Family Fun in MD, PA and MA: Knoebels Amusement Park

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On Wednesday, July 6 we spent the day in Elysburg, Pennsylvania at Knoebels (pronounced "Kah-nobles") Amusement Park.  My husband's co-worker told him about this fun place and it is and has been America's largest free-admission park for 90 years of operation.   But free admission doesn't mean we rode rides for free.

What is unique about this family fun park is that you don't have any admission prices, rather you spend money on tickets since each ride cost a certain amount and riders hand in their tickets to ride.  Some rides are 75 cents (kiddie rides) and some are $1.00, $1.75, $2.00 each and so on.  No ride cost more than about $3.00/each.  For our family of 7 we spent about $150 on rides which is a savings if you think about how much amusement park admission fees are these days.   With no admission tickets comes no admission entrance so you literally park in this huge parking lot out in a valley in PA and walk anywhere into the park and buy your tickets at a booth. Knoebels has kiddie rides, as well as big coasters so our entire family enjoyed it!  Here are some highlights of our afternoon of fun!

This ride is called "IMPULSE". You go straight up and then straight down then upside down. Oh my!  I was not feeling so good after this one!

 

TWISTER: Old, wooden, tall fast coaster that I think literally shifted my brain around in my skull!  Ugggh...it was tough for me to recover after this one too! My kids loved it though! 

After spending about 6 hours at the amusement park we were hot and a bit tired, but had so much fun!  So there's was only one thing to do then...get back in the car and drive another 6 hours to Massachusetts and get to our hotel at 1AM on Thursday, July 7! Rest up and then spend the day at CoCo Key Water Resort!  Whew!