Knoebel's Amusement Park - Elysburg, PA

Website: Knoebel's Amusement Resort
Season: April-September
Cost: No admission. Pay by Ride or they run one-price days often (but you don't need to choose that option). See details here.  Note that some rides, mainly the Haunted Mansion, may not be included in the one-price option.
Estimated Length of Stay: You can spend as much or as little time as you want since you aren't paying one large admission. We usually a few trips here every year and spend several hours there.
Recommended Ages: All ages

Knoebel's Amusement Park is another one of my favorite activities. It is a bit of a drive (a bit over an hour away for us) but it is such a good deal. Free parking, no admission, reasonable ticket prices, more than reasonable food prices.

It's the perfect amusement park for anyone who is not able or willing to ride many of the park rides. You pay one price at Hersheypark whether you get on any rides or not. At Knoebel's, you only pay if you ride so parents of small children and grandparents who want to tag along don't get stuck paying just to walk around the park and watch the little ones ride. And if the kids aren't in the mood to ride that day, no loss.

You can purchase books of tickets or pay by the ride. If you buy too many tickets, you can save them for your next visit. If you do happen to be someone who can ride a lot of rides in one day, they do often run a pay-one-price-ride-all-day admission fee but I've found that you have to ride a lot of rides to make it worth it. Check their website for discount days and other special pricing.  I did buy the boys an all-day pass the first day they were open after the 2011 flood. They discounted the price but almost every ride was open.  There were no lines that day since some roads leading to Knoebel's were still closed. It was a great day and the boys got their money's worth. I used tickets we had leftover from previous visits.

They have a lot of great rides too. They may not have the monstrous attractions that Hersheypark has but they have plenty of good stuff. They have some great coasters - The Twister and Phoenix are great. Since having kids, I haven't had a chance to ride these but I remember them fondly from visits before I had kids. The Haunted Mansion is another favorite. My son came out shell-shocked last year after his first trip through the Haunted Mansion but recently he's been talking about going back in there again. The Carousel is great too. You can still grab the brass ring there.

There are plenty of rides for kids of course. My sons love the go-karts.



Bring your swimsuits if you're into getting wet since they have some nice water rides and a big pool with slides, fountains and sprinklers. We typical stay dry on our visits. (There are additional fees for the pool and slides.)

There are other activities to keep you busy - miniature golf, a mining museum, an Eagle habitat, loads of games, a 4D theater, and an arcade or two.

The food is excellent and not as outrageously priced as some other amusement parks. We love the sit-down restaurant, The Alamo, where you can get a nice full dinner in an air-conditioned restaurant for about what you'd pay for a burger and fries in other parks. They do not discourage bringing your own food into the park. In fact, there are pavilions around the park that you can use for a picnic. Check their policy but I believe well-behaved dogs are welcome.

They also have camping and a golf course so you can even make this a multi-day outing.

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Lake Tobias Wildlife Park -Halifax, PA

Website: Lake Tobias Wildlife Park
Season:May-October
Cost:see rates hereExpected Length of Visit: From a couple of hour up to several hours.
Recommended Ages: All ages

Lake Tobias Wildlife Park is literally just a few minutes from our house so this is our fall-back activity when nothing else is going on. It's a relatively cheap outing, especially without the safari tour. And it just so happens that we love it.

Their admission is quite a bit lower than most other animal parks and small zoos but they offer a lot for the money. They have a nice array of animals. I find their animals a bit more interesting than those at Zoo America since they aren't limited at Lake Tobias to animals native to North America. You won't find elephants or giraffes at Lake Tobias but there are zebras, capybaras (my favorite), kangaroos and other animals you don't see everyday.



The exhibits are very nice. They recently added some new ones and got rid of the last of the old-style depressing cages.



Besides the typical animal exhibits you will see here, you will often find zoo workers carrying or walking an animal through the park and you can usually pet them or get a nice picture with them.



They also have a petting zoo, a reptile show and a safari tour. We finally took the safari tour after many years of passing it up and now we try to do that at least once a year. It's a lot of fun. You really get up close to the animals. I can't believe we passed it up all of those years.


They added a new reptile building in 2011. Attending the reptile show is a much more pleasant experience than it used to be - no more crowding into that small building.

