If you’re taking your children to their first amusement park, Sesame Place is an ideal destination. Since the park attracts younger children, it is family friendly and easy to navigate. During Labor Day weekend when I vacationed to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, my husband, two children and I visited Sesame Place. I have five tips to share to make the most of your day there.

5 Tips for Visiting Sesame Place

In July, I shared 7 Labor Day Vacation Spots You’d Love To Visit. Since Bucks County has fun activities for families, including Sesame Place, it was featured in the list of best vacation spots. Now that I visited Sesame Place, today on Theresa’s Reviews, I am sharing some tips that can help you make the most of your time there with your kids.

1. Plan on staying a half day

When you vacation with kids under age 5, plan on making it through half a day at Sesame Place. We recently spent three entire days at Walt Disney World, which inspired a post I wrote on HuffPost Parents about how to manage your child’s meltdown during a trip to Disney World.

Unlike Disney World, Sesame Place is a pretty small park. You don’t need to stress your family out by insisting that you visit from morning until nighttime. You can easily navigate most of the dry rides for younger kids in a few hours. Since a day visiting the water rides can wear a child out (with so much excitement and joy), spend an hour or two doing the water rides, and leave whenever your children look tired. You can always come back another day if you missed some of the fun rides.

Make the most of your time at Sesame Place by paying for Preferred Parking or VIP parking. If you park near the entrance, you can easily get a change of clothes, leave when everyone is tired, or grab your stroller if you need it.

We stayed from 11 am to 4 pm, and this was just the right amount of time for our family. As soon as we could noticed the children looking exhausted, we started heading towards the car. Our children had a truly amazing visit. Since they made the most of the time they were there by visiting all the rides, there were minimal complaints about leaving.

2. Visit Sesame Neighborhood

As soon as you enter the park, you should stop by Sesame Neighborhood where you can find Sesame Street. This is a good opportunity to meet a character and to see the well-known Sesame Street sign. While children wait in line to meet characters, there are activities they can do at the shops on the street. My children didn’t mind waiting because there were so many things to keep them busy. This place was a neat introduction to the amusement park for our family.

Sesame Neighborhood is a good place to start because it gets kids in the spirit of Sesame Place. The storefronts look like real buildings, which makes it very fun to see and visit.

3. Order the kid’s meals at Elmo’s Eatery

In between rides, we stopped in Elmo’s Eatery. This restaurant was conveniently located near the dry rides. With table service and a simple menu, the restaurant was well worth visiting.

One thing I liked about the restaurant was the kid’s meals. Each kid’s meal is served on a plate that you can take home as a cute, simple souvenir.

My daughters both ordered the macaroni and cheese, which came with french fries, chocolate milk, and an applesauce. They wanted to order only the applesauce and some chocolate milk, but by the time you total those two items, the price wasn’t much higher. Both girls finished their applesauce and milk and ate most of their fries. Ryan and I helped finish off the tasty, cheesy macaroni and cheese.

4. Meet the characters

One of the most fun parts of visiting the amusement park is meeting the characters. Even though there can be quite the line to meet the characters at Sesame Place, it’s worth your time. My younger daughter loves  Elmo, and she was so excited to meet him.

While we were waiting, we spotted Big Bird, but he left and was replaced by Abby when we were in line. I heard from a local resident that it’s pretty common not to meet Big Bird when you visit Sesame Place. Plan on meeting whichever characters are there, but don’t have your heart set on meeting a particular character in case they aren’t there.

Abby ended up being the perfect character to meet. Since my older daughter loves fairies and everything pink, this was a great experience for her.

5. Wear swimsuits

Even if you aren’t planning on enjoying the water rides, wear your swimsuits just in case. When we visited, the weather called for frequent rain and clouds. Luckily, by mid-afternoon the sun came out, and we were able to enjoy the water activities.

At the park, many of the water rides are ideal for older kids. We found a splash pad that worked well for visiting with young kids. If you’re visiting with preschoolers, you can also visited the Sesame Chutes ride, where adults can go down the waterslide with a younger kid.

If you want to get completely in the water, you can visit Big Bird’s Rambling River near the Good Ship Sesame Sign. This leisurely ride on inner tubes is comfortable for kids of any age.

Overall, Sesame Place was a convenient destination for our family. We loved being able to drive only two and a half hours to get to a fun amusement park for our kids. Being able to choose between water rides and dry rides was awesome, especially on a day when the sun came came out mid-day. I was very happy that my idea of visiting Sesame Place for Labor Day weekend worked out so well for my family.

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Have you been to Sesame Place? Share your experience in the comments.

Disclosure

I received a free item, but it in no way influenced my opinion.