Santa's Village Review

Santa’s Village Review

Today we visited Santa’s Village in Jefferson, NH. This Christmas Yule Time theme park is located on NH Rt 2. and is about 45 miles from North Conway, NH and about 70 miles from Danforth Bay Camping Resort (DBCR) from where we started. Even though this theme park was quite a distance in both time and miles (about 1 hour and ½ in the car from DBCR), the views of the Presidental Mountain Range made the miles and the time fly by.

Parking & Admission

The park itself has plenty of free parking. Admission for ages 4-64 is $21. Children under 4 is free. We did not have any discount coupons (nor do I know of any). The park overall is very clean. The bathroom near the main entrance could use some extra soap and detergent but others within the park were spotless.

When you enter the park you are introduced to the Elf-abet game. With this unique and clever game the kids are given a card and the instruction to find 26 ceramic elves within the park and then have the card punched with the puncher that each elf is holding. At the end each child and adult receives an small prize.

Grounds
The grounds were very well maintained and clean. Little penguin statues (similar to the one in DBCR’s family lounge) serve as trash containers. Lots of well kept and watered flowers graced the landscaping along with a thick natural forest throughout one section of the park. Also a man made stream (I assume) flows through the center of the park into a small little pond with fish. This park offers plenty of shade and benches strategically located near the rides.

Rides

Some of the favorite rides included Rudy’s Rapid Transit Coaster (today it was run twice around), Skyway Sleigh Monorail, Santa’s Express train, and the Humbug Laser Tag Hunt ride.

Some rides even though marked appropriate for ages 2 and above (with a parent) are clearly not recommended. We took our 2 year old on the Yule Log Ride (water flume) and the drop was a little bit more than expected.

Santa’s Village has a traditional ferris wheel which from the top provides a splendid view of the White Mountains Presidential Range.

Food & Refreshments

For theme parks, the food is very reasonable priced. To save a few dollars and have more of a variety you can pack up and bring in your own picnic lunch. There are plenty of picnic tables which many coolers were stored. Several of the picnic tables are located in a nice semi-private woodsy setting. We had our lunch at Nick’s Pizza Emporium. A full size 14” pepperoni pizza cost $10.00 and was very good and filling. Drinks run about $1.50. The kids also decorated their own large gingerbread cookie ($2.16) at the Sugar n’ Spice Bake Shop. I got to sample my daughter’s left overs and the cookie was indeed quite excellent.

How does it compare to Storyland?

The big question we had from our friends and seasonal neighbors was how does this compare to Storyland? First of all, I believe that Santa’s Village is slightly smaller than Storyland. Storyland offers 21 rides and I believe Santa’s Village offers the same. There seems to be more shade at Santa’s Village. We went during peak season on a prime weather day and the crowds were much less at Santa’s Village. We arrived at 10AM and finished up around 3:30PM (kids rode on all the rides with not much waiting). The gift shops are much better at Storyland. The staff is very friendly at both places. There is skee-ball and a few amount of games at Santa’s Village (I don’t believe there are any games at Storyland).

Recommendation

Overall, this was a refreshing change from one of favorites – the Storyland Park in Glen, NH. Like Storyland, this park is geared for ages 3 to 12. Children older than this may be somewhat bored. This park is small enough that you can see all the sites in about 6 hours. We got there around 10AM, left and 4PM, and had a nice dinner in N. Conway before the dinner rushed arrived and before our 2 year old has his typical melt-down.

Open House at the Bluffs

We got an invite in our Danforth Bay seasonal mail today:

The Bluffs at Danforth Bay -- Open House
Date: Saturday, August 26, 2006
Rain or Shine: 11AM-3PM

Meet at the Clubhouse for tours leaving every 15 minutes!

Santa's Village Pictures

Went to Santa's Village in Jefferson, NH yesterday. Had a blast! Stayed tuned for my full review.

In the meantime be sure to check out our pictures:

Santa's Village Pictures

Mt. Mary Pictures

Danforth Bay's Transportation week was a blast!

Our family climbed up Mt. Mary here at Danforth Bay. For myself and 2 older children this was probably our 10th time completing this event. However this was new for our 2 year old, my wife, and our "seasonal cousins". I ended up carrying the 2 year old on my back for 3/4 of the trip but the weather was NOT hot so this was not a problem. Activity staff, Brianna and Sarah hosted this event and gave us some great facts about Mt. Mary.

Pictures are here:

Mt. Mary Hike!

Transportation Week at Danforth Bay

This week has been great for activities here at Danforth Bay! For the most part, Danforth has put a spin on some of our favorite actitivities while creating a new one here and there

* The Freedom, NH Fire Truck visited on Sunday at the Depot field
* On Sunday evening a horse pulled wagon pulled around the wagon ride
* Getting into the visit the Bluffs is only by a tour now (you can't drive in your car or golf cart). Today there was a wagon ride to the Bluffs (we didn't attend).
* Today was Danforth Bay's Inagural Bicycle Trip (8 miles round trip) to Bobby Sue's icecream place in Freedom, NH which was hosted by Activity staff Brianna and Sarah (Nick and Jenn brought water for us in the the Purity Springs pickup truck). The icecream was definately a treat! Riding home was challenging. We didn't stop for any breaks.

* Also this week 3 canoe/kayak trips!!! Hopefully we will get to join at least one trip.

Now all they need for transportation week is a golf cart parade (we would be there!!!) ;->

New Internet Service at Danforth Bay

The wireless service this summer at Danforth Bay has been spotty and very unreliable. Unless of course, you pack things up and make a trip up to the Family Lounge at the Depot. I always hate doing this because I feel such like a nerd!!! LOL! This year however I've bumped into several vacationers who rely on the internet service to get their jobs done. In fact one woman booked a site for 5 weeks because she knew she could work online.

The good news (I hope)! There appears to be a new wireless service that is currently being installed through out the park today. I saw the workers up on top of Pascoe study, up near the depot, and near the Purity Spring Bathhouse (yes this is a new location for Intenet). The service on the truck is called nomaDisp. An article that I found on the internet is posted below.

Here at Danforth, from what I gather you have to create an account and have free access for 3 days. For people here a week or more I hope that this will be corrected. Sort of like some of the hotels in the area use. I'll let you know if this is going to continue like this or was the original setup of this service.

Anyways... it is good to be online by the fire!

Article on Nomadisp

Going Seasonal ... metered Electric

Got our first electric bill which ran from April 28th to August 3rd. The total bill for this time frame was $100 and some change. Not bad for 4 months of camping including the AC running for most of July, golf cart charging (month of July only), Patty's decorative lights on the gazebo and camper. I noticed we watch far less TV up here so that definitely did cut a lot back.

BRRR! So much for global warming!

Global Warming! Bah! I don't believe it. Its the middle of summer and FREEZING here at Danforth Bay. I even had the heat on this evening for a short amount of time. Two sweaters, pants, etc.

We went down to the meteor shower tonight but the moon was too much! We saw few shooting stars and lots of satellites.

Perseid Meteor Shower Aug. 11-13

The Bowman's who regularly post on the That's Camping web site informed me of the following:

The Perseid shower will reach its peak late on Friday and Saturday nights for viewers in North America. You need no equipment other than your eyes to see "shooting stars" every few minutes.

Soulfest discount coupons

Soulfest Revolution is starting today and running through August 6th. We haven't been to the one at Gunstock but it is a GREAT Christian music festival. I highly recommend it.

Soulfest 2006 Discount Coupons