Idlewild & SoakZone

The reason for rides operating at half capacity is understaffing. And the reason they are understaffed is terrible management. I know over 10 people who have worked here, ages 15−−24. Not one of them had a positive experience. One girl, aged 15, quit after 2 days because she worked over 7 hours with no break. The next day she got a 15 minute break but was told to «hurry back» and was watched where she went her entire break. That’s right, child labor law authorities need to get involved. They give a great song and dance about being employee friendly and have great «policies» however actually using those policies is another story. It’s very difficult for ride operators to take breaks because they know it disappoints the kids waiting in line. Not to mention the parents, who are often downright nasty. And because there’s no backup, shutting down a ride is often the only way they can get breaks. It’s a cycle that will result in failure if something isn’t corrected.

I honestly had no idea what to expect out of Idlewild, and honestly I didn’t really care all that much. I was there for one thing, and one thing only — Daniel Tiger. My two year old is obsessed and when I heard that a ride was opening themed with him I knew I had to get there.
Idlewild feels like a small, historic family run operation. That has positives and negatives built in. First of all, there is free parking, but you pay at the vehicle gate for entry. Small children 2 and under are free. We purchased discount tickets at Giant Eagle for $ 9 off the entry price. We were there later in the season on a weekend and they gave us free tickets to return the next year. We thought that was odd until we got inside.
We estimated that about a third of the attractions were closed. This was due to ‘staffing challenges’ which having worked at an amusement park myself is an absurd excuse. Wake up Idlewild, these challenges are not unique to you. Deal with it and overcome.
In addition the gates opened at 1030, but nothing was operating until 1130, including the very popular Daniel Tiger ride which was posted to open at 11. Made for many a toddler meltdown.
What was open was nice. A lot of old fashioned and carnival style rides. Tons of kiddie rides so bringing a toddler to your school aged child here is ideal. The park is pretty flat, shaded and very stroller friendly, making it pleasant even on the hot day that we were there. Safety is not a concern here. They offer lockers, but you don’t need them.
The Storybook Forest really harkened back to yesteryear but was a bit worse for wear. A few animal pens were empty, and much of it was already decorated for Halloween — in August. The decoration was really poor and honestly detracted from the experience.
Daniel Tiger did not disappoint. The adorable ride puts you on trolley where you visit all the stops in the Land of Make Believe. There is also a Daniel Tiger show followed by a meet and greet that my toddler loved.
The water area was decent. A wave pool, splash area for little ones, a water works area and some slides (many of which again closed).
Food was fairly priced, not gauging like one would expect from an amusement park. The award winning pork bbq sandwich was amazing. That said it is easy to bring food into the park and picnicking is encouraged. There are many many picnic pavilions, and people brought huge coolers, covered them with a blanket and left them. They were totally safe.
In all we had a full day (we left at 6) and felt we got a good value for $ 30ish a person, but there is room for improvement.

This is not the Idlewild of my childhood. I can’t describe how disappointed I was with my trip here today.
I’m not sure if you can blame it being the end of the season or just being understaffed for the day, but I’ve never seen so many things closed or half open before. (and the few stores that were open didn’t open until 2:30?) Only running THREE Wild Mouse carts during the afternoon or only SIX bumper cars set up at once? I had never noticed so many closed games either through out the day.
The worst part though, which there is no excuse for, is the general rundown-​ness of the entire park. The bathrooms looked in need of overhauls and the entire Story Book Forest was just sad. Empty animal sections, missing attractions, worn paint and just general feeling like the park owners don’t care anymore to keep the area quaint.
The fact the entire Mineshaft Kitchen was closed down except for the potato patch seems a sign of hard times on the «World’s Best Kids Park.» Or my childhood favorite Confusion Hill which looks like it hasn’t had an ounce of upkeep since I was a child 15 years ago. (Half patched up walls, worn from use and certain attractions not in complete working order)
The updated Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood wasn’t bad, but it did feel like a cheep downgrade of the original. No more animatronics of the characters and what was previously Lady Elaine Fairchilde’s Museum-​Go-​Round doesn’t even spin open as the trolly arrives toward it.
I’m not sure if its the change of ownership to the Madrid based company since 2008 or just general lack of customers coming to the park these days… But I feel really cheated from the $ 40 I spent on this crap. Unless I hear of a major overhaul, I won’t be back. Unless you are under 10 years old, you’ll face disappointment in just about everything.
One thing I will give credit to is the water park, Soak Zone. I walked past and it seemed fine and busy from my perspective.

