A Stress Free Guide to Theme Parks
Fun fact about me: I love just about any kind of theme park! Despite being in my mid-thirties, I still love it all. The sights, the smells, the rides, the people watching, I can spend all day just walking around.
In the last couple years, we’ve done the big ones like Disney and Universal and yesterday we did the local park; Valley Fair.
We’ve had amazing visits to all of them (minus some overall issues with Disney that were out of our control) and I thought I would share a few tips on how we made it work.
It Starts with a Plan…
I can’t say it enough, you need to plan ahead. This doesn’t just apply if you have an allergy kiddo like we do. Part of why the experience was amazing for us is because the work we did up front allowed us to get in everything we wanted and we didn’t wait for a single ride! Isn’t that amazing for the last weekend of summer vacation?
We started by looking up the rides our daughter can go on. Another fun fact: I’m only 4’10”. My daughter is following in my footsteps and despite being 9, she’s the size and weight of a six year old. No joke, she just hit the weight requirement to move into a booster seat instead of her five point harness for the car.
Knowing which rides she met the height requirement for meant we could scope them out ahead of time and pick which ones she wanted to go on. We were able to get her excited about those and prevent any disappointment for the ones she isn’t quite big enough for. That set proper expectations and allowed her to tell us the rides that were on her ‘must do’ list. Knowing which ones were most important to her meant we could make sure we made time for them.
After we had a general idea of the rides she wanted to do, we pulled out the map and marked their locations. Before we even got to the park, we knew the general path we would take to avoid wasting time doubling back because we didn’t realized we walked passed something on our list.
After we knew there was enough she wanted to do to commit to the trip, we contact the park to clarify their allergy policy. It said right on the website that outside food and beverage (with the exception of sealed water bottles) were not allowed in. This is an obvious problem for families like us that have multiple food allergies and can’t eat at the park.
Truthfully, the office was tricky to get in touch with and required multiple calls over the course of a week. When I finally connected with something, we were reassured that we just needed to tell security about our allergies and all would be good.
Feeling good about things, we further cemented our plan. We knew there was a limited amount of preferred parking close to the gates and it’s first come first serve. To take advantage of the ability to come back out to our car midday, we planned to get there a half hour before the park opened.
Once there, we would hit up as many of the ‘dry’ rides as possible before getting lunch and changing into swim suits for the water rides to beat the afternoon heat.
My daughter was so excited that she even held a planning meeting the day before to make sure we had packed what we could and had a list so we wouldn’t forget anything.
How it All Turned Out
We got up early and I packed all our food. Kiddo and I were good with some sandwiches, chips, lots of fruit, and back up boxes of raisins in case we stayed late. We had a couple different plans for the food. Everything was packed up in a cooler. If we parked close enough, we’d leave everything in the car to bring in in the afternoon. If we had to park too far, we’d bring it in and get a locker by the entrance.
We followed our plan and getting there early paid off. Parking was a breeze and close enough to leave lunches and our waterpark supplies in the car. Because we had time to spare, we did our sunscreen in the parking lot. By the time we were finished, it was 15 minutes until the park opened so we went ahead and made our way through security. The ticket area was already open. After a quick family picture at the entrance, we followed our map to our first rides.
As you can see by the picture, the park was nearly empty! We had no wait times for anything. Once or twice we waited for the current cycle of the ride to finish, but that was the longest wait we experienced. It was awesome! Because of this, we managed to get to her entire wish list in about an hour and a half!
By then it was 11:30 so we went to the car to grab our food. This is the only thing that got a little dicey. I asked someone at the exit about bringing in our lunches, and he directed me to the security that was checking bags. I talked to a woman and told her the situation. She said no problem, I just need to have my bag checked upon entry (everyone does).
So we go to the car, take the food out of the cooler and into our beach bag so it would be one less thing to carry and did another round of sunscreen before going back in. I ended up with the same person I spoke with to check my bag.
The first thing she said was, “I meant you could bring in snack. Not a whole meal and not for multiple people.” I was taken aback by this because I had just asked this same woman if there would be a problem.
I kept my cool, but I asked her what we were supposed to do since we couldn’t eat in the park and started listing our allergies.
She stopped me half way through (it’s a long list!) and said, “All you needed to say was it’s a medical reason.”
I just stared at her for a moment. I had talked to her less than ten minutes prior and told her it was for food allergies, but she still managed to give me a little hassle.
Regardless, she eventually waved us through. I’m thankful that my husband and daughter got waved through first because they didn’t have any bags so Kiddo wasn’t part of the conversation. Not that it wouldn’t have been a good learning experience to fight for your rights, (remember, food allergies are covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act) but the rest of the day was truly lovely and it would have been a tainted spot for her.
Anyway, we ate a quick lunch (hubby, being he has no allergies, did get food in the park) and hit up the water park. A leisurely ride down the lazy river, time spent splashing around in the shallow kids area, and a few rounds of the wave pool later, we were ready to dry off.
Because we ate an earlier lunch, our timing for the water park was fantastic. We didn’t wait for anything, but as we were leaving the lazy river line was out passed the ropes and some of the water slides were over a 90 minute wait!
We had done all everything we set to do, but since the water park was at the opposite end from the entrance, we hit up a few of her favorites from the day on the way out.
Overall, it was an amazing end to our summer. The planning we did ahead of time meant we really didn’t stress throughout the day (the one blip with security was less than five minutes of the six hours we were there). We were able to just sit back and enjoy ourselves.
I hope you found this helpful! If you’ve got other questions, let me know in the comments or send me an email, contactjustnikkik@gmailcom. I’d love to hear from you!