Parking is free but most of the parking is a small trek away from the animals. They do have handicap parking available in the main area.

There are pavillions for picnics. You can reserve these for large affairs. There are several play structures on the property to amuse the kiddies. You can fish on site for a fee but you don't need a fishing license. I don't see any fishing info on the website unless I'm missing it but it's possible. You can get your fishing pass at the snackbar where you purchase the safari tickets. Call Lake Tobias for a price on those. I really can't remember but I'm sure it was $10 or under for an all-day pass. There may be other options too.

You can bring your own food into Lake Tobias but the food is very good there and the prices are reasonable. Unfortunately, the service can be extremely slow. The kitchen is small and the food is made to order so the line backs up around lunchtime. There's a food cart on the premise as well which doesn't usually take quite as long but the options are different and I've never tried anything from the cart. There's a play structure not too far from the snackbar so you can kill some time there while waiting for your food to be prepared. The gift shop is also in that area.

If you prefer to eat while coming or going from Lake Tobias, there is a McDonald's and also a Subway in Halifax on Route 225, 5 minutes south of Lake Tobias and if you came in from the north using Route 209, there are a McDonald's and Burger King in front of the Wal-Mart on 209 in Elizabethville, about 10 minutes north of Lake Tobias.

I wouldn't rate this as an all-day activity. It's not that large and the safari ride only takes about 45 minutes, tops. We usually spend only a couple of hours there since we live so close and visit so often but if you take your time and keep a leisurely pace, you could spend several hours there.

One of my only complaints about Lake Tobias (besides the slow food service) is that it's very difficult to push the average stroller over the gravel surface that covers most of the park.

Please add your comments regarding this activity or let me know if you have any questions about it that I might be able to answer.

Cherry Crest Farms, Lancaster County, PA

Website: Cherry Crest Farms
Season: May-September, maze opens in July NOT OPEN ON SUNDAYS
Cost: See all admission rates here.
Approximate Length of Visit: You can definitely make a day of this. They even have flashlight maze in the evening sometimes.
Recommended ages: All ages but there's more to do for younger kids.

I think Cherry Crest Farm is my absolute favorite out of all of our family fun activities. We have never missed a year since we discovered it. There is so much to do there, especially for younger kids. It can get crowded but not unbearably so. It's nice anytime it isn't raining but it's especially nice when it's a nice fall day. The service and facilities are top-notch. I can't recommend this place enough.

The maze is great for adults and older children but even young children enjoy it. There are play structures located within the maze to entertain them. There's a snack bar within the maze and candy machines pop up along the way. Honestly, we haven't had much luck with the actual maze and had to cheat our way out every time (and between the members of our group we had a PhD, Master's degree and Bachelor's degree). It was still a lot of fun.

That's only a small part of Cherry Crest Farm. There are so many activities for kids beyond the maze. They have a smaller maze, two bouncers (big pillow-like bouncers, not bounce houses), sandboxes, play structures, slides, pumpkin slinging, mining for gold, games, animals, a wagon ride, a small train, pedal cars. That's just part of it. There is more than I can list here. There are activities in the courtyard and activities in the barnyard.

My son had a great time playing on the obstacle course. He had been obsessed with the window cleaners at his school so he just kept going down the rope over and over.

There are animals and a farm education area where he got to hold a baby chick and milk a 'cow'.


The food is excellent. They have roasted corn that is out of this world. It is some of the best sweet corn I ever tasted and I'm usually there in October. The pork barbecue is also really good as are the french fries and, well, everything else. The freshly made Kettlecorn is something we never pass up. Food prices get higher every year but they add more choices every year and you're allowed to bring your own food, if you'd like.


In the past my worst complaints about Cherry Crest were the poor baby changing option and the long lines for the restroom but in 2009 they added a nice baby changing room (and also a nursing station) and added another restroom building. They added even more facilities later.

That is the best thing about Cherry Crest - it gets better every year. They add something new and keep up what they already have. In 2009, they also added a new play structure with slides and small climbing walls, another tent with picnic tables, some games and probably a few other things I missed. In 2011 the added quite a bit - new food stands, new restrooms, new games.

Take note that they aren't open on Sundays. Cherry Crest is a full day for us but it can be combined with Strasburg Railroad.

