Kennywood Holiday Lights A Bling'n

Ho Ho Ho Fellow Coaster Fans Who Were Busy Buying All The Miniature Theme Park Rides at Lowe's On Black Friday,

This year I had my first Black Friday off...EVER. I decided to make the most of it with my daughters (my wife had to work). I choked down some sickness pills since I knew I had to go to Pitts$@#% (yes, I'm still bitter over our Browns loss).

We first went to Carnegie Science Museum (almost as good as COSI in Ohio). Kids loved it, then we were off to Kennywood.

We arrive at 4:45 for a 5pm opening. I was amazed at how many people were already there.

A few things that went on were reminiscent of a park's opening day...but we still had a blast...

Getting into the park. The ticket folks didn't know what to do with a online printed paper, and they were really struggling with having gloves on and handling tickets...it was about mid 20s and a little windy. Metal scanners were pretty much a joke with everyone being extremely bundled up...Seriously just get rid of them. There are enough police around the park to "make me feel safe."

Shortly we were walking down the ramp, with Carousel Christmas Music playing lights a glow, and the smell of popcorn awaiting us.

Kennywood did a GREAT job with the lights this year. They are everywhere, they look great, and many scenes around.

Many characters walking around for picture opps. The only one I wasn't sure about was father time...he looked like the Grim Reeper...including his Sickle (sp), and NONE of the kids were getting their picture taken with him.

We headed off to Santa right away since I heard that line gets long.

The elves ushering people around were great, interacted with the kids nicely. You could also get your pic taken with Kenny, which we did, that's the first spot, second spot is Santa!

I was let down BIG TIME with Kennywood on this! 2 biggest reasons: 1st-They have an AWESOME set up in the Racer loading station with Santa on a roller coaster train instead of his sleigh or seat...but when the picture is taken, it's a HEAD on shot, so you can't see that it's a coaster train, and the front of the train is so high it blocks from telling it's a coaster train...a better solution would be to take a slightly off angle shot. 2nd- Santa-He looks AWFUL. I've seen better Santa's at a bars with kids playing him. Seriously, fake beard, Black eyebrows, outfit that doesn't fit him. One would think that a high class park like Kennywood would hire someone that actually looks like Santa should. The picture printer people had NO CLUE what they were doing, or how to work their equipment, so the line got really squeezed from Santa to everyone wanting to see their pics. Oh, and it's $20 a pic.

Off to Ghostwood Estates. Clever use of the Christmas and Halloween theme. My kids liked the Christmas stuff covered with spider webs, and the skeletons with Santa hats.

Turtle was next. It just kind of did it's first lap, then the girl didn't know how to stop it correctly, so she kept rocking it back and fourth on the far side, not knowing how to get it back...so that took about 20 minutes and half of the big wigs to come over and everyone stand there while the boss fixed it. Once on the Turtle, it was a GREAT ride! TONS of fun in the snow, sliding around with padding on all of us...best ride EVER by far on it.

They had carolers all around the park, we watched a kids Christmas Dance Party thing...my kids loved it, but it was like being tortured by Barney.

We then rode the train...errr....Gingerbread Express. They had both trains running. It was very cute, and they did a great job with all the Gingerbread men.

We watched some shows from local dance/singing groups. Drank some hot chocolate, saw the train setup, decorated some cookies. They have portable heaters all around, fires set up, and curtain's on the bathroom entrances to trap the heat.

We walked back to Kiddieland. I was impressed with how many rides they had running! I think I only saw one ride not operating! The petting zoo was fun, lots of hungry goats, sheep, camel, zebra.

Next up was the Kangaroo. It was running great, but man did that thing get cold. A great ride none the less.

The show around the lake was pretty cool, not as good as some houses or Columbus Zoo's but it was nice...it just needed better timing instead of just flashing to the beat.

I was lucky enough to be tipped off about the Season Pass deal, so I got a STEAL on ours since we already paid for our tickets, I got to apply it to their black Friday deal!!

In all it was a great time, EASILY worth the $13 we paid. It was just SOooo cool walking around Kennywood in the wintertime!

Glad you had a good time, but just to be clear... I'm not "the boss."