Dutch Wonderland- Lancaster County (Vacation Part 1)

Finally, I am going to tell you about my vacation and mini vacation. There are loads of pictures, so I am going to spread them out over several different posts.

While in Lancaster County, we spent one day at the amusement park Dutch Wonderland. It is an amusement park specifically for small children and my family had a blast. Even in summer months, the weekdays are relatively crowd-free making it for an awesome day filled with riding almost everything in the park (save a few we didn't want to ride) seeing the diving show twice and Noah riding the roller coaster over and over again.

In the middle of the day, the park became a little more crowded, but that only amounted to us having to stand in line for the log ride for fifteen minutes. Seriously. Fifteen minutes was the longest we had to wait to ride anything.

Now, the pictures aren't great, because there was no way I was taking my Canon to the park. There is a small water park encased in the bigger park and I didn't want to ruin my camera. Little did I know that we would only spend twenty minutes in the water park because upon entering, BOTH of my kids freaked out and cried until we left! Nevertheless, I didn't bring my camera and therefore these pictures were taken with the camera on my husband's cell phone.

First:

And because I couldn't resist: ( I had them switch) Where the two diving shows took place. I don't know why he didn't get a picture of the actual show. One was A Dragon's Tale and the other was The Frog Prince.

The park mascots are a dragon, a prince and princess that walk around for pictures. I don't remember the dragon's name, but Zoë didn't like him.
The little monorail:
The view of the entrance to the park from the monorail:
Zoë riding the pandas:
Noah and I on the little roller coaster. We are in the third car, you can't really see us very well. Noah later fell in love with the big roller coaster and his daddy rode it with him over and over. Since Zoe was too small for that ride, she and I rode the park train numerous times.

Views from the skyride:

Zoë on the skyride:

Riding the little boats:
There boat ride took us under that waterfall (it doesn't get you wet) and there is a big nest under there with a supposed dragon egg in it. Ha!
This had nothing to do with Dutch Wonderland, but we saw it on our travels and it made me giggle every time we passed it. So, of course, I made my husband pull over so I could get a picture. It is located in Paradise, Pennsylvania... which the realization of progressed my giggles to full-on guffaws:

As I mentioned, the park was really a great day for us. The weather was perfect- in the low 80's with low humidity and a breeze. The park isn't very big which is perfect for small children and the rides are all geared toward younger kids. I highly recommend it if you are in the area with your young children.

Tomorrow: Strasburg Railroad and Museum