.

All's Fair In Love and H-B

The York Fair (open through tomorrow) is filled with all sorts of fun things to do, good things to eat and just a bunch of other wacky stuff thrown in for good measure. As soon as we arrived at the fair I noticed a pizza vendor who was also selling soda in Jetsons' water bottles. That's kind of random, don't ya think!? They don't even make water bottles like that anymore, that's definitely and early 90's product. I joked that the Jetsons' bottles had probably been sitting around since Jetsons The Movie came out when I was in high school. Of course I bought one of these Jetsons' bottles and low and behold the copyright date under the picture of George and Astro is 1990 (the year the movie came out!) It didn't matter, I was happy as a clam walking around the fair on a cool late summer evening sipping Diet RC cola out of a 19 year old Jetsons' water bottle. Good times!

For no good reason at all, I also had to snap this picture of a giant Pebbles Flintstone doll that was a prize as some midway game. I think it was at the game where you have to toss a ball into a basket. I had to restrain myself from playing the game, not because of the Pebbles prize but because I'm pretty good at the game on Carnival Games on Wii and it's hard to remember that there's a big difference between playing a video game and doing something in real life. (Don't ask me about the time I tried to smash a giant gorilla with a mallet!)

I did other stuff at the fair too besides look for Hanna-Barbera goodies. There was a Navy recruiter who had a flight simulator ride on the back of a flatbed truck. It was just like the ones you've seen at amusement parks, a little smaller - it sat about 12-15 people. I was looking forward to riding it. I'm a big fan of flight simulators and blatant in-your-face promotions, but the ride just turned out to be about 7 very long minutes of flying around in an airplane listening to pilots mumble into their headsets. It was no Star Tours! And we didn't join the Navy.

The fair this year is also home to the World's Largest Snake, the World's Smallest Woman, the World's Largest Cow and a few other midway oddities. We didn't pay to see any of those, even though I'm a sucker for that kind of gimmick. We did, however, go inside a home that was carved out inside a giant Redwood tree. That's something you don't see everyday. We also saw a Don Knotts impersonator which would be another thing you don't see everyday.

In the Good Eats Department, I was able to cross something off my Food Bucket List - I finally got my hands on a Fried Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. Holy Crap....oh-so-good! If you're thinking that probably took a few years off my life then the delicious Fried Cheddar I also had probably shed another year or two from my lifeline!