Experience Gift Ideas for Lancaster County

1. Lancaster Hands-On-House. $115 for a yearly family membership. They also offer individual memberships and grandfamily memberships (for grandparents and four grandchildren per visit).
2. Tiny Town. $117 for a three-month family membership. You could almost consider this more of a gift for mom than for the kiddos. 🙂 Your kids will play for hours while you sit and relax reading a book or working on your laptop. Read our completely honest review of Tiny Town.
3. Dutch Wonderland Family Pass. $125 each. Tip >> You’ll find their best deal on family membership passes on Black Friday—usually around $109/person. You get FREE parking with a season pass, you can park at the front gate and be the first ones in the park. If you live close this is a perfect morning activity, and you can still be home by naptime! Its also a great idea to get the season pass if you know you will be having visitors during the summer who will be wanting to go to the park too. You can enjoy time at the park with them without paying full admission price each time.
4. Lancaster Science Factory Family Pass. $90. Includes FREE admission to ASTC museums around the U.S., excluding a few museums within 90 miles of Lancaster, but it does include the DaVinci Science Center and the Jersey Science Center. Keep in mind, it is FREE to visit the Lancaster Science Factory after 5pm on the first Friday of every month.
5. Cherry Crest Adventure Farm. You can learn more about their season passes and also sign up for their email list for special offers.
6. Pennsylvania Heritage Pass. Visit hundreds of museums for just $37.50 by taking advantage of their December BOGO deal. Locally you’ll get FREE admission to Railroad Museum of PA, Ephrata Cloister, Landis Valley Museum, Cornwall Furnace, and Daniel Boone Homestead.
7. North Museum. $90. You might consider a membership to North Museum over the Lancaster Science Factory if you are really interested in seeing the shows at North Museum for free!
8. American Zoo Association. A Professional Associates membership costs $80. Memberships are valid from January 1 thru December 31. FREE and discounted admission is available to many zoos throughout the United States including ZooAmerica in Hershey, and 50% off to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.
9. American Horticulture Society Pass. AHS members receive The American Gardener magazine, special admission privileges and discounts at 300 public gardens throughout North America and the Cayman Islands, invitation to participate in members-only annual Seed Exchange, and access to members-only online gardening resources. Local places to use your pass are: Tyler Arboretum (Media, PA), Hershey Gardens (Hershey, PA), and Winterthur (Delaware). You can see a list of the local gardens here.
10. Hershey Park. $200 each if you get the DW combo pass.

Lessons / Classes

Another gift idea could be to give the gift of learning something new. Not only will they learn a skill to carry with them throughout life, but kids will learn perseverance, diligence, teamwork, and respect for authority.

Here are some lessons and classes ideas to consider as gifts for your children this year.

1. Gymnastics. We’ve had good experiences with Positive Fitness in Ephrata or Fusion Gymnastics in Lititz. There is also Prestige Gym in Lancaster.
2. Swim Lessons.
3. Art Lessons.
4. Dance Lessons. Hooley Irish Dance School is offering discounted lessons right now!
5. Theater Classes.
6. Piano Lessons.
7. Guitar Lessons. My son signed up for virtual guitar lessons during quarantine, and is absolutely loving it. And I love that I don’t need to waste time transporting him here and there, he just hops on zoom when its time for his lesson. 🙂
8. Archery Lessons. Lancaster Archery offers archery lessons including equipment and range time. You could also consider gifting this pass for 1 hour in the TechnoHunt Range for up to 4 people at Kinsey’s Outdoors, or this Red Lion 2 hour TechnoHunt range deal.

