Dutch Wonderland - Take 3

The week right after Caleb's last day of school, we kicked off our busy summer schedule with a bang. Last year, we were really hoping to get back to Dutch Wonderland since it is such a great place for little ones our kids' ages, but Reid was so young and wasn't fond of traveling. We also just had so many other things to do and had to narrow our choices. With that in mind, when we sat down in December/January to plan what we wanted to do in 2015, this place was definitely high priority on our list.

Dave's company switched up everyone's schedules this summer,requiring him to work longer days Monday through Thursday but with the benefit of having Fridays off. This gave us a lot more flexibility with planning this trip so that he wouldn't have to take off so much time from his job to go. We decided to try for a Thurs.-Sat. trip so we could get some good time in at the park on Thurs. and Fri. when it wasn't as crowded, but not have to rush home either - with Sunday to recover at home still before the new week began.

Day 1: For everyone who purchases tickets in advance, one of the perks DW gives its guests is a park preview for the three hours prior to closing the night before your official full day visit. I think we learned about this offer after the fact the last time we came, but this year, we definitely took advantage of it.

As always, we started our day with a little train ride to get a good tour of the park before we began.

Next we entered the dragon's lair, taking a little boat ride around the pond and through the tunnel. My Nikon is broken and the little point-and-shoot we have stopped working right before we got on this ride. You know me and pics...I was ready to find a Walmart or pay a ton at the gift shop! What a bummer....

After hitting the camera a few times (hey, nothing else was working), it straightened out again thankfully. Shew!

Caleb could ride every ride in the park now, but he had to have an adult with him for a lot of them.

Mommy was excited at first to get to do this one with him...Then I got a little queasy. I used to be able to handle this stuff! (That makes me sound old, doesn't it?)

While Caleb was at the perfect height for every ride, the other two were somewhat more limited but not too much. Hadley could do all but 5, and there were only 12 out of the 37 they offered that Reid wasn't allowed to ride.

Everyone could do the Wonder Whip though! Caleb and Hadley loved this ride when they were just a little older than Reid, which is shocking since it sure does throw them around. I wasn't quite sure how our little buddy would react, so for good measure, I asked Caleb to ride with him...There was nothing to worry about! Giggles abounded as Reid was slung into his big brother each time they whipped around the corner.

In three hours time, we knocked out a pretty huge chunk of the park - 15 rides (many we rode multiple times), some attractions, and a little band concert as we were exiting. (Not bad!) Being later in the day, we hardly had to wait in line for anything, and even if we did it was only one round. A lot of the time, we didn't even have to get off the rides if the kids wanted another go because no one else was waiting or very few so there was enough room for everyone.

Looking like a big boy

Caleb's still young enough to enjoy even the rides geared for the littler ones.

"That train ride was boring; I'd rather chase this goose."

This is Dave's least favorite ride in the park. It always gets to him, but the kids love it. After that space shuttle ride, I knew my stomach couldn't handle it, so poor Daddy took one for the team. Reid was anxious to get off too, clinging to Dave for dear life!

Look at the road. Where did you get your driver's license, Caleb?

This is one of my favorites - the Hopper!...Hey! I just realized I never got a turn.

Reid didn't think much of this ride either. He clung to Daddy once again.

Caleb, Had, and I got to do a roller coaster! There was a bigger one that Caleb and I were going to tackle too, but by the time we finished this ride, everything had shut down.

I didn't feel sick on this one, but it sure did jar ya a bunch!

Day 2: In the past, we've always stayed in the Spruce Lane Cottages. This time though, Dave thought we should try out the Country Inn and Suites right across from the park. While I love the setting of the cottages in the more rural part of Lancaster, this new hotel was great for us. Not only were they very clean, but they also had a great breakfast each morning and were within walking distance to the park.

We did have to cross a busy road to get across to the park, which made me somewhat nervous. Loading all the kids in the double stroller as well as the crosswalks they have in place helped keep things simpler...To our surprise, we found out that afternoon that the DW parking was actually FREE right now though they are planning to start charging soon, so we were a little frustrated that we put out the extra effort walking for no reason and drove from then on. Next time we'll have to double check! 

Every year, we've seen the water park section of DW but have never attempted to try it since we typically only go for one day. But, because we'd already gotten reacquainted with all the rides the park had to offer the night before, we started off the next day with a little water fun, wearing the kids out before lunch splashing in the sun.

You can definitely tell that Dutch Wonderland is build with small children in mind and that safety is a priority. Even in the water park section, it was extremely well designed to prevent drowning. Aside from some shallow spots at the bottom of a few of the slides, there was no standing water or pools. The spongy ground was painted blue to look like water, but instead of areas to swim or even wade, the H2O was shooting from different playground equipment around the area. As a parent, it made me feel so much less stressed about keeping up with three littles. They tired of it more quickly as a result I think, but that was okay since we didn't want to spend all day in that section anyway.

Caleb spent almost the whole morning in this part where the kids could spin wheels to dump big buckets of water or use giant water shooters to spray each other.

Both Hadley and Caleb really liked this water slide section too with three slides to choose from - as well as lots of other water fun options attached as well. 

