Sunny days! Sweeping the clouds away! On my way to where the air is sweet! Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street? If that theme song sounds familiar, this is the vacation post for you!
Other then the obvious reason to visit Turks and Caicos…you know, those beautiful beaches and blue water, haha… the main reason we decided to visit Turks and Caicos was for our Elmo loving daughter. If you’re unfamiliar with the resort, Beaches Turks and Caicos is an all inclusive resort for families that has an extensive Sesame Street association. You can read more about other parts of our trip to the resort here. If you watch Sesame Street on PBS, you may have noticed the Beaches’ sponsorship of the show Sesame Street in the commercials before and after it’s airing. The ads make it look like a paradise that includes your toddler’s favorite characters, and spoiler alert– It did not disappoint! This resort is teeming with Sesame Street opportunities. There is something available for every Sesame Street loving person you can fit into your room or suite! This might sound scary if you are not bringing a toddler or child who loves Sesame Street…but never fear! The Sesame Street theming and activities are easy to avoid if you’re not into that.
We are sharing our experience with Sesame Street activities in which we participated so in no way is the following blog post a comprehensive list. We were shocked how many activities are offered. You could do Sesame Street all day long if you wanted to. We didn’t do everything because we wanted to spend time at the pools and beaches too 😉 A few Sesame Street events are easy to schedule in advance online, and others are events you can schedule or simply join in while you’re there. The schedule is printed on a handout provided upon check-in and posted outside Camp Sesame, so its easy to figure out what is available and when. I hope you love learning about the Sesame Street experience as much as I am loving re-living the experience!
Nightly Live Sesame Street Entertainment: (included) Beaches TC has a stage where they provide cruise-like live Entertainment for the masses. There are singing shows and dancing shows etc for the main crowd later in the evening. However, our favorite part of every evening is the Sesame Street show which occurs a little earlier on. These Sesame Street shows are totally geared toward the little ones. None of the shows last very long to accomodate those toddler attention spans (approximately 10-15 minutes). They are full of singing and dancing and overall Sesame-themed enjoyment. Our personal favorite part of these shows is that kids can go watch right down in the front! They can get close to the stage and dance just like the characters! After the show all the Sesame Friends from the show are available for meet and greet. This was so wonderful. Full disclosure: chances are they will play the “Elmo Slide” and that song will be stuck in your head all week. The location is close to the water park and near the pool at the French Village.
Our little munchkin front and center for the action!
Kids Club aka Camp Sesame for ages 1-4: (included) One of the other Sesame Street themed things is the kids area or Camp Sesame. Camp Sesame has traditional kids club things…like play spaces, nap spaces, adults to supervise the little ones in case adults need kid-free time, and the Sesame themed parts. One of the best parts of this area is that there are Sesame Street events such as baking with Cookie Monster or Science fair with Grover multiple times throughout every day. There are signs posted in areas throughout the property where you can see the upcoming Camp Sesame events so you don’t have to miss any you want to try. The camp is included in the cost of the resort so it is “Free”! There are kids clubs for other ages (including INFANTS, which is rare), and the older kids clubs are not Sesame themed. Private babysitting is also available for an upcharge. We signed Rosie up for Camp Sesame, but she ended up hanging out with us instead of going to the kids club.
A description of many of the Sesame-themed events can be found here.
Character Breakfast: (upcharge). Having a breakfast with all your favorite Sesame characters sounds like a toddler’s dream! It is set up like most character breakfasts with a few additional perks. Unsurprisingly, there is breakfast food that is served buffet style. Also, there are characters who go from table to table meeting the guests and getting photos. A large number of characters are there, so there is a chance to get pics with so many of them! Our favorite part was the dance party that took place at the end. It was such an exciting opportunity to get close to the characters and dance with them. The breakfast was a little over an hour and was enjoyable. We booked this in advance because we had no idea how often the characters would be around the resort and/or if we would be able to see them all. Luckily, these characters are readily available every time you see them, so theoretically you could see them all without going to the breakfast. The food was fine, but it wasn’t excellent. If we were first timers we would definitely book this again, but if we went on a repeat trip we might skip it.
Sesame Street All Access Photo Pass: (upcharge) When can you ever get a picture of all the Sesame Street gang in one place? Beaches TC has that opportunity. When we booked this we were not 100% sure what it would entail, but it sounded like something Rosie would like so we did it! The location was at the pavilion at the French Village pool. Since we prepaid, we were allowed to use our own cameras for the pic. Others were able to line up to take a picture with the characters all together, but there is not an opportunity to use your camera or phone to take pics unless you paid for the pic taken by the Beaches photographer.
Sesame Street Special Events. While we were at Beaches it was time for Elmo’s birthday! I am not sure if Elmo has a birthday every week or if it was Elmo’s actually birthday 😉 Anyways they had a fun party where you could meet Elmo and get a picture, you could dance the “Elmo Slide” and Elmo’s other favorite dance the, “Freeze Dance.” After dancing you could get cake and it was FREE. Of course there were souvenirs you could purchase if your wanted to. It was a fun event and did not last too long.
Character Tuck-in: (upcharge) If we were to name one thing that made the Sesame Street experience and possibly our whole Beaches TC trip “worth it”, the character tuck-in would be it. We scheduled this in advance because we needed Elmo to come tuck our babe in and no other character would be an adequate substitute. We had a lot of anticipation for this experience and we were so excited to see how this surprise turned out.
We were able to choose a time for Elmo to come visit our room. We picked a time that was in close proximity to bedtime. Beaches TC contacted us while we were at the resort to verify that we wanted that date and time. The gist of the experience is that you choose a character to come to your room and share a bedtime story with your child. A photographer also attends to document the experience.
When the appointed time arose, there was a knock at the door. We told Rosie to head to the door to see who it was.
Elmo and his photographer and handler (Gigi) came into the room. He hugged Rosie and picked her up. We picked a spot for a bedtime story and Gigi read a bedtime story. Elmo then tucked Rosie in to her crib and we said our good-byes.
The character tuck-in ended up being one of those parent experiences that brought tears to my eyes to see how excited Rosie was.
Sesame Street Parade: (included) One evening per week there is a Sesame Street parade. They walk through the resort dancing and playing music. Kids can take part in the parade. To do so, they meet up at the kids club and the parade starts from there. Since Rosie hadn’t been to kids club we decided to have Rosie watch the parade with us. She LOVED it! There is a lot of music and the characters have lighted costumes on! It is a really fun event!
The Sesame crew getting ready to head to the start of the parade route:
The Sesame Street options at Beaches Turks and Caicos are so plentiful! One of our favorite things was there are tons of chances to see your favorite characters even if you don’t pay for the character breakfast, pictures, or tuck-in. Even when the characters are walking from place to place, they stop for hugs and pictures with the kids. It was a truly wonderful experience that was filled with Sesame opportunities and was an Elmo-loving family’s dream!
Check out more information about the Sesame Street Activities at Beaches Turks and Caicos here.
Want to read more about our Beaches-Turks and Caicos non-Sesame experience? Check it out here.
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