Your Guide to Family-Friendly Day Trips in New Jersey, New York…and Beyond
I love Korean spas, and have visited and reviewed traditional Korean spas King Spa and Island Spa in Edison. A new upscale and less traditional Korean spa opened up last year, Sojo Spa in Edgewater. I brought a friend and our teen daughters. Given all the nakedness in the hot tub rooms/locker rooms in traditional Korean spas and for scrubs, we were a bit nervous – naked spa-ing with our kids was no one’s idea of fun. But that worry was for naught. Here’s our review Sojo Spa in Edgewater!
How many of you are seeing Taylor Swift in concert? Based on the Facebook posts I’m seeing, that would be MANY of you! For Swifties fans, consider a trip to the Grammy Museum Experience at the Prudential Center, sadly not the same location as the concerts, or they’d be swamped before the show. They have a temporary Taylor Swift exhibit through the summer, though there’s more to see here than just Taylor. Here’s our review: Grammy Museum Experience at the Prudential Center.
Continue reading “Review: Grammy Museum Experience at the Prudential Center”
If you’ve been to the Renaissance Faire, you’ll love Medieval Times. I thought it was going to be a little bit hokey, but we had so much fun. My son can’t wait to go back.
What is Medieval Times?
Medieval Times is a dinner show with tournament. It’s not just jousting, though there is jousting. It’s a show with horses, a falcon and a princess too. It takes place in a castle. Continue reading “Review: Medieval Times with Kids”
This is part two in our post about the Manischewitz factory tour. Part one is a tour of the Manischewitz matzah production.
**UPDATE – it appears this Manischewitz Newark factory is closing. We’ll update the post if we get additional tour information.**
The Manischewitz factory has four main production lines: Continue reading “Touring the Manischewitz Factory Part 2”
If you grew up in the New Jersey area, you may have taken an Manischewitz factory tour through religious school, in Jersey City. That factory closed, and the new global headquarters and manufacturing plant is now in Newark. It opened in the fall 2016, and you can book group tours there. I love factory tours, and even more so when it’s the actual factory, and not a fake one (I’m talking to you, Hershey’s).
**UPDATE – it appears this Manischewitz Newark factory is closing. We’ll update the post if we get additional tour information.**
In this tour, you walk through a lot of the 186,000 square feet of the factory. What you’ll see being produced depends on the day, as they make more than 400 products. Continue reading “Touring the Manischewitz Factory – Part 1”
We haven’t been to Branch Brook Park since 2011, to see the cherry blossoms. Each year we plan to go and then something gets in the way. We missed the festival (though to be fair, it’s super crowded) but went last weekend – a week after the festival – to catch the just-past peak trees. They were still gorgeous. This park has the largest collection of cherry trees in the country.
While I did a more comprehensive review of taking the kids to the Liberty Science Center for a previous post, I was there recently and wanted to fill you in on some of the changes and new exhibits. The most exciting is the new Infinity Climber, which finished installation a few weeks ago. This “multi-story play space” is suspended 35 feet above the ground. It has 64 petal platforms (they look like lily pads), to climb on, taking you higher and lower. It’s surrounded by a net, which is stiff enough to keep you in, but not so stiff that it hurts.
The Infinity Climber is the world’s first suspended climbing space of its kind, and can fit 50 adults and children in there at one time. You have to be 42 inches or higher to go in. It’s great for groups to go in together. Continue reading “Liberty Science Center’s New Infinity Climber, Rubik’s Cube and Guitar Exhibit”
Have you been to the Great Falls in Paterson? If not, it’s worth going. We took a trip over there this summer and it was gorgeous!
This place has a lot of history, going back to Alexander Hamilton’s time, when he envisioned Paterson as the country’s first planned industrial city. He wanted to use hydropower from the Passaic River’s Great Falls. Hamilton and the Society for Establishing Useful Manufacturers (a real mouthful), started this in Paterson in 1792. Since then, Paterson’s industry became known for fabrics (silk spinning, cotton, textile machinery, jute, weaving, dyeing, etc.). When I posted a picture of the Falls on my personal Facebook page some time back, one of my friends said her first job was working in textiles in Paterson, and she’s not even old! You can read more of the history of the Great Falls here. Continue reading “The Great Falls in Paterson”
***Pole Position is now RPM Raceway**
We won a Jersey City Pole Position birthday party at a silent auction (we were the high bidder!), and told our son that was his party the next year. It was the best birthday party ever. Fortunately only one of the kids had gone before, so it was a new experience for almost everyone.
The carts are electric. While the room is loud, it’s apparently quieter than if they use gas (and it smells better too).
Unfortunately we arrived late to our own party. Continue reading “Review: Pole Position Raceway Birthday Party”
There’s nothing like being at a Liberty Science Center Camp-In with 900 Cub Scouts and (some of) their parents.
One of the advantages to a museum sleepover is a behind the scenes look. You won’t get that here, but what you do get is presumably a smaller crowd than you’d get on a weekend. Of course if you’re there with almost 900 Cub Scouts, you’ll find that they all want to do the same things: race cars.
Even if you don’t want to read about the sleep-over portion – this post has a regular review in it too – keep reading.
The LSC does have a number of evening programs like you’d find during normal open hours – and like open hours, you can go to the programs or explore the museum on your own. While we were there, they offered two live science presentations (one on electricity and one on the four states of matter), and two lab programs (one on infections, and one on the Hudson Home lab).
The museum is too huge to tell all, so I’ll just pinpoint some of the highlights. You can’t see the whole museum in one trip.
Continue reading “Review: Sleepover at the Liberty Science Center”