Down The Rabbit Hole

A few weeks ago I told you about our trip to the fantastic Storybook Land park just outside of Atlantic City. I promised a more in-depth look at one of their more unique attractions and today we're going to make good on that promise with a photo tour of their Alice in Wonderland walk-through attraction. The attraction was designed and built in-house, meaning Storybook Land didn't hire an amusement park ride company to come in and create Wonderland. It's a homemade affair. When you approach the attraction, you're greeted by the White Rabbit several times as he's looking at his watch and realizing how late he is. You follow him into a tunnel...

...and kids are invited to slide down the rabbit hole into Wonderland!

(There's also a ramp for Moms & Dads!) Once down the rabbit hole there's a series of brightly colored caves and tunnels. As you follow the path, the story of Alice in Wonderland unfolds on the walls around you.

To say the art work is inspired by Walt Disney's 1951 film adaptation is a slight understatement. The scenes and characters depicted on the walls are clearly lifted right out of the famous cartoon. That's not to say that the artwork isn't beautiful. The whole attraction (as well as the park itself) looks like it just got a fresh coat of paint the morning of our visit!

Several spots along the path have small windows where displays of dolls, antiques and stuffed animals illustrate the story in another medium. In this Tea Party scene you can make out the Disney version of the White Rabbit on Alice's petifore, as well as some antique Disney Alice in Wonderland china.

Kids love a good tunnel their size. Adults can choose another path which doesn't involve eating a cookie to shrink down to the size of a three year old!

The finale of Storybook Land's Alice in Wonderland experience is the escape from The Queen of Hearts in a maze of card soldiers.

The path leads out from the cave into a huge maze of playing cards. The maze is quite large, but the wrong turns are short so you never really get lost. My kids had a blast running through the deck of cards and thinking they were completely lost.

Storybook Land's Alice in Wonderland is a completly original and charming attraction tucked into the middle of a charming little park. It's a shame more amusement parks don't have similar low-tech experiences for families.