Please add your comments regarding this activity or let me know if you have any questions about it that I might be able to answer.

Pioneer Tunnel - Ashland, PA

Website:Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine and Steam Train
Season: April-October
Cost: Coal Mine Tour $9/adults, $6.50/ages 2-11, Steam Train $7/adults. $5.50/ages 2-1, Combo $14.50/adults, $10.50/ages 2-11
Approximate Length of Visit: A couple of hours at least, we somehow spent 3 hours there
Recommended ages: Interesting for all ages. There is a playground that even the youngest kids can enjoy.

I heard about the Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine and Steam Train through word of mouth. It turned out to be very interesting and enjoyable. Both my husband and I had ancestors who worked in coal mines around the time period this mine operated so it was particularly interesting to us.

It took us a little over an hour to get there from our home north of Harrisburg. It's not that far from Knoebel's Amusement Park, maybe about 20 minutes away. Take 81 to 901W, to 54E and you find yourself in the town of Ashland which reminded me a lot of the area I grew up in, in Northeast PA. You turn onto Twentieth Street, which is more like an alley, up past a cemetery and there it is.

There are two tours. The mine tour takes you 1800 feet into the side of the mountain and lasts about 30 minutes. I have to warn you the ride is ROUGH! If you are pregnant or have a serious case of hemorrhoids, this might not be the best choice for you. You don't spend the entire tour in the cars - the tour is mostly a walking tour within the mine. Wow! The conditions the old coal miners endured will make you appreciate your desk job a lot more.


It is 52 degrees in the mine and drippy (even on a dry day). Bring a coat. They have a rack of coats there that you can borrow but, well, trust me, bring your own coat. The person that borrowed a coat last may have had cooties.

The train ride is also a very rough ride (the roughest train ride that I ever experienced) but I this wasn't originally a passenger train. The coal-fired 'lokie' was rescued from a scrap yard when the mine tour started in the 60s. It was built in 1917.

It's not a very long ride (and your butt will be grateful) but there are stops so the entire train tour takes about 30 minutes.

The first stop, no one leaves the train. You can stand and take pictures and the guide talks about the town below (Ashland, PA) and the town just over the ridge (Centralia, PA) which has basically been dismantled due to an underground mine fire.

The second stop, the passengers can leave the train. There's an example of a bootleg mine (a mock-up, I believe but I'm not positive).

There's a strip mine in that area too.


My older son enjoyed both tours and the baby did very well also (except when he pooped on me the first time we tried to board the train tour - NOTE: There are no baby changing facilities in the restroom!) There's a great playground right there. One area is the old-style that I remember from my childhood, with a large merry-go-round (NOT a carousel!), teeter-totters, and larger swings.

The other side has some of the newer play structures they put in parks nowadays.

There are baby swings which the baby LOVED so this activity truly had something for everyone.

There's a home-style food concession stand. The Bar-B-Q sandwiches(sloppy joes) were very good. An 18.5 ounce bottle of lime-flavored Dasani was only $1.25. Some attractions soak you on the water but they don't which I appreciate.

There's a small gift shop. We had to buy the baby a new shirt since he pooped on the outfit he was wearing. I brought extra shorts along but I forgot his extra shirt. The infant shirt was around $6. They had great pieces of carved coal but I didn't price them.

Even though the tours only took up a bit more than an hour, we somehow managed to spend three hours there. There was about a 30-minute unexplained delay before the train tour. The guys ate something, we played on the playground, and we basically just weren't in a rush that day. We had a good time.

Please add your comments regarding this activity or let me know if you have any questions about it that I might be able to answer.

Chuck E. Cheese - Harrisburg, PA

Website: Chuck E. Cheese
Season: All-year
Costs: Games are all 25 cents (you buy tokens). Pizza, salad, wings, drinks, etc are extra. Look for coupons in your Sunday paper.
Expected Length of Visit: As long as you can stand it
Recommended ages: There are a few kiddie things to do so I'd say walking on up. (This is not the best place to lug around a not-yet-walking baby, especially when it's crowded.)

This post won't have any pictures. I really don't want to take pictures in a Chuck E. Cheese. They might arrest me (and it seems to be a popular place to get arrested these days).

