Dutch Wonderland giveaway: Win family fun in Lancaster

Update: We have a winner! Congratulations to Bridget who will now get to celebrate her daughters’ birthdays at Dutch Wonderland! Thanks everyone for participating.

You may have noticed that I don’t write a lot of posts about amusement parks. That’s partly because I’m not a big ride person myself (I am claustrophobic and get motion sickness – I know, lame right?) and also because I’m choosy about the parks I visit. I like them to have some personality, something special that makes an outing there magical. So when Dutch Wonderland in Lancaster, Pennsylvania offered to send me four free tickets for a day of fun, I took them up on their generous offer. That’s because I had heard from friends that this amusement park has an old-fashioned and genuine charm that makes it a perfect spot for a family outing, especially if you’ve got younger kids.

Dutch Wonderland is surrounded by farm fields and rolling hills and may just be the most bucolic amusement park I’ve ever visited. The theme here is fairy tale magic, with the requisite touch of Amish kitsch thrown in (it wouldn’t be Lancaster without some fiberglass cows and farmers to keep things real). It’s a clean and shady place and although we were there on a beautiful July Saturday and it was busy, we never had to wait in line for more than ten minutes. Along with us were my sister Sheila and her sons Alex and Jonathan (who are 15 and 8, respectively).

We arrived just as the park opened and plunged headlong into the rides, starting with some races on the Fun Slide (somehow Tommy managed to come out ahead every time).

After that, it was time for some fun on the Double Splash Flume:

The bumper cars were a hit:

And then we all relaxed on the Gondola Cruise, which gave Matt lots of chances to tease everyone about there being snakes in the water. No one took him all that seriously:

During our drive to the park, both boys talked boldly about how they couldn’t wait to get on the roller coaster (the park’s one really scary ride). This is, in fact, the closest any of us got to it the entire time we were there:

I took that photo from the Sky Ride, which proved to be more my kids’ speed:

We followed that with a more realistic flight simulation on both the VR Voyager and the Astroliner and then a little self-induced nausea on the Turtle Whirl:

The kids really loved getting to drive the cars on the “Turnpike” (certainly more than I do!):

By mid-afternoon we were hot and ready to cool off at the water play area of the park, which is called Duke’s Lagoon. We used the handy (but crowded) changing rooms and lockers to change into bathing suits and stow our stuff before heading out into the tropical-themed kid paradise of water slides, sprays, geysers, canons, sprinklers, and just about every other means of making water travel through air.

No pictures of the kids here, since my camera isn’t waterproof. Teddy mostly wanted to find as many different ways as he could to get wet by climbing, splashing, and spraying, while Tommy and Matt rode the Pipeline Plunge over and over.

We probably spent close to two and half hours here; you could easily make this the better part of your day.

After we dried off and changed back into our clothes I thought that the kids would want to try a few more rides, but Jonathan and Tommy just wanted to return to the Fun Slide and Teddy had an altogether different agenda, one involving a lot of green face paint and a pretty girl.

We finished our day at Dutch Wonderland with a game of mini-golf, which is included in the price of admission. The course isn’t as cute as the rest of the park – in fact, it’s not even in the park, but is off to the side next to the parking lot. But the boys were happy to have one more thing to do and I appreciate the fact that Dutch Wonderland tries to mix things up and make sure you can enjoy a full day of fun.

As you can see, my little dragon had a great time at Dutch Wonderland – and so can you. That’s because Dutch Wonderland has given me a family pack of four tickets to give away to one lucky reader of The Mother of All Trips! If you live anywhere in the region or are planning a visit anytime soon I hope you’ll try your luck. Lancaster makes a great place for a weekend visit with kids and is an easy drive from Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York.

To enter, leave a comment about your favorite amusement park below. And to sweeten the pot, I’ll offer an extra entry for each of the following actions as well:

1. Subscribe to The Mother of All Trips via rss or email and then let me know you’ve done so.
2. “Like” The Mother of All Trips on Facebook – then come back here and leave a comment telling me you did so.
3. Mention this giveaway on Twitter (you can use the button at the top of this post, or if you prefer to write it yourself, just makes sure you include @motherofalltrip)

This contest is open until 5 p.m. EST on Friday, July 15. I’ll announce a winner next Monday. See below for rules. And if you like this giveaway and want to share it with your friends, just click the “Like” button at the top of the post.

This is going to be a Dutch Wonderland kind of week here –I’ll be sharing our favorite food recommendations and will also offer my top tips for visiting.

A note to my regular readers: I’ve decided to stop putting the phrase “Mondays are for dreaming” at the beginning of my Monday Dreaming posts. This is not because I intend to change anything else about them but is just a reflection of the realities of making sure I show up in Google searches! Rest assured that the posts will remain as dreamy as ever.

Rules
Please, only one comment per person per giveaway post (except as outlined above where the comment is related to an extra entry). Duplicate comments and anonymous comments will be discarded. Please make sure that the email address in your comment form is valid (email addresses are never public and I don’t share them with sponsors). Winners must claim their prize within three business days after the date of notification of such prize. A sweepstakes winner’s failure to respond to the prize notification within the specified three business days will be considered such sweepstakes winner’s forfeiture of the prize and an alternate winner may be selected from the pool of eligible entries. If an entrant is found to be ineligible, an alternate winner may also be selected from the pool of eligible entries. Employees, partners and vendors of The Mother of All Trips and their immediate family members are not eligible to enter. We will disqualify any entries that we believe are generated by scripts and other automated technology. When applicable, the winner may be required to execute and return within five business days an Affidavit of Eligibility and a Liability and Publicity Release to be eligible for the prize or an alternate winner will be selected. All prizes will be awarded. No substitutions including for cash are permitted, except that The Mother of All Trips reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater monetary value for any prize. Winners shall be responsible and liable for all federal, state and local taxes on the value of their prize.