7/10/16: The Adventure Park at Heritage Museums & Gardens

When we were in Cape Cod last week we wanted to try out some new things.  Everyone had been telling me that I had to go to The Adventure Park at Heritage Museums and Gardens so we decided to try it out.  My nephew had also recently gone with his Boy Scout Troupe and loved it, so with all these rave reviews we were ready to go.  I am going to preface this with the fact that in High School we had a class called Project Adventure that was exactly what this ropes course is.  I was deathly afraid of it back then but you will see in this post I overcame my fears and climbed here with no problem.  The course is good for young children and scared adults alike.

All pictures in this post were taken at The Adventure Park at Heritage Museums and Gardens

TIP:  I highly suggest you buy your tickets online in advance as they do book up.  When we were there someone was trying to get two tickets together at 10:30 am and the first available was at 4:00 pm.  Especially if you have a larger group make sure to book in advance as there are only so many allotted per time slot.  This is only their second year being open so they have been really busy.

Once you check in you will be called at the time of your climb.  When you are called you will receive your gear and be put through some basic training on how to hook everything up.  There will be a small group of about 10 or so people that will be assigned to a staff member.  The staff member will talk you through how to put on the gear but will also help you as they will go around to each person to make sure you have done things correctly.  TIP:  Make sure to hit the bathroom before you get all suited up.  You don't want to miss a minute of climbing once you go through training by needing to remove everything to go to the bathroom.

Then you will grab some gloves and head to a training area that is a mini setup of what you will experience on the course.  The staff member will go through how to clip on and tweezle.  Do you know what tweezle means?  I had no idea but don't fear they will teach you all you need to know.  Basically at all times you will have both clips on the cable.  One will be unlocked and one will be locked and the tweezle is the key to unlocking the other clip.

You will go through the basics of how to tweezle, hook on to the cable, and then how to use your equipment for the zip line.  Yes I said zip line!  All of the lower courses have a zip line.  I was fearful but I did it.  You will see me on the video for proof!  Here is Lauren learning the "ropes".

Here is Evan learning how to zip line.

Here you can see some of the courses.  There are courses for all levels and have different restrictions for age.  There is Yellow, Green, Blue and Black Courses.  You can see the table here with age restrictions.  The minimum age is 7 years old.

Lauren went in front of me.  That way I could encourage her when she needed it, or help her with clips.  It also allowed me to hear from her what she thought of the element (that is what they call the obstacle you are going across).  She would often shout back to me that it was easy or a little tricky.

Here is Evan climbing.  Both kids did awesome!

Here is proof.  I was up there!  This was near the beginning of the course and my legs might have been shaking a bit but I made it.  I think having my kids there gave me some courage to do it.  In the video you will see the zip line.  It did take me a few minutes to step off on the zip line but I did it.  There were not a ton of people on the course but keep in mind that if you do have a more cautious person that is taking their time it may slow you down a bit.  You have a little card that tells you when to exit the course.  You have 2 hours to do as many courses as you want.  There are 5 trails total.  TIP:  If you are experienced with ropes courses you may want to skip over the Yellow course and go right to the Green.

All those years of dance and gymnastics helped Lauren with balance.

She was determined.  There was one element she was a bit scared but my husband was below helping her along.  TIP:  As an adult you do not have to climb with your child.  You can be on the ground observing as long as it is a course that is marked as Supervise on the table.

Evan did awesome learning the ropes quickly and moving along the course quickly.

This element was a little tough for me being taller.  I had to lean down quite a bit to get through it.

Evan moving right along.

Here is Lauren doing awesome.

This is after Lauren and I finished!  I was so proud of her and she was proud of me.  I overcame my fears!!!!

Here is some video:

Here you can see some of the other courses.

This was a Green course which is one step up from Yellow.

Other parts of the course.

One of the harder courses.

I highly recommend trying it out!  Make sure to visit the Heritage Museums and Gardens also which I will be covering in another post.

Find them online:  https://heritageadventurepark.org/

Disclosure:  I received four tickets to The Adventure Park at Heritage Museums and Gardens.  No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.