When we began planning our summer family road trip to Door County I needed a solution to how we were going to occupy the time with a three year old…not an easy task. I figured we could make it about the hour and a half from Milwaukee to Green Bay and find an activity to get us out of the car. Bay Beach was the perfect solution! Even more of a bonus was that it would be a Monday so I knew it wouldn’t be too crowded.
If you aren’t familiar, Bay Beach is an amusement park in Green Bay with a ferris wheel, carousel, giant slide, train and lots of carnival rides. The park is open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily through Aug. 20, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily Aug. 21-Sept. 4 and on weekends through Sept. 24.
There is no admission to enter the park. Each attraction is rideable with the purchase of tickets – which are only 25 cents each! The rides range anywhere from one to three tickets each. Most of the kid rides are only one ticket. We bought 20 tickets for $5 and they lasted us the entire two hours we were there.
First on our to-do list was the the tilt-a-whirl…unfortunately, that didn’t work out so well because Noah was far too short to ride. Tilt-a-whirl and the go-karts were the two attractions that we couldn’t try, but the big kids were loving them. We’ll definitely be back in a few years to give them a try.
Instead we jumped on the little flying helicopters and had a TON of fun!
Then, Noah spotted the train so we waited in line in the train depot. The train is pretty small and even on a Monday the wait was about 30 minutes. I can’t imagine how long it would take on a weekend. Yikes.
You’ll definitely want to get a popcorn or bring out a snack to wait. I would say it’s worth the wait, though. The train goes out along the bay and is a beautiful view.
The amount of rides for little kids was impressive. I didn’t have high expectations that there would be too many rides for kids Noah’s age/height, but there were a ton!
If you’re going to take a road trip up to Bay Beach from Milwaukee for a day trip, you should also pack a picnic. There are tons of picnic tables throughout the park and there’s a playground for the kiddos to play while you eat. There are also concession stands with food and snacks. We picked up a bag of popcorn for only $1.50. The park is super affordable all around.
Bay Beach was an absolutely blast! It is certainly somewhere we would stop on a future drive up to Door County, but it’s also worth a special day trip. Not only is it super affordable, but there are so many fun activities and rides for the kids. The Green Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is also just down the road and I hear it’s a lot of fun. We’ll give that a try next time.
