Our Day Out with Thomas in Phillipsburg, NJ

Over 4th of July weekend, my family had its first Day Out with Thomas experience when The Go Go Thomas Tour made a stop in Phillipsburg, NJ.  As Thomas fans, we expected to have some fun, but we had no idea just how much fun was in store for us.  The day is packed full of activities, and we started with the main attraction:  the Thomas train ride!

The excitement on their faces when they saw an enormous Thomas can’t even be described.  They’ve seen him on TV countless times, and now they were getting to take a ride with him!  They were a little disappointed that they couldn’t talk to him, but they squealed when they saw his eyes really moved.  During the train ride, we sang along to familiar Thomas tunes, chatted with the conductor, and received official Jr. Engineer Certificates.  Oh yeah, they felt special.

The train ride was only the beginning of an eventful day.  Our next stop was a visit with Sir Toppem Hat, my son’s favorite Thomas character.  This is a photo opp, and I did manage to snap one picture where my kids were actually looking at the camera.  Unfortunately, my son decided that would be the perfect time to do something unpleasant involving his finger and his nose.  I figured you could live without seeing that, so you get a solo Sir Topham Hatt instead.

After we finished with that attraction, my son spotted the train tables and raced right over.  We have a train table at home, but this one was Thomas-themed, and he was just in heaven.  There were several train tables available along with a few Mega Bloks tables, so there was plenty of room for all the kids to play.

My son was mesmerized by the train tables and spent most of his time there, but my big girl decided to do some exploring.

Spin art!  I was never allowed to do this when I was younger because of the potential mess, but I could not deny my beauty a chance to play with paint.  She did such a good job of keeping clean that I thought it would be safe to head over to the stamping table next.

She was a little less successful at staying neat with this one, but it was worth it–I was just glad I had some wipes with me.

It was about a million and twelve degrees out that day, and my kids had fun cooling off in a sprinkler.  They were both fully clothed, but it only took about 3 minutes for them to dry off in that insane heat.

And get this, they had not one, but TWO giant bouncy things.  This obstacle course bouncer was the more giant of the two:

Can you tell we had a busy day?  Oh, and there was more…so much more!  Let’s see, there was the bubble machine, a juggler, temporary Thomas tattoos (I got Rosie!), the Grand Master Concert Organ, tables with crayons and coloring sheets, a storytime tent, and a petting zoo.  There might have been a few more things that we didn’t get to; there was so much that I’m not even sure.  And at the end of it all, each child gets a set of Thomas stickers and a Thomas Mega Blok just for having visited the different activities there.  The kids had a ball that day, and I couldn’t believe how many different activities that were available.  You get a serious bang for your buck at this event, and you can bet we’ll be back next year.

Thanks to USFG for providing us with tickets in exchange for this honest review!