Honest review from a former employee and longtime patron: my husband and I grew up near Idlewild and both worked there for a few summers in high school/​college. We know the drill and have realistic expectations of teenage employees. I always looked forward to bringing my own children to the park, but we were disappointed in our first visit with our daughter. It was a nice day in August, but tons of rides and food stands were closed. The Whip was totally dismantled. The only «character» in all of Storybook Forest was Mother Goose, especially frustrating since my 10-​month-​old can’t do much else yet. At 6pm, there was ONE ice cream stand open in the entire park, and only one cash register open. Seriously??? The Soak Zone attractions were nice, but walking around seeing half the park closed was depressing. We definitely didn’t get our money’s worth. The kids working there were fine, but management needs to get their act together.

I’ve visited here almost annually since 2008, and our family does enjoy the visit. The park is just right for little kids and has a nostalgic feel. The rides are old-​time and there’s lots of green space around. They don’t keep it up that well, though. Lots of dirt, wood in need of paint, and weeds. Food is OK. The water park is more well maintained. We’ve always had fun here and it makes a good family experience. Just don’t expect Disney or Cedar Fair level of performance. There are lots of deals available, so shop around for specials.

The near or current management is ruining good memories.
Do not go to this park if YOUR KIDS ARE UNDER 48 INCHES; Literally, if they are 47 and ¾ inches you will not enjoy this place we would have been fine if they were wearing socks and tennis shoes but flat sandals couldn’t support that extra ¼ inche. We were here 1 hour and realized (after enough time to buy family lunch after the 2 hr ride to get there and then waiting in line at the mouse trap for other half hr) that not only do they need 5 teenagers to shuffle people in, that’s were they are sticklers for height. NO THEY JUST CAN’T POST THE HEIGHT «SWING BAR» AT THE ENTRANCE. Oh, and Refunds don’t exist if your there more than an hour. So that leaves O out of the only 2 rides worth riding there for a7yr old boy! What a joke, greatest amusement park in the world, maybe for 2 – 3 year olds, the rest of family will be bored. Rather drive the 2 more hours and go to Hershey.

I will give Idlewild a 3, that is I think for a kid park it is closer to a 5, but for anyone over the age of 8 it’s pretty boring and really overpriced, especially for the adults having to pay $ 42.00 a person and usually don’t do too much riding if any.
I grew up going to Idlewild and Kennywood. Even then Kennywood killed it in the entertaining value, but at least as a kid I found it to be pretty fun. However, they have changed a lot of the park and I don’t necessarily think it is for the better. First there is the pool. The highlight of my pre-​teen and early teenage years. They used to have three different water slides, and a big pool that you could actually swim in. Now they have one body slide and one tube slide. No swimming pool, but a wave pool that is so packed and no you can’t actually swim. They did add a lazy river which honestly is chaotic and they have no sense of structure getting people off and on the inner tubes. No real line just people pushing in front. I rode this but the aggravation and the crowd was not worth the 5 minutes of so-​called relaxation.
They also used to have an area surrounding the pool that offered volleyball nets and they even at one time had a zip line that after I rode it at age 13, I told the probably only 3 years older than me attendant that the ride was «bitching» to which he told me to watch me mouth. Feeling very embarrassed, I indeed did that. Amazing how times change, good luck telling a kid today to watch their mouth.
Lastly, as others put it, they had a lot of rides/​games/​food stands closed. Why??? The wild mouse, the log jammer, the rafters run, the whip and some more. That was disappointing. Kiddy land is nice if you have small ones, but after the age of 6 or 7 I can’t see them enjoying these rides reminiscent of the horsey outside of the grocery store for a quarter rides. And they seriously need to do something about their food selection. Just not diverse in any way, and basically ever stand that was opened offered the same food. Alrighty then.

Never been more disappointment in a visit to this park in 45+ years as I was last week. We were pass holders for many years when I was a child and when my daughter was young as well. We brought 2 out of town guests that was visiting us and were embarrassed at every moment of our visit to Idlewild Park. Every game was closed, the pool closed early (JUST AFTER we were allowed to pay $ 15 for a locker to protect our valuables), many food venues were closed, staff was uninformed & embarrassed. The worst was the park appeared untidy and it wasn’t even busy.
We paid full price for a few rides and cold/​soggy food. It was advertised that the park was open until AT LEAST 8pm when we checked your website. We were rushed out at 6pm after we had to spend 45 mins tracking down OUR personal items. These items were removed from our locker (VERY shortly after we PAID for it) by some random young staff worker without our knowledge or permission. We were finally directed to guest services to retrieve them and told if we could not remember our locker number we were welcome to look through the garbage bags to find ours… seriously?!
I grew up in this park and had our guests so excited only to introduce them to a very bad experience.
Was there a positive note? Yes actually… please let your Jim Bob (nice young man with longer brown hair in a ponytail, tall, slender) know he did a WONDERFUL job with his double duty (do to the severe under staffing throughout the entire park that day) of train engineer and Dizzy Lizzy tour guide when it finally opened near 2pm that day.

