Fairyland

or The Greatest Place in the history of EVER

While we were out of school for Christmas break, Scott surprised me by taking an extra day and a half off work.  It turned out he still had to work quite a bit on that day, but we were still able to go all together to Oakland to check out the Children's Fairyland Park there.  Oakland is about 70 miles away from our house, so its a little bit of a drive to get there.  But this place sounded cool and I'd been wanting to check it out.  I was not disappointed!  

It was just a little, unassuming park on the shores of Lake Merritt there in Oakland, but it was much bigger than it looked from the outside and everything was so cute.  It was simple and nothing fancy or pretentious (don't expect Disneyland) but a really special place.  Most of the attractions were things the kids could play on our explore and mostly children's literature or fairy tale themed.  There were a few rides.  The kids had so much fun exploring everything.  We found out this park opened in 1950, so its been around a while and is doing quite well considering.  I think it might have non-profit status now.  If you live anywhere near Oakland and have small kids, you must go to this place.  So cute!!  And the genius of it is how much fun the kids had just running around on everything.  They didn't miss the rides.  Matthew, who is 9, had a blast.

Here we are at the pig's house that's made of bricks (the other two houses were behind this one).  You could go inside and hear about the three little pigs.

At the entrance we got to walk through the house of the old woman who lived in a shoe.

This big dragon has been around since the park opened in 1950

The dragons tail was fun to climb on

John coming out of the big slide in the clock tower.

Matthew and Anna discovered the yellow brick road right away.

Of course we had to follow it.

And of course it led to the Emerald City!!

We met many characters there including, but not limited to...

Scarecrow and Tin Man

The cowardly lion

Flying monkeys!!

The Wicked Witch of the West

and The Great and Powerful Oz.

I feel like I really went to Oz.  :)

It was so exciting.

We also went down Alice's rabbit hole...

The kids and I read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass together last summer and it was so fun going through this little tunnel/path that was inspired by the books.  Lines from the books were painted on the walls.  Anna and Matthew recited favorite parts.  Matthew recited the Jabberwocky for us at the end (not on the walls).

part of our Alice adventure

Emma was afraid of the maze of cards at the end of the Alice tunnel.  

Or maybe it was the Jabberwocky.  I love Alice...I love Wizard of Oz

And as if I couldn't be any happier the next thing we found was the pirate ship from Peter Pan!!

The kids had a great time playing there

You can see some tall Oakland buildings in the background

Some kids made it to the crow's nest

other's didn't.

Emma met the seven dwarves instead.

The fairy music tunnel.  There were lots of noisemaker things all throughout.

The kids loved running through any of the tunnels again and again

Admission was $10/person which is cheap for the bay area.  And for an extra $3 you could buy a magic key (reusable each time you come back to the park) that you can use at many of the attractions to hear a little story about the book or fairy tale.  We listened to some about Pinocchio, Humpty Dumpty, Beatrix Potter stories and many others.  Here the boys take a break after running around near Humpty Dumpty.  Grant was the keeper of the key most of the time.

John exploring at "Play Island"

Emma really wanted to ride the trains (she likes trains) but was scared once we actually got on.

She sat on my lap for most of it.

The kids had fun playing in this little western town

There were places to run all over inside and a big slide in one of the buildings, if you can find it.

Anna tries to break out of jail

We found a little carousel, but Matthew was too tall and Emma was too small.  John was tall enough but needed help from Anna getting on his horse.  Emma needs three or four more inches.

Matthew ran off to ride a big dragon slide while he waited.  The dragons slide was a favorite among the older kids and its was large!!  John thought it was too big.

The kids LOVED this Jack and Jill hill.  In a little well nearby (telling about Jack and Jill) you could get a piece of cardboard to slide down the hill.  All the kids had so much fun sliding down the hill.  And no one broke their crown.  Although there was some tumbling after.

John's cardboard got away from him a few times.

Emma also had some difficulties.

It just never got old.  We played on the sliding hill for a LONG TIME.

It was great.

Here is the Beatrix Potter garden complete with a real Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor's garden.  They also had a lot of other Beatrix Potter characters there.  It was so cute.

There were a few animals in the park.  Emma checks out the donkeys.

Three men in a tub.  Far far away in the background you can see Scott having a work conference call.  

Poor Scott...had to work some on his day off.  But most of the day we got to hang out with him.

Willie the whale

There were a lot of other fun things in the park.  I had to restrain myself on the photo taking.  

And my phone actually died at the end from all the pictures I did take.  

Scott let me borrow his for photos.

As we were leaving we enjoyed some free hot cocoa.  :)

And even got to enjoy some snow in California.

It was in the high 60s today I think.  Lovely weather.

So I give the Children's Fairyland an A+

I loved that the kids could run and play on so many things rather than just wait in line for a ride that lasts two minutes.  While other amusement parks might have 20 rides and 2 play areas, this had the opposite.  And kids really need to run and play more.  I loved it.  Since its far away I don't know if we'll be able to go back a lot, but I think its worth the drive.  We did sit in rush hour traffic heading back home, but still worth it.