Adventuring With Katie: Review of Idlewild Amusement Park Ligonier, PA

Why Write a Review?

You younger folks might not know this, but there used to be a general feeling in the world that watching other people’s vacation slides was about as interesting as watching paint dry.

But honestly, if you did not know that people supposedly hate watching vacation slides, then you probably do not know what a slide show is in the first place and maybe this image is lost on you anyway.

In any case, what I was trying to say is that some people find it boring to look at other people’s vacation pictures and hear all about their vacations. Those people consider it an imposition to hear about the experiences they might never experience themselves. Poor them. That sounds hard.

Luckily, but I am not one of those people. I love to hear about other people’s vacations. I want to hear all the details. I also love to read restaurant reviews even if I never plan on visiting the reviewed restaurant. I want to hear someone describe their meal in detail. I want to hear what they liked and did not like. It makes me feel like I was there.

My cousin James is a frequent blogger and maintains a blog called Stylish. He writes about his major interests. Sometimes he writes a feature called: Stylish and Hungry. It is one of my favorite types of posts that he writes. I love reading about his experiences visiting restaurants near his hometown in western Pennsylvania. Here is a review from a visit he made to the Pittsburgh location of Wahlburgers, a chain burger chain owned by Mark Wahlberg and his brothers. After reading this post, I am now interested in eating at Wahlburgers! Restaurant reviews written by someone you know are awesome.

[Hey friends, this is just an aside, but if you want to start a blog (using this starting guide) and review restaurant reviews, I really, really want to read your reviews! Send me your new blog address! Okay, on with my review]

Review of Idlewild Park and SoakZone

We arrived at the location of Idlewild and SoakZone, the outskirts of the town of Ligonier in rural Westmoreland County Pennsylvania not long after the opening of the park around 10:30 am on Monday, June 27th, 2022. The weather was pleasant that day with sunshine and a high of 77 degrees.

Idlewild and SoakZone, for the uninitiated, is just one entire amusement park with a waterpark contained within. Locals call it Idlewild and that is how it will be referred to from this point forward. It caters to a younger amusement park crowd. People who visit Idlewild usually have at least one child under 12. Teenagers and older visitors usually opt to visit Kennywood Park instead, as it has more roller coasters and thrill rides and is located in the same general area.

Idlewild includes an amusement park with several themed areas and a waterpark inside the park called SoakZone. Its operating hours were 10:30 am – 7 pm the Monday of our visit (but those hours are subject to change).

I purchased our tickets online four days prior to our visit so we experienced smooth sailing through the park entrance. Park attendees stay in their cars, pay and receive maps all while driving through entrance booths. Entering Idlewild is akin to stopping at a booth and paying a toll when exiting the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

In my opinion, driving through the entrance makes entering the park less stressful than other amusement parks where attendees are asked to walk through a gate. On one hand, this is a positive, as attendees are not padded down or subjected to bag searches. In fact, park attendees are encouraged to bring in outside food to the park and picnic at one of the many park pavilions in this tree-lined park. On the other hand, park attendees at no point walk through a metal detector to enter the park. We do live in a world now where some people feel safer walking through metal detectors in public places. The feeling of safety for some does come at the price of the inconvenience of walking through security.

As a parent of small children, I do appreciate the convenience of staying in my car during the admission process. I feel safe at Idlewild and the lack of metal detectors does not bother me.

For our trip on June 27th, we packed a cooler with drinks and sandwiches from the Sheetz Convenience Store that we visited on the way to the park.

I grew up visiting Idlewild annually as a child and this has given me some long held opinions about how things at Idlewild should be. For example, when I visited Idlewild in the 80’s and 90’s discounts on tickets used to be available on several local products or at the customer service desk at the Giant Eagle grocery chain. I could not find a single online discount from any of the previously reliable sources before our visit. I even asked people who live in the area to find out for me.

When they came up with nothing, I called the Customer Service desk at Idlewild and asked what discounts were available and they told me (with tone) that the discounts were limited to purchasing tickets on the website which were a few dollars less than the prices at the gate and a small discount for active military families and senior citizens. When I said, “That’s it?”the customer service person hung up on me.

After that interaction, I was not feeling as confident that my family would have a great visit as I hoped to feel. I was not loving the higher ticket prices than I remembered in the past. However, when an individual has been talking up Idlewild and the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood ride for some time and has not visited Idlewild since before the pandemic, one bites the bullet and pays the required admission fee.

So we did it. We went to Idlewild even though prices were higher than we remembered.

We all had a great time too. Before the trip, we made plans to meet up with my cousin K and her daughter A for a day of fun and adventure. We found them not long after we parked our car in the lot closest to the areas of the park that open at 10:30 am.

We began our visit in the Jumping Jungle section of the park, which contains rope ladders, slides, balls that shoot up with gusts of air pumped through PVC pipes. None of the attractions in their section run on electricity. This section of the park is a bit like a really nice public park that is staffed. When I was a child, Jumping Jungle also had a ball pit, which was a favorite of many visitors to the park. This ball pit is now closed, possibly because of Covid (or maybe the rattlesnake that was rumored to be found in there).

All the children in our group had a great time in Jumping Jungle.

After Jumping Jungle, we visited the nearby area called Storybook Forest. Storybook Forest is a magical land where nursery rhymes come to life. Park visitors walk through a woodsy area and see little nursery rhyme themed displays that visitors can interact with. Here is a picture of Preschool Nugget climbing out of the cheese from a Farmer in the Dell exhibit (I’m not exactly sure what rhyme the cheese is part of).