Reid didn't think he wanted to try it. He doesn't like water on his head...well none of them do, but the older two are growing out of it some.

I can't even tell you how many times Hadley did this one.

Reid did best in the toddler section with just a few small slides, some water spraying, and a castle. Nothing crazy...no surprises.

All of the kids liked the big water slides. Caleb loved the pitch dark tunnel, but Hadley preferred the one you could see in. Reid seemed to really enjoy his ride the first time but wouldn't do it a second.

A parent was required for anyone under 80 lbs, which made it a bit difficult since we had three and had to take turns - one going up and the other trying to keep the two that were left behind entertained. Thankfully, being a Friday morning, the lines weren't long like they were later and on Saturday.

For lunch, I spotted a Golden Corral nearby and we headed there since it is Caleb's favorite. When we arrived though, he was just not himself and, after building his plate, refused to eat anything. Instead, our poor boy stretched out across the chairs and went right to sleep.

We finished our meal and then took everyone back to the hotel for a nap, but Caleb didn't seem to be feeling any better. The kids were recovering from colds they'd had earlier that week, so we questioned if maybe just the drainage from that in combination with how hot it had been the past two days at the park was part of the problem. In light of how he was feeling, I thought it might be best for one of us to just stay with him in the hotel and the other take Hadley and Reid back to the park, but Caleb said he wanted to try going back with us because he really wanted to ride the Monorail. Against my better judgment, we went with it and pushed him around in the extra stroller we brought so he didn't have to exert himself any more than necessary.

First, we stopped at the hoppy horses but Caleb decided he didn't want to participate.

Even though he wasn't his normal self, things weren't going too badly until we got to the ride Caleb wanted to ride. Right as we were waiting in line to board the Monorail, our poor boy got sick on his stomach. I ended up pushing him back to the hotel to spend the evening and leaving the car for Dave and the other two so they could enjoy the evening at the park.

My hubby kept up with our younger two like a champ, letting them try out a few new rides and even explore the new exploration island addition to the park that had been added since we'd last visited.

Caleb was lethargic and sick on his stomach all evening after that. His cough began to sound very much like when he's had bronchitis in the past, so we attempted to find an urgent care but couldn't. Dave and I debated heading to the hospital, fearing dehydration, but couldn't find that either and were considering stopping to get directions when we noticed he was asleep in his carseat. We decided to see how the night went and reevaluate in the morning at that point.

Day 3: In the past, we've never bought two day passes before, but this time chose to do so. I am not sure if this was a good choice or not since we'd already pretty much done the entire park the two days prior and now had a sick kid. It worked out though I guess because Caleb was sick on his stomach all night long, which meant there was no way we could make a three hour trip home in the car with him. While Dave was taking him to the ER the next morning, at least I had a place to take the other two after we checked out of the hotel. (The batteries in the camera were dead so I don't have any pics from that morning, but at the time that was the least of our worries.)

After their visit to the hospital (where Caleb received a bronchitis diagnosis and an antibiotic), Dave picked me and the kids up to get lunch at Chick fil A. While Caleb hadn't eaten in well over 24-hrs, he seemed to be feeling some better at that point and ate his lunch. After getting some liquids and food into him, our boy perked up quite a bit and we were so thankful to see him feeling better.

Since he had missed out on so much of the fun due to being sick, Dave had promised to let him go back to the park just to ride the Monorail train he'd been waiting to getting on the previous night right before things took a turn for the worst. The other kids had fallen asleep so I sat in the car with them while Caleb, who still wasn't 100% but much better, got to go for his train ride.

My two boogers didn't sleep very long though. When Dave and Caleb got back, there were itching to go back to DW too. Caleb had improved so much in such a short time that Dave and I went back and forth considering if it was okay to let him ride around in the stroller for a while as we let the little ones stretch their legs before our long trip home. Finally, we decided that as long as he didn't ride anything where he'd be spreading germs, he'd probably be okay and decided to walk around the new dinosaur section of the park again since he didn't get to see it the day before.

We explored this little church on the way there. It was air conditioned, such a relief on a hot day!

The coolest thing that I don't think we'd ever noticed before was that right in the center of this park this little church held Bible with the gospel message displayed directly above it. If I didn't already love this place enough before, this sealed it for me. Dutch Wonderland is such an awesome theme park!

We also ran into a traveling band so Dave and Reid kicked up their heels while we listened to the beat.

When Dave said the prehistoric addition at DW was similar to Dinosaurland (an attraction that is just a short ways down the road from our home), I kind of had an idea of what to expect, but the giant lizards at Exploration Island were definitely a step up from anything we'd experienced before. Animatronic and placed in beautiful, realistic looking environments, these dinos even had a lot of the kids questioning if they were real. When I affirmed to my kids that they were indeed fake, one little kid quickly corrected me! We even got to take a gondola ride along the muddy swamp stream surrounding exploration island. Definitely a well done addition!

We didn't hang out long for Caleb's sake. After the kids had a chance to stretch their legs, it was time to jump back in the car and head home. Things didn't go exactly as planned, but I think even despite Caleb getting sick, we tried to make the best of the trip and it still turned out to be a good one.