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Win! 2 tickets to Story Land
You’ve all heard how much we loved Story Land NH. Now it’s your turn to visit!
I have two tickets that expire in October 2014 that I’d like to share with you. To win, leave a comment sharing your best tip for traveling with kids or visiting a theme park with kids. The contest will close on Monday July July 14, 2014 at 12 noon and I will email the winner directly. Good luck!
So you want to visit Story Land NH
If you’re wondering if it’s worth the trek up to New Hampshire to visit Story Land, I can confidently tell you that yes, it is absolutely worth it. On a recent trip to visit family, we made the 4 hour drive from Providence, RI to North Conway, NH to visit a few family friendly spots. The top of my list was Story Land, as it’s a place I’ve wanted to visit since driving past it a million times in the winter when it’s closed. My parents always promised they’d take us, but none of us would remember again until we drove by it the next winter. We visited with two 15 month olds, one 8 month old, and one almost 3 year old.
Weeks before we left, we opened up a Story Land map and hung it on our fridge. Raffi, almost 3 now, would walk by, take the map down, and examine every inch of it. He wanted to visit Cinderella’s Castle and the Bamboo Chutes and the “farm”, which is actually the Little Dreamers’ Play Area.
According to the FAQs, Story Land is geared towards children aged 2-12. Many of the rides have height requirements. Some allow children to ride with a Responsible Guest if they are under 48 inches tall and alone only if they are at least 48 inches tall. Others require children to be at least 36 inches to ride with a Responsible Guest. One example of this is the Bamboo Chutes. You sit in a log that takes you around on water before you climb up a hill and shoot down at rapid speed. We waited in the Bamboo Chutes line, not knowing if Raffi was even tall enough to ride with us. Luckily there was no guesswork involved as they measured Raffi at the front of the line by sliding a bar that was positioned at 36 inches tall exactly. The bar hit his head so we know he’s taller than 36 inches and it was safe for him to ride. For the record, I now know he’s 36.75 inches tall.
Raffi thought Story Land was the coolest place ever. He was in heaven and didn’t know which way to turn. The girls that joined him were all 15 months old and younger, and they loved it too. It is definitely a place you can start visiting when the kids are super young and continue visiting for years and years. I kept saying that each little section was as big as the places we typically visit for our entire morning outings. We could have spent days there and not gotten bored.
Our favorite ride was by far the Bamboo Chutes. Here is Raffi’s face the first time we went down. Priceless.
Here are some tips and things I want to share with you:
1. Visit the park backwards. Instead of walking in and turning right like we saw most of the people do, turn left. Alternatively, walk straight to the back of the park and work your way front. The back of the park was empty when we first got there before everyone started trickling back. Luckily, despite not knowing this trick right away, no line was longer than 5-7 minutes for us.
2. One of the first things we did was ride the train. It was a great idea because we got a tour of the park which helped us decide what rides to visit first.
2. The park policy is to allow guests to bring their own food for any medical necessity. Examples they list include baby formula, allergy safe foods, and gluten free foods. They also will provide the ingredients list for any food in the park. We chose to pack lots of foods because of Raffi’s peanut allergy, but he was able to also enjoy several things in the park including the soft serve ice cream and soft pretzels. Yay! We noticed a lot of people left for lunch and then came back in the afternoon. I would explore that idea next time.
3. We brought our own stroller which was brilliant. They have strollers available there for your use, but they don’t recline and the didn’t look too comfortable. When it was time for the babies to nap, we simply put them in our strollers and walked a bit. I would recommend bringing your own if you still have small children that need to nap.
4. Note that in addition to water mist stations, there is a great little water feature in the middle of the park. We ate lunch right beside it under the umbrellas and the kids had fun cooling off a bit before we continued to explore the park.
5. Buy the souvenir cup and refill with ice water. There are free refills with the cup all day at several locations, and in 3 hours we must have filled it up 3 or 4 times. It was hot out, so we the adults enjoyed alternating between sugary soda and ice water.
6. Take advantage of the “Final 3, next day FREE” promotion. From the website – “Enter the park during the last three hours of the day (after 3:00pm July 1 thru August 24, after 2pm all other operating months), and you’ll receive a free pass to come back any other operating day in the current season (it does not have to be the next day). Purchase General Admission tickets online or at the park and your “Next Day” ticket will be issued at the gate during the final three hours of the day.” We didn’t have a chance to do this since we were only in NH for a short time, but we will definitely take advantage next year.
If you have any questions about visiting Story Land with littles or about Story Land in general, please feel free to ask. We had the time of our lives and I look forward to creating new Story Land memories every year.
Story Land NH
850 NH Route 16 Glen, NH 03838
P: 603-383-4186
Currently open daily 9:30 AM – 6:00 PM
Tickets: ages 3 and over $30.99/person
Children ages 1 & 2 free
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