Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf...

Just imagine a little 3 yr old girl, (perhaps even the one pictured above) with her little tiny little girl voice singing over and over "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, Big Bad Wolf, Big Bad Wolf..." and you will have an idea as to how big a hit Storybook Land was while we were on vacation. (Katy - this post and pictures are for you!)

One day last week, while we were on vacation, the weather was just a bit breezy shall we say...Ok it was chilly (one of the perks of September vacations), so going to the beach was not really an option unless you wanted to be cold and sand blasted. So, instead we decided to head on down to a place that my parents had taken me when I was a kid (Yup, me too Katy!) Storybook Land! It's a cute premise, fairy tale themed park with everything from Goldilocks and the 3 Bears to Jack & Jill, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater and the 3 Little Pigs, just to name a few. Now, Disney animitronics it is not, but it facinated Maddie.


Well, that PLUS there being a bunch of different rides that were just her size. I think there were maybe 3 rides in the whole place where Ron or I had to go on with her...all the rest were specifically her size! She rode a roller coaster all by herself, a flying elephant, dragon, monster truck, teacups, Train ride around the Park, etc, etc, etc.... You can see how shaded, uncrowded, and pleasant a place it is here in this photo. We really enjoyed it - pretty good place for a young child.

One thing I loved about this park, is that it is entirely wooded, so there is shade trees EVERYWHERE, and where there isn't there are these HUGE umbrellas to provide shade. In the picture above, I'm not sure if you can see it, but it is a Watering Can House with real water sprinkling out into the pool of water....

Here is Daddy and Maddie strolling along the shaded path past lots of pretty flowers and since it's Sept, they were decorating with corn stalks, scarecrows, pumpkins, mums and having special hayrides too! Oh yes, Storybook Land is open almost year round... Apparently they have special holiday events there too including Mr & Mrs Santa in their Workshop.

Now, we were there in the off season, so of course they closed early (3pm) so we decided that we'd then drive in to Atlantic City and stroll the boardwalk for a bit before heading back to LBI. After a bit of driving around (as neither Ron nor I had ever strolled the Atlantic City boardwalk before) we picked a casino to park at and headed on in. We went through the casino [note, a 3 yr old is not allowed to dawdle (that is a word, isn't it?) on a casino floor. They CAN pass through, but there is to be no dawdling.]


We successfully made it out onto the boardwalk where we could promptly see nothing much *laugh* We did decide to grab some dinner at the Rainforest Cafe which amused Maddie even more with the pretend thunder & lightning storm, elephants, gorillas and aquariums full of colorful fish to watch while we ate. Here is one of those rare photos that includes Mommy & Maddie at the Cafe. I'd give it good marks for atmosphere and so-so marks for the food.

Now, here is the best part... We spend the majority of the day in a place with kid focused rides, stories, went to dinner where there were fish swimming next to our table and a Mommy and baby elephant trumpeting and moving near us every 15 mintues, lots of good kiddie stuff right? Well, after dinner we headed back to the car, got in and as we were starting our drive back to the house, we asked Maddie what her favorite thing was that we did during the day. She had been singing the "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" the entire day, so that is what I had expected to hear.

So, what was the best part you wonder to the mind of a 3 yr old? It was the escalators at the Casino. That's right...the ones we took to get the parking to the boardwalk and back again.

On the bright side, I doubled our $ (a whopping $10) in the slot machines! Oh, and that brings me to another note...times have changed in AC. No longer can you go up to a machine and drop a couple of quarters in, poor Ron had some change and wanted to try his luck (hence the dawdling that I mentioned earlier) but there were no machines that took change, only bills or special cards. Yes, it has been a LONG time since we've been to AC.


A parting shot until next time where I recount another story from vacation...