Guest Post: Sesame Place on a Budget

For the next three days, I will be publishing a 3-part series on how to do Sesame Place, a Pennsylvania amusement park, on a budget.  I hope it will be relevant to readers in the DC and surrounding areas who might plan to visit this park, but I also think it has really good tips on navigating any silmliar destination.

For those of you on the East Coast, many young families have heard of and considered taking their family to Sesame Place in Langhorne, PA! Travelling to an amusement park, staying at a hotel, and eating out, can be quite expensive and Becky Lucyshyn from Rochester, New York has written a series on how to do Sesame Place on a Budget! Her series has helpful tips on how to save in many different areas: Part 1 will talk about how to save on tickets and hotels. Part 2 will talk about what food to save on what food to splurge on! Lastly, Part 3 will talk about how to save on parking, souvenirs, and other helpful tips!

Here is a little excerpt from Part 1. Sesame Place is best visited on a 2 day pass. If you get the 2 day pass, you can do everything, and many things multiple times! The park is probably 60% water park, 40% rides/attractions. In summer 2010 the general admission price for a two day pass is $53 (this is also the same price for a one day pass, so of course you will want to choose the 2 day! AAA is currently offering the pass at $49. This is similar to what I found last year. Tickets and hotel are going to be your biggest costs to the vacation.

In Langhorne, hotels abound but they are all priced for the convenience (hence more expensive) of staying 5 minutes away from Sesame Place. The Sheraton ranges $209/night, Holiday Inn range is $161/night, and the cheapest that I found for convenience sake (3 miles away) was $119/night. These hotels are again all for the convenience of being right near the park. However, if you are willing to drive a little bit - you can save BIGTIME! Just 19 miles away in Horsham, PA you can get rooms for $80/night!!! Our family stayed at the Homestead Suites, which gave the added bonus of having a kitchenette (which included a full size refrigerator, microwave, and stovetop range to use for all the food we were bringing!) in the room! It was $80/night in 2009 and is showing that price currently for dates in summer 2010 on Expedia. There are also other similarly priced hotels in that area too! For more information, click here for Part 1.