If you have a kid between 3 – 10 then this is the perfect place to take them. We made a few mistakes with my 3 year old that I would do over. We tried to get her to go on rides in the elementary kid area before taking her to the preschool area. She loved the preschool area but didn’t want to go on any rides after being scared in the big kid area. I think we should have started her on the little kid area and she may be willing to go on the big kid rides. A three year old is big enough to go on many rides as long as the adult is with them. My 16 month old could go on a few rides but not many. They both loved the mini teacups and little train. My 3 year old struggled on the bumper cars but it was funny watching her go in circles.
The biggest negative was that the funnel cake was burnt to a crisp. I can’t wait to go back next year with hopefully a more adventurous 4 year old.
Parking is free, food can be brought in from the outside, go when it is slightly overcast because the place is empty, and go to the little kid area earlier, Storybook is a good thing to do right away because the kids are excited and after the rides they might see this as boring.

I haven’t been here in 25 years and it’s apparent that large parts of the park haven’t been painted or repaired in that time as well.
This park is a scam at $ 42/​adult. The jumping jungle area is full of mosquitoes, rotted wooden structures and they only have 5 or 6 burlap sacks for the slide. All the major rides, wild mouse, log flume, etc., were closed.
The rides in Daniel Tiger’s neighborhood were under staffed. A number of theses were closed entirely while others were only running at half capacity due to the under staffing. The «landmark» carousel was seriously dilapidated and featured plenty of three legged horses.
I would estimate that more than 50% of the restaurants were closed as well limiting your food choices to french fries and cheese steak sandwiches.
The «World’s Best Children’s Park»? According to who?

Overall– Expensive but great for small kids age 2 to 12.
Pros– lots and lots of rides, especially the small kid type you see at county fairs. My 4 yr old is scared of coasters so this was perfect for her. We were there five hours and didn’t ride but maybe half the small kid rides. Park is shaded a lot so that’s nice during summer. Lots of picnic areas and benches throughout. Also they’ve kept rides from thirty years plus ago which is cool.
Cons– bathrooms are pretty awful and need updating badly! Price is high but we got buy one get ½ off coupon luckily. Lots of walking; wish there was a shortcut to parking lot, and I’m in shape. My 1 yr old mostly stayed in stroller so would love to see a toddler area added. Luckily he was free for now
Water park was nice but it closed early so make sure you leave enough time to get through both ride section and water park.

I have loved this park in years past. We are going on our 6^th year as season pass holders and sadly, it will be our last. Even my 2 year old thought it was dull and boring. The entire atmosphere is tainted by disgruntled workers who do not want to be there. They swear, they are rude, they complain of their job (about co-​workers and bosses), and they are miserable. Even Good Ship Lolly boy in Story Book Forest was awful. He and Goldilocks were so busy chatting/​flirting, they could not take a moment to acknowledge my kids. Mother Goose and The Old Lady in the Shoe were fantastic, as always! So was whoever was wearing Duke. However, the overall sadness was contagious. My children were in terrible moods as they were feeding off the misery of the staff. Guest services and even the management were not much better — dismissive and rude sums up their stellar personalities.
Half the attractions were closed, but this is the norm there. But not just rides … food stands, gift shops, games, etc. I wish I could get my money back for our season passes this year because we will not be going back. I wrote to the owners first but they have ignored my email without even a simple response/​apology so here is my Unilocal review, as promised.
The park itself is gorgeous. Too bad the negative vibes, high costs for not much open and lonnnnggg drive just don’t outweigh the good. Next year: Kennywood passes it is :)

It was very disappointing as this is one of my favorite places. Although it has been open several weeks a lot of rides were not operating. The whip looked like it was not assembled and nobody was working on it. The float away bay had about a dozen inner tubes — most people just walked around in it. It wasn’t even crowed but just not enough. Employees are hopping fences to short cut while there are signs asking visitors not to do the same. Employees are not dressed uniformly as they have been in years past. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood train still not working right — wasn’t when we visited the first week the park opened. The food is still bad — poor choices and over priced. As I said, very disappointing visit today. Idlewild needs some work!

Nice place to go with little kids. Reminds me of a carnival from the 1980s. Story Book Forest is a bit run down, but still cute for kids under 8 yrs old. Food is horrible and over priced. They do let you bring in coolers and you can picnic at one of the numerous tables. I recommend planning ahead and doing that. Many rides and attractions were not running on Sunday afternoon. Hard to justify a $ 40 per person ticket price. We stayed at the Ramada inn in Ligonier and got 2 free tickets with our stay. Discount tickets can also be bought at Giant Eagle in Ligonier. If you’re in the area, this is worth a visit. If you’re traveling, I would go to Kennywood for a real amusement park experience.

