Spokane, WA

A few weeks ago, Riverfront Park celebrated their 30th anniversary by offering 1978 pricing on many of their attractions. I always enjoy going to Riverfront Park, so when I found out that I had family coming into town that weekend, we jumped on the opportunity to have some fun while paying less.

It was on a Saturday and we arrived at about 11:00am. We started by walking around and seeing what we wanted to do. We passed by the fountain at the front of the park and watched the kids playing around in the water. We then passed by the carousel that only cost $.50 to ride that day.

After that we headed northward in the park to go to the rides. For $6 each, my mom, my 14 year old nephew and I all got a bracelet that gave us unlimited rides on the following: Carrousel, Ferris Wheel, Mini-Golf, Tour Train, SR-2 Ride Simulator, Spider, Sizzler, Dragon Coaster, Tilt ‘Whirl, Berry-go-Round, Bumper Cars, Red Baron, Kiddie Bumper Boats, Buccaneer Inflatable, Atlantis Inflatable & Kiddie choo-choo. In addition, it granted us 1 admission to a regular IMAX feature film. This pass is usually $13.99 (it’s called a summer day pass) but we were able to save $7.99 per person due to the birthday celebration.

While we didn’t have time to do everything that day, we were able to spend some time on the rides. I really wanted to go on the tour train, which takes you on a tour around the park for 30 minutes, but the line was really long, it was getting pretty hot and our parking meter was running out, so we did without the train ride. Our favorite ride we went on was the Tilt a Whirl, which is usually a staple of any park that has rides. We went on it twice and spun ourselves into a laughing fit- it was a lot of fun.

While my mom waited in line for the Tilt a Whirl for our second time, my nephew and I decided to go on the Berry Go Round since it was right next to us and the line was short. Basically this ride is a giant strawberry that you sit in and there is a wheel in the middle that you can turn to make the berry spin. When my nephew told me he was going to spin fast, I didn’t have a problem because I usually like rides like that, but once the ride started, I honestly couldn’t even hold my own head up because we were spinning so fast. I had to stick my hands behind my head to keep my head up! My mom said that when I got off the ride, I was as white as a ghost and I honestly needed assistance with walking. I have never been that dizzy in my entire life!

After getting extremely dizzy on the rides, we went inside to buy the specially priced hot dogs and root beer floats (for $0.50 each) and to have a piece of birthday cake that they were giving out. While it was definitely busier that normal, I was actually surprised that there weren’t more people there to take advantage of the extremely low prices, but it honestly wasn’t very heavily advertised- I only happened to see a small ad in the newspaper and I followed that up with a visit to their website. Even though we didn’t get to enjoy all that Riverfront Park had to offer that day, we still had a lot of fun and got to be kids again.

Riverfront Park’s birthday celebration was on August 2nd. Keep checking on their website for future events and specials: http://www.spokaneriverfrontpark.com.