Entertainment / Performances

Experience gifts can also be a one-time thing, like a theatrical performance, movie, or a play. It could be a museum that’s a little farther away, or even a local fun experience that you wouldn’t necessarily do often enough to have a season pass. Here are some of our favorites:

1. Sight & Sound. Don’t miss our tips for taking kids to Sight & Sound Theater!
2. Philadelphia Zoo. Here are 11 coupons and discounts for the Philadelphia Zoo to help you save money!
3. LegoLand. We shared about our visit to Legoland along with a $7 coupon!
4. Crayola Experience. Our family visited and absolutely loved our Crayola Experience—you can read about it and save $4 per ticket through the link in this post.
5. Diggerland. Every young boy who loves trucks and construction equipment loves to go to Diggerland in NJ! It’s pretty expensive, but this post shares how to save on your Diggerland tickets.
6. Turkey Hill Experience. We visited here when our kids were very little and they loved it!
7. Train Experiences. If you have a train lover, Lancaster County is the perfect place to live. You can eat in a train car that shakes, visit a Toy Train Museum, climb on huge train cars and engines at the Railroad Museum or ride on the Strasburg Railroad. And don’t forget the Choo Choo Barn!
8. Sky Zone. Watch for 50% off deals to Sky Zone!
9. Bowling & Family Fun. Local Flavor offers great deals for families to bowl and enjoy entertainment for cheap at 222 Dutch Lanes, at Clearview Lanes, at Rocky Springs and at Leisure Lanes. You can see my full post How to Save on Bowling in Lancaster County.
10. Movie Tickets. Penn Cinema is offering discounted tickets on Local Flavor and Groupon. You can get 2 tickets for the price of one (and the local flavor deal doesn’t expire for an entire year!!!)
11. Laser Tag. You will find discounted packages available for Ozzy’s Family Fun Center and Rocky Springs, as well as Laserdome on Local Flavor, plus Avid Deals also features deals for Lazer Factory (we love this place because its a smaller family setting).
12. Franklin Institute. You might want to include admission for the special exhibit that is there at the time you go too. We checked out the Mirror Maze and loved it!
13. Dutch Wonderland Drive-Thru Light Show. They are offering something new this year where you drive through a light show, and then you can get out and have some hot chocolate at the castle, as well as get a ride on their train. See all local light show ideas here. Could make a good stocking stuffer!
14. Dinosaur Experiences. Does your toddler love dinosaurs? Here are 6+ Lancaster County Area Dinosaur Experiences to enjoy with your little (or big) ones!
15. KiwiCo Monthly STEM Box. You guys, we got our first KiwiCrate box almost three years ago, and we fell in love with them immediately. It’s still too pricey for us to get a monthly subscription at the $20 value, so we wait til this time every year and grab one at 60% off—paying just $7.95 per box!! Read our completely honest review of KiwiCrate.

Other Gifts (Especially for Moms)

A mom’s day is long and hard. There are so many gifts that could help moms, or others too. Think about the different things she has to do every day and what could help her, or think about giving her an opportunity to treat herself—those are the areas I hear moms appreciate the most.

1. House cleaning. Hire someone to clean her home and give her a break for a month.
2. Pampering. Considering gifting a hairstyling or pedicure, or a dream facial at Gambhir. Or here’s a great savings on a 60 minute massage.
3. Meal time help. Here are 5 Deals on Meal Delivery Services for her family. These kits are something that I love as a mom, either to make meal planning simple for me for one week or as a special learning opportunity to do with my kids in the kitchen! Dream Dinners, are also a huge help to moms on busy weeks or even just in general.
4. Season Passes. Any of the passes mentioned at the beginning of this post would help her get the kids out of the house.
5. Date Nights. Gift cards to local restaurants or offer babysitting. Grab this Snapology deal to gift 5 hours of STEM play while Mom gets to shop, eat out or enjoy a local coffee shop (Snapology is right near Hobby Lobby, Panera Bread, Lancaster Cupcake, and more!)
6. Gift Cards. Gift cards for home decorations (because we all love to make our house a home). Consider stores like Hobby Lobby, HomeGoods, Palmyra Country Store, Cocalico Home & Creek and other local consignment shops.
7. Coloring books with Scripture or fun quotes. (I recently found these Psalms and Proverbs cards to color and share on the discount rack at Sharp Shopper and think they would make excellent stocking stuffers!)