The Crayola Experience in Easton, PA {A Family Fun Day Trip Idea from Lancaster County}

If you have never visited the Crayola Experience in Easton, PA, you have to go! And, if you have visited but it has been two or three years, you also have to go! I’ll tell you why.

We had the privilege of visiting the Crayola Experience as a family and we ended up spending over five hours there! Can you believe it?! I couldn’t either. I literally looked at the clock at the end of the five hours and was in shock as to how late it was. We were having so much fun we didn’t even realize most of the day had passed!

TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE FOR JUST $10.50 each
(when you buy 2)!

When we visit an attraction, we like to be thorough in sharing our experience with you so you can decide if and when you want to visit too. Here’s what we want to let you know about our time at the Crayola Experience in Easton, PA.

:: Where Is It?
:: What You Will Experience
:: Secrets We Learned
:: Who Should Visit
:: How To Save On Your Visit
:: SURPRISE GIVEAWAY!!!

Where Is It?

The Crayola Experience is located in Easton, PA, which is about a 1.5-2 hour drive from Lancaster County. It is a pretty direct drive north on Route 222 and then east on Route 22.

There is a parking garage behind the Crayola building, which you will definitely not be able to miss with this incredible mural on the outside. Park on the top of the parking garage for an incredible view of the entire mural. Our favorite part was the crayon cartoon character hanging laundry on the clothes line! Parking was kind of pricey in our opinion. It costed us $22 for the five hours that we were there for our visit.

What You Will Experience

As you enter the Crayola Experience, you will be invited to ride the elevator to the fourth floor, where you will start your Crayola journey. The top level starts you off with spin art, melt and mold and wax painting. Writing with the melted wax was a huge hit for all of us, and a perfect start to our experience. Quick and simple. My husband actually waited in line for the spin art while the kids did the wax painting for a little, since the spin art line was very long.

The spin art exhibit was well worth the wait! You choose two crayons, insert them in the machine, and then move the lever to determine how fast it spins. The results were exciting!

For the melt and mold exhibit, kids could choose to make a car or a ring from one color of crayon. Although the actual mold had two colors because of the colors used in the previous child’s mold.

On the third level, kids can enter the two-story play area, create their own puzzle, make a water color shark decoration using a coffee filter and make their own shark hat! Children will also have the opportunity to experience the Water Works exhibit where they learn about canals (since Easton was a huge canal town).

Who doesn’t love to make their own puzzle? (I want to make an honest note here—the puzzle making was fun and the kids loved it, but the paper wasn’t very thick so it was hard to put together, especially for a three-year-old, but even for me.)

The watercolor shark art made on a coffee filter occupied probably an hour of our time. Kids LOVE to paint on a coffee filter and I loved to watch it!

After they ran their watercolor art through the dryer, they cut their sharks and pasted them on.

If you have a child who finishes the shark art early, there are tables with instructions and materials for creating a shark hat. My sister made this brilliant Sally Shark while we waited for the boys to finish. And my 3-year-old took the opportunity to make his version of an airplane.

As I mentioned earlier, Easton historically was a huge canal town so the last exhibit on this floor, called Water Works, features that part of Crayola’s history. This is an excellent hands-on learning experience for kids to move the boats through the locks and canals.

The second level is their largest level. We actually did the first two levels and then took a break for lunch before starting Level 2. On this level your children will have opportunities to redeem their tokens for markers or personalized crayons wrapped with their own color name on the label. There is a computer coloring opportunity that allows participants to color an underwater cartoon and then watch their cartoon float on a large screen. This is also the level that has the live shows and crayon making demonstrations once every hour.

Visitors can color a computer cartoon character and then apply animation to it and watch it appear projected on an animated wall.

One of the coolest things to do on level 2 is to make your own bird that will dance in a special rock music performance. (They add metal clips to its feet and then magnets make it dance.) It is so much fun to watch these things wiggle around!!

But my all-time favorite exhibit on Level 2 is right next to the toddler area—and its the “Be A Star” and create your own coloring page station. We LOVE posing for different photos and seeing what unique coloring page we can create with our face on it!

This area also has a neat little toddler play gym for your younger children to enjoy while your older children do the rockin’ paper and create your own coloring pages.

After you walk down the hall, you’ll find the last two rooms to experience, and I have to tell you I was hugely impressed with the 3D exhibit. You start by coloring a page of a dinosaur, dragon, princess or whatever sheet they have for you to choose that day. We probably spent a good 20-30 minutes coloring our pages as best as we could. Then you take your sheet over to the scanning station and it automatically colors a 3D version of your creature. You can choose to email it to yourself too!

The last station is a clay molding activity room. You have to buy your clay with one of the two tokens given to you at the beginning of your visit. One pack of clay is one token, or you can buy tokens for fifty cents each. We didn’t spend much time in this room, except for my 3-year-old who needed some down time by this point and using the play dough cookie cutters and rollers, perfectly satisfied this calm down time for him.

Secrets We Learned

We found it helpful to do floors three and four before lunch. We actually ate our packed lunch on the parking garage roof where we parked. It was a nice day so this was possible. There are many little cafes and restaurants around for you to enjoy lunch at though if you’d rather not pack a lunch.

One tip we have is SAVE YOUR TOKENS until the end. You will be invited to use your tokens at a few different places. Wait to decide how you want to use them until the very end so your child sees what all the options are. During our visit the options were clay, markers, or create your own crayon and wrap it.

Other than that, we didn’t really learn any specific secrets about the Crayola Experience. Its a pretty straight-forward museum and easy to figure out—no secrets needed. 🙂

Who Should Visit

Children of all ages—even adults—will enjoy the Crayola Experience. There were many little children and infants with moms who brought their older children to enjoy the experience. There are definitely exhibits and portions of the Experience that are great for toddlers, preschoolers and elementary age students.

However, my personal opinion is that The Crayola Experience would be absolutely perfect for a date day with one child (or two) that are the ages of 5-9. You will be able to sit down with children these ages and really devote time and effort to each craft and project. Our 3-year-old did really well, but towards the end, it was harder for him to stay still and focused, so we couldn’t give as much attention and time to our older kids.

If you are going to bring along young children, we definitely recommend bringing a stroller as you will be walking a lot. At times it will be inconvenient to go back to the elevator to go down a level, but it is completely possible. I don’t like lugging a stroller around, so I always took my infant in a front or back carrier when my kids were that age, but that’s just me.

And when I say kids of all ages will enjoy it—even adults—I mean it. My husband and I did almost every activity and craft with the kids and enjoyed every minute of it. My husband especially got into the 3D exhibit and coloring his dragon! Check out the detail on the wings that the computer replicates!!

How To Save On Your Visit

General admission ticket cost is $17.99 per person. Children under the age of 3 are FREE. Its a little bit pricey, but there are some ways to save on admission at The Crayola Experience. Here are a few ways to get discounted tickets:

:: Save 50% by watching for Local Flavor deals. You’ll basically get a BOGO deal with this purchase, where you’ll buy two tickets for the price of one! THIS IS THE BEST DEAL AVAILABLE! You’ll pay only about $10.50 per person, whoa!!! Grab your deal now.
:: Purchase an annual pass if you think you might want to do this more than once in a year. An annual pass is only $30 per person, or just $25 per person if you buy a family pack of 4 season pass tickets. Just two visits and you’ve saved money!
:: Goldstar offers discounted tickets for $16.99 each, good to use through December 2019.

Our family received free admission to the Crayola Experience for evaluation purposes, however all opinions shared with Frugal Lancaster readers are our own.