Catskills Day Trips

esther36

Fri, Aug 17 2018, 2:32 pm

Have u ever been to Thompson park? My kids love it! There's a daycamp there during the day day so u need to go after 3 I think. Great fields, playground and Brook to go wading in and nice picnic areas too. Our favorite country outing:)

Mommyg8

Fri, Aug 17 2018, 2:35 pm

Bushkill falls is about an hour an a half away, or less, depending on where you are.

And is Morningside park still good?

amother

Chocolate

Fri, Aug 17 2018, 3:08 pm

DVOM wrote:

Oh well, looks so beautiful! Will save it for when everyone's a bit bigger.

Oh sorry I didn't realize the ages of your kids. how about the Castle Fun Center on route 17

amother

Chocolate

Fri, Aug 17 2018, 3:09 pm

amother wrote:

Oh sorry I didn't realize the ages of your kids. how about the Castle Fun Center on route 17

You could also take them to Museum Village near monroe

seeker

Sun, Aug 19 2018, 10:58 am

Family fun farm is more fun than farm. The kids had a great time there. Be aware that they have a bunch of attractions that you have to pay for separately, like bumper boats. The general admission area is fun too, though.

Morningside park is a nice trip too. Large playground, paddle boats, scenic.

We like Kelder Farm. If you get there before noon on weekdays there's no admission fee. They have a beautiful pick-your-own field with a large selection, and nicer animals than family fun farm to see, pet, feed. you can pay extra to milk a cow. You can also pay extra and do mini golf, and/or one of those giant pillow trampolines. The location is very pretty. It's out past Ellenville. They have a small farm-themed playground that the kids love to spend time on. Highly recommend.

DVOM

Sun, Aug 19 2018, 11:16 am

Thank you everyone! Such good ideas!

We have been to kelders, but not for many years. I think thats going to be our trip one day. Looking into walnut park, because it looks so beautiful...

Thanks everyone!

seeker

Sun, Aug 19 2018, 10:20 pm

Based on this thread, I took my kids to Walnut Mtn Park today! It was a very nice trip.
At the start, the playground felt very underwhelming and my kids weren't so into the hiking idea, but once we got into the hike things improved fast. There are a lot of different trails and it was hard to make sense of the map at first, note that you may need to look around to find the beginnings of the various trails, they're kind of scattered around, only one actually starts where it looks like they should all be... hard to explain. Anyway the hike was not at all difficult, there are narrow foot trails and wider paths that are good for strollers. The trail markers were decently clear though there were a few times when the facts on the ground were difficult to reconcile with the map... Anyway, we all had a nice time. There were lots of interesting trees, plants, and mushrooms. Very little wildlife. We counted one beetle, several butterflies, a couple of wiggly things that I can't figure out what they were, a few bumblebees, and one chipmunk. We heard an interesting-sounding bird but didn't see any. There were a couple of nice scenic lookout points but most of our hike took us through the woods. By the time we got out of the hike, which took longer than expected but still probably only about an hour and a half, the kids were tired of hiking and so the playground looked great.

Anyway I think it was a great little trip. Low-key, very nature-y, the weather was cool today but it seems like the trees would be excellent on a hot day too. The bathrooms were as good as a public park in middle of nowhere is going to get - there was toilet paper and soap, no odor, and a reasonably clean appearance. Not hard to find or get to, ample picnic space. 4/5 stars because of the map not being so easy to follow and the disappointing playground - even though my kids were happy with the playground as a change of scenery after the hike, a nicer playground would make this a truly fabulous destination.

DVOM

Sun, Aug 19 2018, 10:28 pm

seeker wrote:

Thanks for the review seeker! We are hoping to try it later in the week. Low key and nature-y sounds perfect for us Smile

DVOM

Sun, Aug 19 2018, 10:34 pm

For anyone else who is following this thread and might like to try what we did today:

We packed up our bikes and rode the Walkway over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie. It was beautiful! The walkway wasn't too crowded and visitors center at the entrance was lovely. My kids rode the full length of the bridge about three times, and we spent about 2 1/2-3 hours in total. From the bridge, you can see the railway, and my boys especially liked counting railway cars and imagining where they were coming from, what they were delivering, and where they were going. We also enjoyed watching the boats. Really lovely.

mommy3b2c

Mon, Aug 20 2018, 7:45 am

Hudson valley mall has a room with all different types of bouncers and a section for toddlers if your kids like to bounce and go on slides.

amother

Ruby

Mon, Aug 20 2018, 7:49 am

mommy3b2c wrote:

Hudson valley mall has a room with all different types of bouncers and a section for toddlers if your kids like to bounce and go on slides.

