Sesame Place AAA Discounts

This past Friday, my parents thought we'd all enjoy a day at Sesame Place, the toddler-oriented amusement/theme park in Langhorne, PA.

Like all things these days, tickets can be pretty expensive. In fact, tickets for anyone over 23 months old are sold at the door for $65/person! Now to be fair, the price for a 1-day pass is the same as a 2-day pass, so you can think of it as $32.50/day per person. But still, after taxes, that's close to $200 for an adorable family of three.

Fortunately, my Asian father is all about finding ways to save money.

First, you can save $10/person by purchasing your tickets online in advance on the Sesame Place wbesite. If you also wanted to, you could save an additional $5/person if you agree to come after 3PM, bringing down your ticket price to "just" $50/person. But, since more than half of Sesame Place is a water park, the 11AM-2PM time is when splashing in the water is best, so you probably don't want to miss out on the early time slot.

However, since my father had his active AAA Membership, we were able to access AAA discounts for Sesame Place.

Of course, when you click on "Discounts," you're taken to a page where you have to verify the first 6 digits of your AAA Membership number. Fortunately, my father's number was active and working (429 and 097 by the way).

Then we were able to see the great deals that AAA was offering its members:  Sesame Place AAA 2-Day + 1 Meal for $47.85. This package included two visits to Sesame Place from May 2-December 31, 2015, PLUS one Meal Certificate. 

Even ignoring the Meal Certificate for a moment, we were now able to get the same 2-day tickets for $47.85. Considering the tickets at the gate were $65/person, that was almost $20/person of savings. But since we were likely to purchase the online $55 tickets (instead of at the door), the immediate savings was closer to $7/person, or $21 total. After taxes, we saved almost $30.

Then you factor in the extra Meal Certificates that came with the AAA Package. Since Sesame was an amusement park, food wasn't going to be cheap. We weren't sure what the certificates would get us, but we were pleasantly surprised when we went into Elmo's Eatery and saw the menu.

The meal coupon gave each of us either (a) an Adult Combo Meal (including a side and drink) PLUS a dessert or (b) a Kid's Meal (including a side and drink) PLUS a dessert and a souvenir tray and cup. Taking the prices at face value, those coupons saved us at least $12-15 each.

So factoring in the free food for the three of us, we saved another $36-45 on meal certificates alone.

His AAA membership costs about $50 to renew each year, but my family definitely saves much more than than between our hotel stays and activities. See here for a few examples of AAA Discounts:

• Hilton Hotel in Zurich, Switzerland
• Graceland Tickets in Memphis 
• Intercontinental Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Element Hotel in Ewing/Princeton, NJ
• Le Meridien Hotel in Philadelphia, PA
• Sheraton Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah
• Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver, Canada
• Andaz Wall Street in New York City
• Westin Hotel in Westminster, CO
• Westin Hotel in Princeton, NJ

Plus, since AAA rates at hotels are often flexible (can be cancelled), we were often able to secure a booking in advance, but then cancel when a better rate came along later, giving us the opportunity to lock in even more savings!

• W Vieques in Vieques Island, Puerto Rico
• Westin Riverfront in Beaver Creek, CO
• Sheraton in Brussels, Belgium