Elsie F.
Yelp
This review is for the Sanrio Small Gift 50th Anniversary Event.
I came here in the afternoon of the very first day (11/12/10) and it was perfect! Not overcrowded at all. The wait in line for the shop was only about 20 minutes and I was able to buy everything I wanted. No line to buy tickets for the carnival games and only a few people were playing. Then onto the sand painting! This activity was probably the most worth it for being only 1 ticket ($2). My boyfriend and I spent about an hour on 1, but it came out awesome. Then the food trucks started showing up. It's usually 3 food trucks at once. Overall the first day was very fun. I planned to stay for an hour, but ended up staying for 4.
The next day was the I (Heart) Nerds Party and believe it or not, I came back. I went in to buy food from the trucks before they started kicking everyone out to prep for the party and I walked right into Kimora Lee Simmons and her daughter (of course, they would be at this kind of event). My friend and I went 2 hours early to stand in line since we were unable to purchase tickets ($15) online. We were lucky because immediately after, a whole rush of people came and the line ended up wrapping around the parking lot twice. We were the first 100 out of probably 1,000 people so we got goodie bags (at least)!
It was INSANITY. After waiting in line to get into the actual event, we had to wait in MORE LONG LINES for EVERY SINGLE THING (the shop, buying tickets, playing the games, crowding in the sand painting area, food trucks, and so on). The wait in line for the shop was probably 2 hours long and I noticed they had already sold out of some rare items I previously bought the day before. My friend and I just wanted to get out of there. Oh and they didn't even have the photo booth!
TIPS:
- Parking is $10 so it's probably better to come on a weekday when it's not so busy so you can get your money's worth.
- Tickets to play the carnival games, crafts, mini golf, ferris wheel range from 1-5 tickets ($2 each).
- The shop has more than what it had for the mobile pop-up shop tour so be sure to check it out (that is, if the wait in line isn't 2 hours).
- If you're planning to go to the 80s Prom Party, ask yourself if you really want to pay $15 to get into the same event you could get into free the other days & do the exact same stuff for more than just 3 hours, but with smaller lines.
- They have an ATM inside and they accept credit cards to purchase tickets and shop items.
I think I'm all Hello Kittied out now.
Good grief.