Story Land

This is going to be a recap of our trip for reference purposes... so I can look back in a few years when we go again (why do people go every year?) and maybe help out some other first timers.   Your regularly scheduled snarky self depreciating rants will be back shortly. 

As you can see,  we took the kids to Story Land this week.  My parents claimed they took me there once when I was extremely small, but I have no memory of it.   Andrew doesn't have any memory of going either,  so essentially this was all of our first time. 

(by the way,  who knew you could drive 3.5 hours north of Boston and NOT be in Canada?  You learn new things every day (before the hate mail starts, yes, I know that you can drive 3.5 hours north of Boston and not be in Canada, I was employing sarcasm (embedded parenthesis are cool)))

We stayed at the only Marriott in North Conway.  I KNOW!  Just one Marriott from which to choose!  The horrors!   Residence Inn North Conway.   We had actually never stayed at a Residence Inn before and I was quite impressed.   It's not cheap at $170 per night for a King/Queen Family Suite.   Oh - and the "King" sized bed was two twins pushed together.   While, yes,  technically that's King SIZED,  two mattress does not a King bed make.   I was kind of annoyed by that but not enough to do anything about it.

We loved having the kitchenette,  and we were able to eat lunch and dinner back in our hotel - that's pretty key when you have two overtired babies that you've dragged all over New England.  There's no way we could have managed to get all 4 of us out to dinner and back in one piece so having a place where we could eat dinner and have our own food was key.   We actually got pizza from Good Times which is a few doors down from the hotel and we picked up some other odds and ends at Hannafords.   I can't emphasize enough how much better that made our night. 

The Little Guy is still in a crib (OBVI,  he's not even 1 yet) so we had a portable crib from the hotel and set it up in the little area next to the "bar" in the kitchen and the door.   We were able keep him somewhat separated from us so he could go down at 7.   Baby Girl went down at 8 in the Queen sized bed and we had the kitchen/sitting area/King bed to ourselves.   Granted we had to be super quiet to keep them both asleep,  but since the Bruins were on anyway we both were watching things on our iPads and keeping quiet wasn't so hard.  The hotel also had an indoor pool which the kids loved (again OBVI.  What kid doesn't like a hotel pool?),  free breakfast in the morning,  and there was a wine and beer tasting the day we were there.   

Storyland itself...  wow.  Time to update.   But it really is great for kids,  so it's hard to complain too much.  We made a few rookie mistakes and the weather was horrendous, so it wasn't as smooth as we would have liked.   Now we know better!

We did the last three hours are free deal.   Because it closes at 5:00 in June  we could get in at 2 and come back the next day for free.   We thought two and a quarter days would  be the perfect amount for an almost 4 year old and we were right. 

It started raining on our way over there on Monday and it didn't stop until we left the park.   At one point there was thunder and lightening and some of the rides had to close.  That was the point that we called it and left.  We got about 1 hour and 45 minutes in the park on Monday,  but we would have been miserable if we had stayed. 

We went back on Tuesday and had a pretty uneventful morning if you don't count the rain.   We dropped some cash on overpriced ponchos and sucked it up.   The good thing about the rain was there were NO lines for anything.   The bad thing was.... well, it was raining. 

After lunch is when things started going not so well.   First of all,  the food in the park was HORRENDOUS,  and that says a lot coming from me.  I like crappy food.  I loved the food I got when I was in the hospital after having my babies.  I usually don't know what people are talking about when they complain about food in places like amusement parks,  but this food was simply the worst I have ever had. 

After eating the awful food,  we made our way up to a very spinny ride called the Spinning Turtles or the Twisting Turtles or something Turtles.   It was too much for Andrew and Baby Girl.   They were the only ones on the ride which was lucky because they had to stop it early.  They were both sick for a long time after that and Baby Girl was hesitant to go on any other rides because of it.   At the very end of the day,  the sun was peeking out and I really wanted to go on the log flume...  Baby Girl said she wanted to as well so I went on with her and she didn't really like it.   I think I pushed her too much.   She wasn't scared of it,   and I think if we hadn't had the Turtle experience she would have LOVED it,  but she was too scared of rides she hadn't been on.    I should have skipped it - I only pushed it because I really wanted to go on it! 

As for my Little Guy,  he was a champ.   He basically spent the whole time in his stroller except when we went on the Antique Cars,  Tractor Ride,  Safari, and randomly he was allowed on the Ferris Wheel too (granted this is a child sized Ferris Wheel!).   I think because there was so much stimulation for him,  he was fine.

We brought our Sit n' Stand and it was perfect.  She didn't always need to ride but when she did I was glad to have a seat for her.   She did a ton of walking and sometimes she just needed a rest.

All in all it was a fun 30 hours.   I'm glad we did it and my Baby Girl had fun!  We know some things for next time to make it even easier!