How My Family of 5 Traveled to Omaha on $1000 Budget Part 3: Sun & Mon
Phase 4: Sunday
Once again, we convened for breakfast at the hotel, this time we discovered a section that had pancakes and sausages that we didn’t see the day before. It appears Saturday we had dined in the more To-Go section of breakfast, and this other part closer to the Lounge was a more traditional continental breakfast. This was our favorite of the two.
The weather for Sunday turned out to be overcast with rain expected. We looked up a nearby park called Ralston Park to hang out and let the cousins play together. Instead of turf this park had sand everywhere. The kids had a blast running around, building sandcastles, playing on the slides but the sand was the highlight.
Most of the parks near us have turf or mulch, so a park with sand was an entirely different experience while giving the kids beach vibes. While at the park, we discovered that Nebraska has black squirrels and became excited. A local chuckled at us saying we must not be from around there if we were excited about a black squirrel. In Missouri we are accustomed to light brown squirrels and somehow never realized black squirrels existed. It was a reminder that even local flora and fauna can get the kids interested when visiting a new place especially for the nature and animal lovers in my family.
Once the rain picked up, we headed back to the hotel to get the kids washed of all the sand, ate packed lunch and hung out in the lounge area for more games and billiards. The only agenda for Sunday’s out & about activities was to visit Omaha Children's Museum. To keep costs down from spending a bit more on Saturday, we decided to just stop in for the last hour, which was about half price admission. Full day costs for kids ages 2 through adults aged 59 were $15 each. For a family of 5 that would have put it at $75 plus tax for just that attraction but going to the last hour cut the cost down to $30.*
(*The pricing for the Omaha Children’s Museum has since been raised by $2, making individual pricing $17 per person or $8 per person for the last hour).
The Omaha Children’s Museum has 12 permanent exhibits: Imagination Playground, Charlie Campbell Science & Technology Center, Art Smart Center, Streck Science Showplace, S.T.E.A.M Cave, Zoo Land, Bay Family Carousel, Susie’s Station, Sandy’s Splish-Splash Garden, Tinker Factory, Woodhouse Service Center and Fantastic Future Me. During our visit, the Omaha Children’s Museum had a limited exhibition called Jurassic Nebraska that featured animatronic dinosaurs and a fossil dig along with another special limited time exhibit called A Generation of Hope: Indigenous Peoples of the Heartland.
The Bay Family Carousel & Susie’s Station requires additional tickets that can be purchased at the front desk; however, these exhibits close at 3pm, before the last hour pricing begins. These are great options if you plan on being at the museum most of the day. We also did not participate in the Streck Science Showplace, but if your visit incurs poor outdoor weather and want to do everything in the Omaha Children’s Museum, be sure to check out the showtimes to plan which program would interest your children.
Our hour was spent in a few exhibits starting with the Imagination Playground as it has a pretend town featuring a hospital, Hy-Vee Grocery Store, First National Bank, a Barn, an OCM Engine House, Platte River Water Table, Wiggle Room and a Family Discovery Room. For babies, the Wiggle Room is a great space to let little ones explore away from the bigger kids of the other exhibits. The pretend town was a favorite for my middle daughter, and she could have stayed in that section alone the entire time.
The next exhibit we encountered was the Charlie Campbell Science and Technology Center. This area has a Super Gravitron and massive ball machine. This area was wild with both kids and adults having fun. With plastic balls, toddlers and bigger kids are each able to encounter science through the exhibit’s different features of pneumatic, hydraulic, and mechanical sections.
Of course, we had to hit up the Jurassic Nebraska exhibit, which consisted of several animatronic dinosaurs and the fossil dig area. My dino loving son loved the animatronic dinosaurs, but his favorite, the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex, was a little too scary and life-like for him. He liked it from a distance. The older kids enjoyed the hands-on fossil dig and had to be pulled away from that to explore any final areas before the time was up.
Once the museum was closed, we dispersed for individual dinner plans. We decided to mobile order Burger King since I had saved Crowns from various visits earlier in the year to redeem on our trip. I was able to order a Whopper Jr., two Whoppers, and 3 large fries using various promos/Crown redemption making the total paid for dinner $11.92 after tax. We paired it with the fruit and meat we had brought with us to have all five of us with a meal.
We ended the evening with a short swim before crawling into bed since Monday we would need to check out.
Phase 5: Monday
Though we had breakfast again downstairs, we did not plan to meet up with my sisters as today was another travel day. The hotel breakfast was such a lifesaver this trip, and a central aspect of our travel food plans. Plus, my kids looked forward to experiencing breakfast each morning we were there.
We had decided ahead of time that we wanted to have each group determine the pace at which they departed. My family chose to eat, pack up and check out between 10am – 11am, we said quick good byes as one sister chose to sleep in a bit more so they were leaving a little later than us, but the other was up early to get breakfast, packed up and head out for one last stop at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium.
As kids, we had visited the Omaha Zoo in the heat of summer, and I remember certain aspects of it – like the ridiculously loud howling monkeys and the crowded mesmerizing tunnel aquarium that I’d never experienced before, and mist sprays everywhere for cooling down because the heat was stifling – those are just a few core memories of my childhood Omaha trip. Because of that, when my family revisits Omaha, the zoo is a must-do activity.
The Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium is pricey, $31.95 per adult (age 12 +) and $24.95 for children ages 3-11, so it’s a major vacation expense. If zoos are not your thing, it might be something to opt-out; however, if you do enjoy visiting zoos, perhaps looking into the AZA Reciprocal Zoo Admission Program could save you some money. If you hold a membership at a participating zoo or aquarium there are certain benefits such as discounts or reduced admission costs to other facilities in the program. They do, however, stress the importance of calling ahead to the zoo or aquarium that you plan to visit to ensure they are participating in the AZA Reciprocal program and to clarify understanding of the benefits. These can update each year, so always double check the most current list on their website, then always call the aquarium or zoo for all updated information regarding your upcoming visit.
We headed straight home with barely even a pit stop. The kids were exhausted; us adults were exhausted but we had many memories made of visiting a new place as a family and spending time with our family and that was certainly worth more than the $1000, we spent on the trip, and we’d do it all again.
Money Totals – Final Costs
Our final cost was just under $1000. We had a few things come up on the trip that changed how we could spend funds. First, the hotel had put a hold on our card for an extra amount putting lodging costs a little over $100 more than we had initially budgeted. This meant I had to be cautious on what we spent to ensure lodging was fully paid for without an issue. We did get the hold back with the original costs as the final payment; it just made the usable funds more difficult. Second, we misunderstood the parking situation at the Visitor Center effectively paying double for our time had we realized the process for hours and costs. Third, we ordered an appetizer at the Margarita’s Mexican Restaurant that was almost $10 and turned out to not be good and was a disappointment and realized we should have skipped ordering it. Fourth, we didn’t initially have cash on hand, so we had incurred some ATM fees when we needed to pull cash out. All of these added up, but ultimately we were able to meet our goal of taking a family vacation on $1000.