Chuck E. Cheese is the place you take your kids when there is a birthday party or when the weather is bad and there is absolutely nothing else to do.

To be fair, kids LOVE Chuck E. Cheese. When it's not ridiculously crowded, it's actually kind of fun. The games are only a quarter so a trip to Chuck E. Cheese is not an expensive proposition. I can't speak to the food prices since we usually play and run. We prefer to eat in a more relaxing environment so we usually head across the road to TGIFs. There are several other restaurants and fast-food places in the immediate area. I have had the pizza at birthday parties and it's pretty good.

The problem is, it's almost always a Saturday afternoon when we head to Chuck E. Cheese and that is the most crowded time to be in a Chuck E. Cheese. I find it unbearable when it's crowded. You can't get the good games, the play structure gets overloaded and it's simply chaos.

If you've never been to Chuck E. Cheese (and I made it until my late 30s without going there), it's basically games, games, games. Arcade games but for the younger crowd. You can win tickets and redeem them for junk, err, I mean toys or candy, etc. There's also a play structure that runs along part of the ceiling that you'll pray your child doesn't get stuck in. Good luck trying to coax him or her out of there once they get up there.

So, while Chuck E. Cheese isn't my favorite place to go, it can save the day in the middle of winter or on a rainy day.

Please add your comments regarding this activity or let me know if you have any questions about it that I might be able to answer.

Zoo America - Hershey, PA

Website: Zoo America
Season: Year round
Cost: $9 for 9 and up, $7.50 for kids 2-8 and adults over 55, children under 2 free. Included in full-day admission to Hersheypark and free to Hersheypark season pass holders.
Expected length of visit: A couple of hours max, IMO
Recommended for ages: all ages

We've visited Zoo America individually and as part of Hersheypark experience. It's a nice little zoo but due to the cost and effort involved in getting to Zoo America(it's at least 45 minutes away), I prefer our local animal park, Lake Tobias, if we're going to do the animal thing.

When we went to the zoo and paid a separate admission, we used a coupon for the Kids Book and save a couple of dollars. It was still more expensive than Lake Tobias and frankly Zoo America isn't any more exciting than Lake Tobias. We're just spoiled since Lake Tobias is practically in our back yard.

They have a nice variety of animals at Zoo America but nothing terribly exotic. No elephants or giraffes - all of the animals are native to North America. They have a neat swimming pool for the bears and you can feed the ducks, which my older son enjoys. It's not that big of a place. You can spend a bit of time visiting the indoor animal habitats and then walk around the rest of the zoo and probably see it all in 1-2 hours.




There is a snack bar in the zoo but I've never been there when it was actually open. There are some vending machines and a gift shop too.

Zoo America is free if you have a season pass to Hersheypark which is a nice perk, especially if you live in the area and want something lite to do every now and then. It's nice that it's open all year round since personally I find it difficult to find things to do in the colder months in this area. I only recently found out it was open year-round. I wish I had known that sooner!

Please add your comments regarding this activity or let me know if you have any questions about it that I might be able to answer.

Philadelphia Zoo - Philadelphia, PA

Website: The Philadelphia Zoo
Season: The Philadelphia Zoo is open every day of the year except Thanksgiving Day,
December 24, 25 and 31, and January 1.
Cost: In season, $18 for adults over 11, $15, ages 2-11 and under age 2 free. There are other plans and winter rates. See all ticket prices here. Become a zoo member for even more discounts. Expected Length of Visit: You could spend all day here.
Recommended Ages: All ages

We visited the Philadelphia Zoo just a couple of months before my younger son was born in 2008. It was May but it was hot - 80+ degrees hot. It was a Saturday but for whatever reason I didn't expect it to be so crowded. The zoo was a zoo that day! We ended up parking on the zoo road on the far side of the zoo but we were lucky to get parking anywhere near the zoo.

Coming in, we hit traffic not too far from the zoo exit (Girard Ave) on 76. We crawled through traffic for quite some time. (When we left in the afternoon, traffic in that direction was backed up nearly to the turnpike booths so we were more fortunate than the people headed to the zoo at that time.) We bought our tickets and paid for parking online so that probably saved us a little time getting in to the zoo.


