Better than Disneyland… and in Your Own Bay Area Backyard!!

Children’s Fairyland

699 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland
510.238.6876
www.fairyland.org

Cost: 7 dollars entrance fee for ages 1-100 (Adults are not admitted without a child and vice versa).

Parking:  2 hours free around Lake Merritt and weekend parking is available for a small fee.

Calling all princesses, princes, wizards, dreamers and fairytale believers … you have found your home! The whimsical children and tot amusement park situated on the beautiful Lake Merritt in Oakland is a must see, must visit, must frequent.

Fairy Coco rides a dragon

Want to cross Disneyland off of your family vacation to do list this year?  Just cross the Bay Bridge and enjoy this local treasure!  Opened in 1950, Fairyland is said to be the original inspiration for Disneyland (which opened five years later) and was introduced to Kid Friendly by my friend Jessica, an East Bay Native who went often as a child.

Each enchanting bit of this park is child sized and based on a fairytale or children story that we all know and love.  At the entrance you will be greeted by the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, and before you know it, you will find roosters and donkeys, gardens and fountains, Miss Muffet and her Spider, puppet shows (check out their site for times), train rides, carousels, Alice in Wonderland card mazes, tunnels with instruments attached to their walls, parks structures shaped as pirate ships and a miniature chapel.  If you have never been, already been or only have been when you yourself were a child, go and check it out and plan to stay all day or at least until your child’s bewitching hour (a.k.a. naptime).

If you must leave Fairyland and still have some steam left in you, you can walk around Lake Merritt, picnic amongst the local birds, visit a wonderful park play structure situated on the lake, or go to the Botanical Gardens (all this you will see on your way out on Bellevue Avenue.)

Kid Friendly fairydust has been sprinkled all over Children’s Fairyland… and you will leave with some sprinkled on you too!

A giraffe encounter

Airplane Watching

Burlingame Promenade on the San Francisco Bay

Millbrae Avenue exit off of Highway 101, Map it here
(Directions and Parking info below)

Cost: FREE

Coco and Daddy

Airplanes go up, airplanes go down.  Every minute.  Airplane watching is as exciting to little kids as whale (or American Idol) watching may be to adults.

Moms, dads, caretakers, grandparents, I encourage you to take advantage of the incredible resource that our oh-so-close SFO airport is and go airplane watching with your child.  My friend Julie, an experienced San Francisco mom of two, recommended this site to me many times.  One day after I had  dropped a friend off at the airport, I finally saw what she was talking about. And boy was she right – this is a fabulously kid-friendly location and free activity in the Bay Area!

At the City of Burlingame Shorebird Sanctuary you will find a beautifully paved concrete promenade with benches and garden landscaping.  If you walk a bit in either direction you can cross one of the nifty looking bridges and explore the surrounding wetlands.  The airplanes appear (and really are!) so close that you will be be mesmerized along with your child as you talk about their details, size, color and shape.  We snacked, walked, played in the sea grass, breathed in the fresh air, counted planes, remarked on the different colors and sizes and visited with others that were taking the same stroll.  (Be careful, our two year old demanded airplane PJ’s after the visit!).  It’s just a great place to enjoy the sun, take in some of the natural bay wetlands and see the City from an often overlooked perspective.

To get indoors to refuel and relax, there is beautifully landscaped Benihana Restaurant right on the water and within walking distance over the bridge (1496 Bayshore Hwy Burlingame, (650) 342-5202) and an Elephant Bar (1600 Bayshore Highway, Burlingame, (650) 259 9585) also nearby, both  kid friendly chain restaurants for hungry airplane watching children and weary parents.  We chose the Elephant Bar for some real kid/parent pampering TLC.  Our daughter watched the planes and trees blowing in the wind through the floor to ceiling windows while we ate peacefully… they even gave served her a kid’s sundae on the house.

Airplane watching is one of those Kid-Friendly, free and fun activities that you will want to revisit from time to time,  so let us know if you see anything else down there that other Kid-Friendly parents should know about.  No seatbelt required!

Also, the weather is not what you may be thinking… sooo foggy. We noticed as we left, that although fog was encroaching from the northwestern area, we were still enjoying the clear day, sunny and windy and gorgeous!

Parking:  We recommend parking in the lot of the Bay Landing Hotel as a number of stall have been dedicated to the public for coastal access to the promenade and the Shorebird Sanctuary.  Keep a look out for the blue public parking signs.  However there are also other hotels and restaurants in the vicinity you can park at, so you can pick when you get arrive.

Directions:  (To Bay Landing Hotel)
Traveling South from San Francisco on highway 101, take the Millbrae Avenue exit, turn left onto Millbrae Avenue and right onto Bayshore Highway. Proceed approximately one mile to the hotel, which is on the left-hand side of the street at 1550 Bayshore Highway.

If you are traveling North on 101, take the Broadway/Burlingame exit. Take the Airport Boulevard ramp toward Bayshore Highway. Turn left onto Bayshore Highway, and proceed to 1550 Bayshore Highway.