Full Bloom Blog

Considering my sister only lives thirty minutes from this cutie amusement park, it’s a wonder we haven’t visited more often. I have only been a handful of times in my lifetime – which seems weird as a native Michigander. Where I grew up though, one could drive three hours to Cedar Point or two and a half to Michigan’s Adventure. If you’re a teenager or young adult, there’s really no comparison in what the parks have to offer and so the extra drive and ticket charge are definitely worth the difference. If you’re a family with small children (even including some teens/pre-teens) Michigan’s Adventure is an excellent option! I’m so glad we decided to give it a go this year!

One of the great benefits of Michigan’s Adventure is that the park is significantly smaller than our other amusement park option and it feels like we were able to enjoy more of the park rather than leaving large sections unvisited. The other thing we loved is that you pay one price for basically two parks. A single ticket earns you admission to both the amusement park and water park!

Lucky for me, as I just mentioned, my sister lives very close to the park, so she was able to give us some great tips and tricks! Shout out to Jennifer for being a MA pro! 😉

Here’s some things to pack for your day at the park:

• Life jackets (especially if you have little ones) *there are various sized life jackets available on site to borrow, but they are a community lot. Even pre-COVID days, that makes me want to puke thinking about the amount of snot and spit lingering on those things… So consider bringing your own!
• Towels
• Change of clothes. Depending on how you want to split up your day, you will want to/need to change at some point in time during your day if you plan to enjoy both parks. There are plenty of changing rooms available and lockers for rent.
• Water bottle. This one is semi-controversial. There are lots of signs around the entrance of the park that explain that no outside food or drink are allowed into the park. Some in our party brought water bottles and snacks in the bag that was searched upon park entry (standard procedure as a part of security) and nothing was mentioned. Perhaps it’s the official policy of the park, but not strictly enforced? Choose what you prefer for your family. I’m too much of a rule follower to stomach smuggling, but it does seem fairly normal and possible to bring your own.

The park opened at 11:00a and we arrived shortly after. *Quick tip* cell reception there is spotty so if you can print your tickets ahead of time, I definitely recommend it. It will help you avoid awkward or sticky situations at the park entrance trying to load your digital tickets. We brought one big bag that held all of our life jackets, towels, and change of clothes. I also carried on me my amusement park size purse (aka, the smallest thing possible to fit a wallet, phone, and hand sanitizer). The waterpark side did not open until noon, so my sister and I went and waited at the gate so we could be in the first wave (no pun intended) of people admitted and secure a table with an umbrella to stash our big bags and use as homebase. Meanwhile, the dads took the kiddos to start with several of the carnival style rides. It was a perfect day: the weather was warm- but not hot, and the lines were pretty short! The bigger rides and roller coasters had more significant wait times, but since all of our kids were ten and under, it did not affect us much! After we dropped the bags off, my sister and I went back to the amusement side of the park to meet back up with rest of the crew and enjoyed rides for another hour or so.

Next tip, is to get one of these beautiful re-useable souvenir cups. It was around eighteen dollars and earns you free refills for your entire day at the park. We bought one for our family of five to share and we were able to enjoy lots of refills during our day. In the warmest parts of the day we stuck to mostly Powerade and lemonade which has mass appeal in our family. Especially because we did not bring any water bottles or other beverages, it absolutely paid off for us!

I changed when we got to the water park since I am not a huge fan of long term wearing swim suits. Ha. You’d think the whole ballerina, leotard thing would have primed me for such occasions, but apparently not so. I put my phone in my handy dandy water proof pouch to keep with me and rented a locker, while in the water park, for the remainder of our more sensitive items – wallets and such. I definitely recommend utilizing the plethora of lockers they have available for rent. My sister and her husband stashed their money in the bottom of their towel bag and unfortunately, it was gone when we had returned after a bit of time at the water slides. To be fair, they said that is their usual practice and had not had previous incidents. Still, big bummer it happened that time!

There were lots of different areas in the water park which offered a little bit of something for everyone! The biggest hit across the board was the wave pool by far! That was the one area that everyone was happy and had a good time together. It was PACKED though, so it was a stressful area as far as I was concerned! There are lots of lifeguards on duty there, but I don’t like to rely soley on them if I can help it. The big kids loved this area (below on the left) with bucket dumps, medium sized water slides, and lots of things to climb!

The little ones loved this milder area (above middle and right) and they could all do the slides by themselves and enjoyed their ability to be independent. I will say, the life guards in this area probably have the hardest job in the whole park, so hats off, round of applause, and high five for all they do!

The water park closed at 6:00p that day and the amusement park closed at 7:00. We fully intended to stay in the water park until they closed that section, but our crew decided to break out early and grab some dinner before enjoying the recently added Camp Snoopy area! It was actually perfect timing, we probably left around 5:00 and the Snoopy rides were basically empty. The kids got on every ride without waiting and were able to ride each one multiple times all while intermittently pausing to grab a chicken tender or corn dog nugget. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s right next to the water park, or if it’s just where people want to check out Snoopy after they dry off, but there was a big flood of people that rushed into Camp Snoopy right as the water park closed. I was glad we made it there earlier and were able to get in lots of rides before the wait times increased.

Throughout the day we compiled a list of *must-do* rides so after Camp Snoopy we made our way back to the main ride areas and checked them off one by one. Just be warned, that when they say the park closes at 7:00p, that generally means they close all queues to rides around fifteen minutes ahead of time (depending on the size and duration of the ride) so don’t wait to the bitter end if you have a *must do* ride! My brother-in-law and husband just missed the cutoff to ride the Corkscrew at the end of the day! I would say, on a whole, we made it onto the VAST majority of the rides we were hoping for.

After closing the park down, we piled our exhausted and happy kiddos into the car and madethe drive back across the state to our home. I’m so glad we took the trip! It was such a fun day, and you can’t be mad about a day that offers two parks with one entry fee. Have you been to Michigan’s Adventure? What is your favorite part or ride? I can’t wait for another fun day there; it just might have to become a new (cousin) fun summer tradition!

Head over to our YouTube Channel and check out the video with some highlights of our day at Michigan’s Adventure! Don’t forget to “like” and “subscribe”!

https://youtu.be/EOVAumOSExI