5 Tips for Your Visit to Sesame Place in Langhorne, PA

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to the eastern side of Pennsylvania to visit some new amusement parks. One of those parks was Sesame Place!

Our experience at Sesame Place was not as magical as we were hoping. In fact, it ended up being quite a rough day. Maybe it was just a bad day for us, maybe it was just a bad day for the park, maybe it was a combination of both – either way, it was the most “chaotic” day of our trip.

Sesame Place is located in Langhorne, Pennsylvania (just outside of Philadelphia) & is a park themed entirely to the world & characters of the kid’s show: Sesame Street. Braelynn isn’t actually a huge Sesame Street fan – she’d prefer to watch Daniel Tiger – but we did watch a few episodes of the show before our trip so she’d at least be a little bit familiar with the characters. We also bought her an Abby Cadabby doll (that I found at a thrift shop a few weeks before our trip) as a special surprise on the day of our visit. Braelynn faithfully carried her Abby Cadabby all over Sesame Place, until the very end the day, when Abby Cadabby went missing. She got lost somewhere between our next-to-last ride & walking out to the parking lot (did she fall out of the stroller? did another little kid grab her out of our stroller thinking she was their doll?) Derrick heroically went back & attempted to find her, but had no luck. It was a sad ending to our chaotic day. (Just in case you’re wondering: we did find another Abby Cadabby doll for Braelynn in a gift shop at the end of our trip!)

A few of the problems we ran into at Sesame Place could have been avoided if we had simply known about them in advance! So, we wanted to share our top 5 tips for your visit to Sesame Place, in the hopes that you have a much better & more pleasant visit than we did!

Park Map & Show Schedule

As soon as you walk into the park, take a picture of the park map & the show schedule with your phone! Sesame Place does not hand out paper maps – so even though there are a handful of park maps on boards around the park, they are a bit tricky to find (we only found one map other than the main map posted at the entrance – I’m sure there are more, we just only found one). And, if you find yourself turned around in the first place (and needing a map to figure out how to get somewhere), setting out to look for a map can be more challenging than just walking around & looking for the attraction you’re wanting to head to!

Food

One of our biggest challenges on the day that we were at Sesame Place was finding food. Maybe because it was a Monday & not technically in “peak-season” yet, but the majority of the food stands were closed. We were in the water park “area” around lunchtime and while the kids were playing in the water, Derrick set out to find us some lunch. He was gone forever and eventually returned empty-handed. None of the food stands were open in the water park area, and as he ventured out onto Main Street, the food trucks there were closed as well. If you are familiar with the term “hangry” – Derrick embodied that term to the fullest. He scarfed down some snacks that we had brought & we hunkered down to finish our time in the water before venturing further out to find food.

Not long after that, Leander started to get hungry, so I left to go nurse him. After feeding him, I decided to see if I could find some food to bring back with me & “save the day”. I went into “Cookie’s Cafe”, but the line was super long (understandably – it was one of the only food options available in the entire park) and that’s when I saw a sign for “Mr. Hooper’s Food Market”. It is attached to one of the merchandise shops, so it is a little bit hidden. I ducked in there & found a small selection of pre-packaged sandwiches, snacks, salads, and PB&J! JACKPOT! I grabbed hoagies for Derrick & myself, a PB&J for Braelynn, 2 Cokes, and a juice & I was pretty “quickly” back on my way (I did have to wait in line for a bit behind some guests struggling with their merchandise purchases). I felt very much like Super Woman for finding food for us & saving the day!

So, long story short: if you are visiting Sesame Place & are struggling to find food – try Mr. Hooper’s Food Market (behind the carousel)!

Drinks

We try to be as economical as possible when we visit parks. Braelynn is a little eating machine & is constantly hungry, so we always do our best to bring in snacks for her so we aren’t constantly buying food. This also allows us to buy just one “big” meal in the park & we’ll grab more food once we’ve left. Like most amusement parks, Sesame Place’s food prices were pretty astronomical (but, as I said, that’s to be expected with an amusement park).

One of the other ways we try to save money is with drinks. We bring in juice pouches & our own water bottles and refill them throughout the day at water fountains. We’ve done this at every amusement park we’ve ever been to and never had a problem. We encountered a problem with this system at Sesame Place though: we could not find a single water fountain. We looked in all the usual places (outside of restrooms is where they typically are) and had no luck. With the lack of open food stands (see above), we were left with extremely limited drink options! We pretty much drank our juice pouches & those Cokes from lunch & that was about it. Thankfully, the day we were there wasn’t too insanely hot, but I can only imagine how much worse off we would have been if the day was much hotter!

The Water Park

One of the things we were not exactly prepared for was how spread out the water park area is. We had looked at the park map before arriving at Sesame Place, and we had noted that the water park attractions were pretty much everywhere, but we didn’t realize just how scattered those attractions would feel once we were in the park. In fact, there was a whole section of waterslides, that we never even realized were there until the very end of the day (and by that point, we had changed out of our bathing suits & weren’t changing back)!

This is definitely one of the reasons you’ll want a picture of the park map on your phone. That way, you can see where the water park attractions are and how to get to them – and you won’t miss out, as we did!

It would be amazing if Sesame Place had better signage that said, “More water this way!” or simply big footprints or a “trail” to follow on the ground that would take you from one water area to the next. They don’t though! So, be aware, that in order to get from one water area to the next, you will have to walk through regular “ride” sections of the park where everyone else is fully clothed. It definitely feels like you’re a “fish out of water” to be walking around in your bathing suit, but it’s the only way to get from one water area to another!

Parades & Shows

As I mentioned above, we were at Sesame Place on a Monday in “non-peak-season”. That doesn’t mean that the park was “slow” though! There were still plenty of people there & some pretty long lines to certain attractions. Because the park is on the smaller side, pretty much as soon as anything would start out on the street (a show or the parade), people would simply come running & suddenly there would be a huge mob of people pushing & crowding around.

Needless to say: if you want to stop & watch the parade or a show (especially an indoor show), you will need to make plans & get there early if you want a good seat. The thing about Sesame Place is that it is a park entirely centered around children – and parents get cutthroat with their kids!! They push & shove & generally act like children themselves in order to get their kids closer to the front or in a better view of the parade/show. That being said: arriving early will give you not only the best seats (and a chance to relax for a few minutes), but will allow you to avoid all the crazy parents in the back who are attempting to shove their way to the front!

BONUS: The Nursing Mother’s Area

If you are headed to Sesame Place & you have a nursing baby – you are in luck! Sesame Place has a beautiful, indoor, private (and slightly air-conditioned) place for you to nurse your baby! Having spent the previous days at Six Flags parks (which do not have accommodations for nursing mothers), it was so relaxing & peaceful to have a place to go that was quiet, cool, and private to feed my little man!

Within the Nursing Mother’s Area, they also have a space to change your baby’s diaper. I’m not sure about your baby – but Leander gets super distracted when I change his diaper in loud & busy restrooms (he’s at the age where he wants to stop & look at everything). And if the restroom is particularly echo-y, he seems to really hate that & will break down & cry (which takes the noise level to an even crazier place).