Getting into the zoo (the drive, parking, going through the admission gate), was a bit of work but once we got in there, it was nice considering how packed it was. You didn't have to fight anyone to see the animals or anything like that. There was room to walk around. We're fortunate to be early birds and we ate lunch early. Later, the refreshment stand lines were insane. I do believe they let you bring your own food. You really can't leave the zoo to eat since the area surrounding the zoo is a bit, um, rough.


It's a great zoo. It's got the elephants, giraffes, gorillas and all the other big animals we don't get to see locally. My son loved it! The animal exhibits will take up a good portion of the day. We could watch the gorillas for quite some time.


There are other activities too. There's a children's zoo with a petting zoo, a duck pond and a tractor. My son could have played on that tractor all day.


There were pony rides, face painting and swan boat rides. These activities were pricey (I think they were at least $5 each, per person) so we only did one -we rode the swan boats for my son. We won't be able to do that again. Next time we'll be a family of four and we won't fit into that swan anymore.

There's also a hot air balloon for an additional fee but we saved that for another day. I was too exhausted and we had spent enough money.

I remember waiting in line for quite some time to use the restroom which isn't fun when you're 8 months pregnant. My advice - don't wait to use the bathroom by the main entrance on your way out since it was the most crowded.

We had a heck of a time finding our way out of there, back to I-76. I knew where to go but pointing ourselves in the right direction was a problem. The road signage around the zoo did not help. Fortunately I went to Temple and my dad often took that same exit when driving me back to school so I didn't panic when we ended up driving around in a not-so-nice neighborhood (is 'ghetto' no longer a politically correct term?). Or when we ended up driving in the trolley lane (hey, I wasn't the only one!) We eventually got home alive.

I don't know how often we'll return. The zoo is not that far from Harrisburg. It's an easy daytrip down the turnpike. The zoo isn't extremely expensive either and if we became zoo members we could visit quite a bit for our money. It's the hassle of getting in and out of the zoo that turns me off on the idea of visiting again, although I'm sure we will. Unfortunately, if you want to enjoy the big attractions, you usually have to deal with things like traffic and crowds. Hopefully next time we go back it won't be as crazy. I wonder if the fact that the shore season hadn't opened yet ande it was an unusually warm May day made it more crowded. After Memorial Day, many people around Philadelphia head to the shore on the weekends. Just to be safe, I would suggest getting an early start.

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Swimming at Little Buffalo State Park- Newport, PA

Website: Little Buffalo State Park (always check website for latest details about hours, price, etc.)
Season: Memorial Day-Labor Day
Cost: Approximately $5 for adults, slightly less for children. Some children are free (by height). Season passes available.
Expected length of visit: We usually only stay for a couple of hours but you can definitely make a day out of it.
Recommended for ages: All ages. The little kids enjoy the sprinklers and the pool has a shallow are for the smaller kids. Older kids will love the slides.
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When I first got the idea to visit Little Buffalo State Park a few years ago, I was thrilled to see that they had just renovated the pool area and they did a great job. They have a large pool with two water slides, 'umbrellas' (that you can see pictured), and dumping buckets. Next to that is an area with sprinklers and geysers that my older son loves, since he is not a strong swimmer yet. We haven't taken the baby there yet.

The pool is surrounded by a grassy area where you can rest your belongings. There's a changing room and restroom near the pool.

They have a snack bar but the few tables are usually all taken around lunchtime so we usually hit the McDonald's nearby afterwards. You can't bring your own refreshments into the pool area but there are picnic tables outside of the pool area and you can leave the pool area and return if you get your hand stamped.

There's a play area right outside the pool and of course all the other state park activities are available - row boats, paddleboats, fishing, camping.

When I was a kid, it seemed as if more families would spend the day at the state park. Our local state park would get terribly crowded, especially on holidays. My dad would be there at the crack of dawn, grabbing us a picnic table. Some of my fondest childhood memories are from day-long picnics at the state park or local lake. They were all-day affairs filled with swimming, eating and playing on the play equipment. I think more people stay home and swim in their own pools, cook on their own grills and eat on their own patios nowadays. Maybe that's why they've 'supersized' the pool and added the bells and whistles. I'd hate to see the state parks disappear because not enough people are using them.

Please add your comments regarding this activity or let me know if you have any questions about it that I might be able to answer.