Thursday, June 17, 2010

Amusement Parks, Ball Parks and More!


By now most of you know the joys of living in Central Pa. in the Spring/Summertime, the food, the weather and the number of outdoor activities available for you and your family. I have written before about the great parks system here in York County and hopefully you have all gotten acquainted with your local park, this Spring has provided us with some great playground weather! Today I thought I would take the outdoor theme in a different direction and offer up some links to other great outdoor activities within about an hours drive. (from downtown York)

I'm going to start with Dutch Wonderland, with a 3 year-old in the house it's the only logical place to begin. If you have kids aged 10 and under Dutch Wonderland is the place to be! They cater to the smaller kids, with a great variety of rides and shows, and now with the added water park you really can't find a better day trip around. Check AAA for the best priced tickets, consider the season pass if you know you will be visiting more than 3 times, and grab a few friends and purchase the group rate tickets. (hint: Group tickets don't have to be used on the same day!) http://www.dutchwonderland.com/index.php

Next up is Dutch Wonderland's big brother Hersheypark. Kids older than 10 will choose Hersheypark over Dutch Wonderland in a heartbeat and it's not hard to figure out why; with bigger and faster rides and a newly updated waterpark called the Boardwalk, Hersheypark is the place to be! If you haven't been there in a while you might want to tag along, Hersheypark has become a premier amusement park featuring 11 roller coasters, a huge 378,000 wave pool and an attached zoo, Zoo America. Giant Food Stores offers discounted tickets with a free parking pass, it's $10 to park, AAA has discounted tickets as well. Look for deals if you will be visiting both Hersheypark and Dutch Wonderland this summer, they sell a combination ticket that features one days admission to each park valid all summer long! http://www.hersheypark.com/index.php


If you are looking for a baseball game think locally first and try a York Revolution Baseball game! We have taken Katie to a few games already and although we didn't get to watch too much of the game, for the price we didn't mind! Tickets start at $4 for the kids, $7 for adults, and check out their website for deals and specialty nights for an additional discount. Another great option is the Rookie Revs fan club for kids. We signed Katie up for this one and it's already paid for itself; for $19 she got 2 tickets for 2 games, one that was in May and one in August, a free mini-baseball bat, a pass to the Downtown playground for the whole season, a pencil and a coupon for 10% off one item in the gift shop. Not bad?! Check out the Revs at: http://www.yorkrevolution.com/

For great minor league baseball just head up 83 North to see the Harrisburg Senators. The Senators play AA baseball in the Eastern League and just sent a hot pitcher, Stephen Strasburg, to the big leagues to play for the Washington Nationals. To find out more about the Senators click here: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t547

Finally we have the Baltimore Orioles. What can I say, they aren't that great but they play some great teams; if you are local and an Orioles fan than you know my pain, ugh. The upside of being a losing team is that there are plenty of seats available even with the big teams show up, like the Yankee's and the Red Sox. The stadium is clean, easily accessible and right in downtown Baltimore, close to great food and shopping. I'm sure the bigger kids will appreciate seeing a major league team, even if "root, root, rooting for the home team" isn't going to bring home a win. For more about tickets click here: http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=bal

Finally, there are other amusement parks and ball fields to check out if you are up for a little longer of a drive (Under or around 2 hours):


Posted by at

1 comment:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)