Where is the mall in relation to Monticello?

bookie

Sun, Aug 26 2018, 7:19 pm

esther36 wrote:

Where is Thompson park

esther36

Sun, Aug 26 2018, 8:45 pm

bookie wrote:

Where is Thompson park

Between hurleyville and Monticello

seeker

Sun, Sep 02 2018, 3:20 am

So, just an update for future reference - I took the kids to Kelder's Farm last week (and wondered if any of the other frum families there were from this thread...hi?) We loved it so much when we went different years, but this year was a bit of a letdown. Two things you should know especially: 1. There's a Groupon that saves you some. 2. The groupon includes the corn maze. IGNORE THAT PART. We would not have gone to the corn maze if it hadn't been part of the groupon (as it is, the groupons are for 2 or 4 and we were 3 people, so I actually did end up paying $5 for the third person to do the maze.) The maze idea was fine, but the sun was blazing - blazing sun is often an issue at Kelder's but here you're literally stuck outside for a while doing nothing but baking, and we had decided to do the corn maze first because I thought maybe it would be shadier between the tall cornstalks... but the path was wider than that...and the real kicker is that it's downhill from the rest of the farm, which you don't really realize until you come out of the maze and have to climb back up the hill. YES we had hats, sunglasses, and plenty of water but I still thought we were all going to die after that. The corn maze practically ruined the rest of the trip. I realize now that the way they make profit off of groupons is that it basically guarantees them that everyone is going to come crawling into their canteen offering any amount of money in exchange for ices, ice cream, drinks, anything.

The animals were fun to feed, see, and pet, and the mini golf was pretty cute (both mini golf and animal food were included in the groupon). No frills but my kids never went mini golfing before and they said they liked it - this, even though the older one is at a hard-to-please age and the younger one flopped pretty thoroughly and forfeited almost every hole. And the instructions specifically said that you could nosh anything growing on the golf course (we had a few grape tomatoes!)

Then we drove down to the picking fields (also included with groupon. We did not make it before 11. Kids under 6 are always free, though, and older kids are only $1.) Here's where we had the biggest disappointment. We went for raspberries first and they were great - but I told my kids to limit the picking because we still wanted to go to a bunch of other things. Mistake! Corn was their favorite thing other years and they were looking forward to that the most. EVERY single ear of corn we looked at was totally infested with bugs! Inside and out! It was disgusting. I told them at the barn and they just kind of shrugged, like they had no idea what we were talking about, but how could you misss it?! They're not even organic, I guess the pesticides just don't work? Then we went to the blueberries, which the kids also liked, and everything on the trees was either already picked or not ripe yet. Again, the people at the barn just kind of shrugged and said "well, it's the end of the season." IMHO if the ripe ones have been picked off and the rest are not ripe yet, then you take down the sign saying that the blueberries are available for picking (they have this neat system where they put the signs in the right places for picking. They move them around depending where things are ripe/available/in season.) Anyway by then my kids were just totally burned out, hot and tired, and those were all their favorites anyway. So even though I later heard that the squashes and such were great, we just didn't have the energy left to check them out. To top it off, our groupon included a $5 voucher for the pick-your-own produce, but our little half-basket of raspberries was worth $2, and even after we told them that we had tried to pick corn and blueberries and didn't find any that were suitable for eating, they wouldn't let us use any of that toward the vegetables they sell already picked. I thought that was pretty rotten customer service. They're generally so friendly and fun to visit, but this time I was really bummed. I think if people pay in to participate in your activities and they come up from the shvitzing field telling you that the corn is completely infested, you give them a $%#@ ear of edible corn that you already have sitting there.

So even though this has been a yearly tradition in our family for a while, I'm not even sure if we'll be back. If we do return, we will definitely skip the corn maze, and will try to come earlier in the season (though last year we went one of the first weeks in the summer and a lot of the things we like weren't ripe YET)