This park left me feeling like the 1960s and 1970s threw up all over the forest and instead of anyone cleaning it up they simply mopped around the edges with the 1980s. The food at this place was either deep fried and smothered with cheese or smothered with deep-​fried cheese or smothered with deep-​fried cheese covered in deep-​fried grease. They had a salad but it appeared it was made in one of the aforementioned decades. The Parks’ website showed Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood as a feature in the park, but once there, you discover it is just. Mr. Tiger taking photos with the kids, until 2015. Storybook Land was touted as the place to go; this is where you will find most of the remaining vomitus. Definitely not worth 40 bucks per person or even 15 bucks per person. We did not go to Kennywood but at this point I would have to make a blind recommendation to visit that place over this one.

I Love this park! It makes me feel like I’m back in time. Everything there gives you that old fashion feel. Such a great place to bring your family for a day of fun!

And I have gone two more times to make my passes «worth it». I’ll give it a 2.5.
I get the Idlewild has to hire students because they are only open seasonally and don’t pay fantastically well, but (ready for the old lady speech?) I seriously wish kids these days had more pride in themselves and their work.
Upon my last visit, a young man working a game booth didn’t stop eating a cupcake as he took our money and we played the game. Literally he didn’t set it down while we were there. He spoke with his mouth full of food. It was really uncomfortable — as he clearly just did NOT care or maybe didn’t understand?! Another game booth operator had no idea how to make change. Like, if I pay for 4 kids to play a $ 1 game, and give you a 20, he gave me $ 13.00 back… I get 16.00. Accidents happen… BUT He had to count on his fingers. He was super apologetic but, lol wut?!
On ⁸⁄₁₆ the entire park ran out of lids for cups they put their $ 4 soda in. Good luck not spilling that or keeping bugs out. Speaking of bugs — what is up with all the bees? My mom is allergic and this place made her nervous — they pretty much swarm the central food with the fountain. There is an unacceptable about of mess and trash at this location — which is likely the explanation. It’s obvious the tables are never cleaned by staff during the day — I have also see trash cans overflowing.
I would give this place 1 star except Raccoon Lagoon (kiddie land) and carousel are nice. As is the Thomas show. All and all, I don’t think we’ll get season passes again unless my daughter specifically asks. Or maybe begs. I would rate higher, maybe a 3 or 4, if the staff was better trained and the park was overall cleaner and easier to navigate.

The water park side was really nice. My friend and I had almost the entire thing to ourselves (it was 72 degrees and cloudy). It was a blast. Everything on that side looked new and was pretty fun. The wave pool had big waves and looked nice. The life guards were pretty cool. The lazy river is new this year and was where most of the people hangout (besides the wave pool).
The theme park side was out dated and seemed more like a fair grounds rides.
It did have Mr. Rogers trolley ride that was creepy and old.
It got 4 stars because I came to play in the water park side.

I am from GA and I always enjoyed going this place when I was visiting my grandparents while growing up. My grandmother, parents, wife, and I took my one year old son here last month during our visit.
We got there at opening. We first rode the merry-​go-​round, which was great.
It started to rain a little, so we went and rode the Mr. Rodgers’ ride. This ride is begging to be refurbished, but was still fun.
After finishing our ride, we heard a BS announcement that the park was closing in 30 minutes due to the weather. It was only raining, and there wasn’t even any thunder or lightning! I went to guest services to see what our options were since we had been in the park for less than an hour, and since we live so far away. I was offered a raincheck and nothing else. I explained my situation and was rudely shot down by a peeon claiming to be a manager. I understand that a voucher is there policy, but at least some empathy would have been nice.
Not only did the decision to close the park contradict the weather policy stated on their website (says will reopen rides after rain passes, not close the park), but the rain stopped an hour after we were kicked out of the park and the rest of the day was beautiful! Would have been a great park day!
I still like the park, but current management sucks and clearly does not care about it or their customers. I am unsure if I will attempt a return in the future or not at this point. Bottom line, if there is even the slightest chance of a shower, don’t bother going, as the park will close when the employees tire of the rain.

We didn’t know anything about Idlewild and just went for our first time with our little girl on the way to Ohio. We couldn’t have had a better experience.
For us, in comparison to other major parks, this park was a very refreshing change to the overly-​commercialized, over-​priced, dirty and over-​crowded bigger parks. *We took our daughter to Disneyland two years ago and she asked to leave and go to the beach instead. We had SO much fun exploring the nearly-​empty park (weekday and overcast/​rainy).
We couldn’t believe how friendly and nice the ride operators (one even offered to take a picture of us while we were on the rollercoaster??!). It felt like we had stepped back in time to the 50’s. The grounds are beautiful with bridges over a river which connect the younger kids rides to the big park, the rides are fantastic and tons of options for a 6 year old kiddo! As a family we rode the log ride, flying aces, and roller coaster and had a blast… my husband and I felt like kids again! Bonus that you can bring food/​coolers to picnic at the tables near the parking lot and don’t have to buy the food there if you don’t want to!
So much to see and do here, we can’t wait to go back!