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The Ultimate East Coast Amusement Park and Water Park Family Road trip For Less
There are few things I enjoy more than going to amusement parks and water parks with my wife and kids. In just one day, I get a SD card full of great memories to download from my camera. The kids remember the best parts for ages and there is nothing like the bonding you get from going down the giant hill with your little ones on their first real roller coaster. It’s no secret that cost of admission to the great parks (and even the lousy ones) costs an arm and a leg though. This past summer though I figured out how to go to amusement parks and water parks with all my kids all the way up and down the east coast from Pennsylvania to Florida for around $125 a piece. I also got free preferred parking at the parks and discounts on any souvenirs and food I bought. Your mileage may vary a bit since prices and policies change, but this is how I did it.
The key to the whole thing is Sesame Place in Langhorne, PA. Sesame Place is part of the network of Busch parks throughout the country, but they are mostly on the east coast. If you buy a Super Grover seasons pass at Sesame Place, you also get free entry and parking at almost all of the other Busch parks. Plus when I called to buy my tickets, I found out that if you ask you can get a family pack on these for a discount that took about $30 off the price for us in 2008. So instead of paying around $150 each for the 5 passes I would need for my family I saved more than the cost of a pass by buying in the bundle. Since I live in PA, I also had the extra advantage of going back to Sesame Place several times with my kids, but the kicker was all the other parks we went to.
These are the Busch amusement parks that are on the east coast that I was able to visit on my amusement park family road trip all for that one fee (I’ll also be putting together feedback on each of the parks we visited from my viewpoint and my children’s in the near future. If there is a link on a park name it is pointing to the review of that park):
First we went to Sesame Place. The cost of daily tickets to Sesame place for my family of five (really we’re 6, but baby was 18 months so got in free everywhere) would have been around $50 a piece so $250 for the day plus the cost of parking. The ticket is actually a two day pass for the price of one.
Next we spent several days in Williamsburg, VA at Busch Gardens Europe and Water Country USA. We went to Busch Gardens one day and Water Country USA for two days. Two days at the water park would have cost me $360 plus the cost of parking each day, the one day at Busch Gardens would have been around $250 plus parking. So just from those 3 days of parks I was able to about match what I spent for the passes, when you include the cost of the day at Sesame place we are already far exceeding it. The rest is just gravy at this point and there is a whole lot of gravy.
Next we drove to Tampa to Busch Gardens Africa. There is also Adventure Island Water park, but is was closed when we went. It reopens for 2009 though so you could go as part of this family roadtrip. I really enjoyed Busch Garden’s Africa, but I’ll leave the details to the review. A day at Busch Gardens Tampa would cost $60 each or $300 (like Sesame Place, they are currently offering a second day free included in this cost). They aren’t giving prices right now for the water park, but I would expect it to be around the same price as Water Country USA, so that would be another $180 for the day.
Then you get to the climax of the trip, Orlando. Did you know Sea World is a Busch park? Well, it is and admission and parking is also included with the Super Grover Passport. Not only that, by Aquatica, the new Busch family water park opened in Orlando in 2008 and that is included too. One day tickets to Seaworld for my family would have been around $65 each or $325, for Aquatica the cost would have been around $210 for us.
On the way back, we could have gone through all of these parks again, but frankly we were so exhausted by the fun we had on our family vacation amusement park road trip that we were ready to get back home. Now of course you need to add the cost of food and lodging and gas to the trip, but the savings on amusement park and water park tickets on the trip made an affordable outing out of a trip that we definitely could not have otherwise done. So we end up with tickets costing $625 that if we went to all the parks and bought the individual tickets, it would have been almost $2000. The difference covered most of the other expenses for the trip.
Technorati Tags: amusement parks, cheap amusement parks, inexpensive amusement parks, budget amusement parks, budget travel, budget family travel, inexpensive family travel, inexpensive family travel, travel discounts, budget florida travel, east coast travel, budget east coast travel
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