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Vote Where to Send My Family for a Weekend & Win!
By: Colleen Lanin, The Travel MamaAugust 23rd, 2010
I need your help with a little travel dilemma. I have got a $250 Marriott gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket book! The problem? I tend to be a tad (ahem, a ton!) indecisive. That’s where you come in. I’ve narrowed it down to three choices…please weigh-in and choose where my family should go on our weekend getaway! For helping me out, you could win two fabulous travel games from ThinkFun. Even if you don’t need the prize, go ahead and vote! Just let me know in your comment that you’d like the games to go to another entrant. We’ll go wherever you tell us to go!
To keep things within my (tight) budget, I need to go somewhere within driving distance from our home in San Diego. My travel companions will be the hubs (Phil), my daughter (Karissa, age five), and my little guy (Leo, age two). We’ll take our journey sometime during September, while the weather is still warm and sunny in Southern California.
Option 1: Rides & Waterslides
What kid doesn’t love amusement parks and waterslides? While we’ve visited Disneyland with Little Ones numerous times, we have never taken our children to Knott’s Berry Farm. In fact, the last time I visited the nation’s oldest theme park was during high school and I’m sure a lot has changed since then. There are oodles of rides in Camp Snoopy that would please the kiddies, like the Flying Ace Balloon Race and the Charlie Brown Speedway. The following day we could head to Knott’s Soak City waterpark for a watery good ol’ time on its plentiful waterslides, lazy river, and Gremmie Lagoon children’s pool.
Option 2: Wooly Mammoths & Movie Stars
My husband and I have lived in SoCal for ten years and during that time we have only ventured to Los Angeles for a weekend getaway once…and that was shortly after we moved here. Sure, we’ve driven through the city on our way elsewhere or to pick up cupcakes from Sprinkles, but that’s about it. For this trip, we’d bring the kids to La Brea Tar Pits, where thousands of years ago extinct animals got stuck in black, gooey pits of tar. There are life-sized wooly mammoth models submerged in the tar pits as well as skeletons of creatures like Sabor-toothed cats constructed from fossils found in the muck on display at the Page Museum next door. We could also wander along the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard, try to match our hands with those of celebrities at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, or take in behind-the-scenes movie magic at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Option 3: Old-School Amusements & Beachy Fun
I have never been to the Santa Monica Pier, the West Coast’s only amusement park on an oceanfront pier. With its aquarium, old-fashioned soda fountain, carnival games, carousel, Ferris wheel, and other diversions – this place is sure to please the kiddies. The next day we could pick up a picnic lunch and head to Santa Monica Beach for a day of splashing in the water and building sand castles.
Road Trip Entertainment
For the journey, I’ll be sure to bring along lots of healthy (and a few forbidden!) snacks, pack some bubbles and a beach ball for rest-stop entertainment, and pull out the Zingo! To Go for a few rounds of on-the-go fun. My kindergartner and I played this game for the first time during our flight to Puerto Rico for our mommy-daughter getaway. We have the at-home game too and my daughter and her friends love, love, love playing both versions! The game is similar to Bingo…but with a zing! There are no loose pieces to worry about misplacing and everything fits in a compact travel bag. It’s recommended for kids aged four and older.
Another fun travel diversion for puzzle lovers is Rush Hour, a single player sequential game in which the player steers cars, trucks, and buses out of traffic jams. It also comes with its own handy travel bag. The original version is appropriate for kids and adults aged eight and older, while Rush Hour Jr. can keep children aged six to eight occupied on the way to your destination.
Vote & Win!
So…where should we go? It’s up to you! Just leave a comment below about which of these three paths you think we should take for a chance to win two games: Zingo! To Go (for ages four and older, retail value $14.99) PLUS your choice of ThinkFun’s popular Rush Hour (for ages eight and older, retail value $19.99) or Rush Hour Jr. (for ages six to eight, retail value $17.99).
This contest ends on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time. A winner will be chosen at random using Random.org. The winner will be notified via email. If the prize is not claimed within two days, another winner will be selected. One entry per person.
To vote, simply make a comment below about which road trip option my family should take. That’s it! If you have additional tips on sites to see, restaurants for us to try, and activities to do during our trip, feel free share those too. We will go to whichever location receives the most votes.
A note from the Travel Mama: I earned this $250 Marriott gift card for running a Tots Travel Too Contest for Marriott a couple of months ago on Travel Mamas. I was under no obligation to write another blog post mentioning Marriott. ThinkFun provided my family with a free Zingo! To Go game to preview and will provide the two games to the winner of this giveaway.
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Tags: aquarium, beach, California, carousel, Ferris wheel, Hollywood, Knott's Berry Farm, Los Angeles, marriott, Santa Monica, ThinkFun, travel games, waterslide, Zingo! To Go
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Just look at that picture of the beach….who wouldn’t want to be there.