Who doesn’t love Sesame Street.  I know my daughter cannot get enough of it, and my wife and I have found that the show even has little segments that even we can enjoy.  Did you know that Cookie Monster now does movie spoofs?  We have seen James Bond, Lord of the Rings, Life of Pie and many more. They really do a great job of these.

There are even characters that I don’t remember from my childhood, Rosita is a little green Spanish speaking monster, and there is Hanna’s favorite Murray Monster.  He is kind of the MC of the show introducing the different segments and even having some adventures himself with his little sheep companion.  We have stuffed versions of these characters all over our house as I’m sure any one of you with small children do as well.

Luckily we have a theme park near by in Pennsylvania that is completed themed around the show and is called Sesame Place.  We have wanted to go for a while but figured it was best to wait until Hanna was old enough to actually go on some of the rides and interactive with the characters rather than just sit in her stroller and drool as they come by.  Her grandparents were nice enough to get the whole family tickets to try out the park and today was the day that we were all finally free to go together.

As soon as we entered the park there was a large souvenir shop called Finder’s Keepers that Hanna immediately wanted to check out.  As she moved around the store checking everything out I was a penny machine right near the exit of the shop.  With my wife close by Hanna to make sure she didn’t go to far, I decided to sneak out and use the machine.

As you would imaging the penny designs all consist of different Sesame Street characters and they really pressed nicely.  This first machine included: Elmo, Zoe, Ernie, and Bert.

Our plan was to visit the park in our swimwear so we could spend the first part of the day in the water ride section of the park.  We headed over to that area, picked our spot and started hitting up the rides.  There was a Rubber Ducky ride that sent up to 8 people down a huge slide in a large inflatable raft getting soaked the entire way down.  Next was a little wave pool and splash area with water spraying from ever different direction.  Lastly we checked out the lazy river which was anything but.  Hanna didn’t like the little raft she was on and we ended up carrying her most of the way through.  Not to mention that the river was packed with people and there were a lot of areas you got stuck in.

Once we had satisfied our water park needs we got changed and decided to head someplace for lunch.  Along the way we ran into a couple of character meet and greet locations.  First up was Zoe which Hanna also loves.  She took a little convincing but did get her picture taken without too much fuss.

We also ran into Bert and Bert, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster and of course Elmo.  Getting to one of the lunch areas took a little longer than we had originally thought but thought it was best to get our pictures with the characters now because their appearance schedules were always changing and you never knew when they would be back or who would be back.  We grabbed lunch at Cookie’s Cafe and upon leaving we headed directly into Mr. Hooper’s Emporium another gift shop.  Right outside the shop was the second penny machine.

The designs were: Grover, Big Bird, Abbey Caddaby, and Snufleupagus.  My only issue with this machine was it was right beside the bathrooms which as you could imagine was a busy location.  Some kids stopped by to watch and I made sure to show them how it worked and displayed the final designs for them.  I headed back into the gift shop and found my family which were ready to hit up some rides.

My wife and I are not huge ride fans but we the kids rides were just about our speed.  There was a tea-cup style spinning ride called The Monster Mix-up, we also tried the Flying Fish Elmo ride, Flying Cookie Jars, and Oscar’s Rotten Rusty Rockets.  Anything that moves or spins fast Hanna really enjoyed, mommy and me not so much.  By this time Hanna was starting to get grumpy as it had been a long day and not to mention all the excitement of meeting her favorite TV friends in person must have been exhausting.  We passed by the Sesame Street studio which has an Elmo the Musical show.  Hanna wasn’t going to make it through the line to get in let along the show so we figured it was something to try next time.  Right outside the Studio there was the third penny machine.

With Hanna nearly asleep in my arms I pressed the pennies and we headed towards the exit.  This last machine also had 4 designs include: Cookie Monster, The Count, Oscar the Grouch and Prairie Dawn.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to find Murray for Hanna to meet.  We had asked around and were told he was only in the parade and some special character meet and great meals.  Oh well just another excuse to come back, and maybe they will have some new pennies.  Hey I can always dream can’t I?