Storybook Forest is probably at least 60 years old. I am sure my husband asks himself why we have to go to this section every time we visit because it is usually hot and humid while we walk through it. Also there is some standing water and that seems to attract mosquitos. The reason I would tell him if he asked me is that when you get to the park as early as we did, none of the rides are turned on yet, so you have to do something because you already did all the things at Jumping Jungle and it isn’t time to eat our Sheetz sandwiches yet.

Mostly, I make us visit Storybook Forest every year because I remember visiting it when I was a child and I feel like every year my children age they are one year closer to thinking it is not for them and that it is only for babies. I know this because that is how it was for me. It seems like the age window for finding Storybook Forest interesting is relatively small and I imagine one day soon Mr. Man will say that he does not want to go there so we have to go while we still can.

Then we ate our Sheetz sandwiches in a pavilion and got our swimming stuff to head to SoakZone, the waterpark section of Idlewild.

My husband always says that for a small amusement park, Idlewild has a pretty great waterpark attached to it and it does. SoakZone contains a giant tipping bucket, a lazy river, a wave pool, a pirate ship themed younger child play area, a infant and toddler water play area, and eight water slides. Soakzone looked great. I spent much of my time at SoakZone in the wave pool and was impressed by the safety and cleanness of the pool. My boys also very much enjoyed the pirate ship play area which was geared for children around their age. I had the opportunity to ride the Serpentine Slide twice and I enjoyed feeling like I was in a canopy of trees while I slowly rode down the long slow slide to the pool of water in the bottom.

After visiting SoakZone, we made our way to the Daniel Tiger’s Grr-ific Day show in the younger child section of the park called Raccoon Lagoon. We purposely left the SoakZone with plenty of time to find seating for the 4:30 pm show.

We found a nice spot to sit at a table near the stage. I noticed right away that we appeared to be the only people in the seating area. Right before the show a man in a yellow shirt who I had seen at the show in previous years arrived. When my older son kicked the set he said, “If you scare Daniel Tiger he will be too afraid and won’t come out.” A minute or two after the posted 4:30 start time, the man in the yellow shirt and a costumed Daniel Tiger and Katerina Kittycat came out. The man said that the 4:30 slot was only a meet and greet.

So Preschool Nugget, Mr. Man, and Cousin A. got their pictures taken with Daniel Tiger and Katerina Kittycat. I was disappointed. Preschool Nugget still really likes watching Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood on PBS Kids. My family had not visited Idlewild since 2019 and Preschool Nugget probably does not remember seeing the show then. He was only one year old the last time we visited.

Luckily, Preschool Nugget did get to ride on most of the rides in Raccoon Lagoon because they were open and the lines were short. Preschool Nugget must have driven the cars at Ricky’s Racers at least 10 times. He loves cars and trucks and he was so happy to drive one of those cool cars around a track.

As the lines were very short, Preschool Nugget rode every ride in Racoon Lagoon side of the park.

All was not lost on the Daniel Tiger front because Preschool Nugget also did get to check out the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Trolley Ride. This ride is a classic as it used to the trolley ride through the Neighborhood of Make Believe when I was a youth.

Mr. Man also had some more adventures at Idlewild before we called it a day. First he and cousin A. rode the Handcars.

After Mr. Man and Cousin A. enjoyed the handcars they ventured out of Racoon Lagoon back to the main part of the park. Here they rode on the: Bumper Cars, the Spider, the Scrambler, the Flying Aces, the Wild Mouse, and the Rollo Coaster. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of these adventures, but they did have a great time.

Some Concluding Thoughts About Our Visit to Idlewild Park

Here are three things that I were different about about this visit Idlewild visit:

1) I remember the park closing later than it did on this visit. The park closed at 7:00 pm on this visit. This left no time for watching an evening musical show and eating ice cream while enjoying the sunset on a beautiful Idlewild day.

2) I wish that the Daniel Tiger Grr-ific Day Show had gone on as scheduled at 4:30 instead of it being re-imagined as only a photo opportunity. This is probably going to be the last year Preschool Nugget is going to be into Daniel Tiger and think he would have gotten a kick out of the show.

3) The games have really gone up in price. I think Mr. Man wanted to play a game but I did not encourage it because they seemed kind of ridiculous to play.

However, I have some very positive feedback about our visit: 

First of all, I applaud Idlewild for being open on a Monday. I remember years in the past when it was closed on Mondays. A Monday visit worked best for our schedule this year so I was glad that Idlewild was open the day we wanted to visit.

Also, the attendance the day of our visit was a bit on the low side and that allowed us to ride everything we wanted to ride.  All the rides were in operation as far as I could tell which was the first time I remember that happening since I began attending Idlewild as a parent six years ago. 

Additionally, while I would have enjoyed watching the musical show as the sunset, I do think that maybe I should look at it as a positive that the park closed earlier than it used to. It was kind of nice to go home while it was still light outside. I also liked not being completely tired and dizzy when I left that park like I always was when I was a child.

In some ways,this year, Idlewild seemed almost refreshed compared to some of the visits we have experienced since I started bringing my children there in 2016. I remember in the recent past there were many rides and stores with signs that said Not Open or Out of Order. 

In conclusion, I am glad that we made this trip to Idlewild. We really had the perfect mountain day at Idlewild. As always, Idlewild exuded its cool mountain ambiance that is unique, in my opinion, compared to other amusement parks. Idlewild always has the perfect balance of shade and warmth that make it the ideal location to enjoy a summer’s day. The park planners have included rides that appeal to families with young children. As always SoakZone provided a fun and thrilling experience for those who enjoy aquatic pleasures.

I would recommend Idlewild and SoakZone for families with children searching for an amusement park adventure. 

Thank you for reading. What have you been up to this summer? Comment below.