The Crayola Experience
On our recent vacation to Orlando, we visited Crayola for the Crayola Experience. It was such a low key experience and a nice break from all the hectic amusements park we’d visited. At first, I thought it would be fun to go to Crayola but at some point on the trip, I felt like maybe we should skip it. I was already tired of those huge amusement parks and didn’t feel like walking around to another huge activity. But then we decided to do it after all and when my husband said it was located inside a mall that made it seem easier to walk around to. Surely, it cannot be that huge if it’s located within a mall. And it wasn’t. I was happy we went after all.
The pay or check-in station is at on the first floor of the mall and all the activities are upstairs. It’s all done on one floor which made it so much easier for the kids.
Upon entrance the kids can check out these fun walls while the parents stand in line to get tickets. Our kids did some of it while we waited for my husband to get the tickets.
The upstairs
This was super cool – Note the stats!
What you can do at Crayola:
- color on regular coloring pages
- use washable markers to color a small washable figuring that you can wash and recolor there (it’s yours to keep)
- customize (add your name or call it what you like) to what’s already on the wrapper
- make a small crayon
- make melted crayon art (they only give you 2 crayons for this)
- create a coloring page
- drip art
- play in the play area (climbing, slides) or other play areas
- shop on your way out
- and so much more little activities that we didn’t do
Coloring – So Many Crayons!
Create Your Own Coloring Page
Take a photo that goes on the background of a coloring sheet (basically your face would be on the coloring page for you to color). The background could be plain or one that already has coloring images on it.
- Stand or sit in front of the computer
- Chose a background
- Take a black and white photo to color
Make a small emoji quarter-sized crayon
Name and Wrap a Crayon
- Choose an already made crayon from a machine
- Type in a “name” on a pre-maid crayon wrapper (already has the Crayola writing on it but you can add your own word to call it what you want)
- Both the color crayon & wrapper will dispense from the machine
- Wrap it using an old-fashioned manual crayon wraper
Toy Coloring
Color a toy with washable markers, wash it out, repeat
Get Creative with Chalk
Other Activities
Drip Art
We each got two crayons to create our own drip art in a machine that looks like this here.
Some Kind of Computer Activity
Kids Play Area
Other
What I love about the Crayola Experience
- Lots of kid-friendly activities (parents can do them with)
- It’s within a building
- Very easy area for the kids to walk around since everything is on one floor
- Can learn a ton about colors and how they work from the experience
I guess overall, while I loved how fun the activities are for the kids (and even adults) I expected them to be “bigger”. I found that most everything were in small doses:
- The crayon making was not really making a crayon from scratch. All the crayons are already in machines, you put in a coin then you have the option to type a name on a word on your crayon wrapper before the machine dispenses it to you.
- The wrapper already has the Crayola colors and other words written on it – you are not making a wrapper from scratch. Once the machine gives you the crayon and wrapper you can then wrap it using an old-fashioned crayon wrapper machine. The thing was so hard to push, too. My husband ended up helping another lady with the machine.
- The emoji crayons the kids made are super small, too – more like a quarter size
- The washable toy is small, bigger hands could barely hold it to color
- For the drip art, you only get to pick two crayons to make it. I guess I can understand that they are catering for lots of people in line so too many crayons will take a long time to complete the art.
- But to me, all the activities just seemed to be in small dozes.
It might be too much to do the activities in “larger” dozes or from scratch. Like the crayon making. I legit thought we were going to make a crayon from scratch and create our own words on the wrapper rather than pre-maid crayons you get to add a pre-made wrapper to. Either way, big or small, the activities were so much fun to do.
On the way out the mall there is a Crayola store you go through. This was a fun wall with all the fun colors named. Look how many colors there are.
But the price for the crayon is higher than what you would pay in stores like Walmart. Look at that – 1 pk crayon here is listed at $1.99 while at Walmart it’s 50 cents. Ha!
All in all, we really enjoyed the Crayola Experience. Just full of low-key hand-on learning activities to do with the kids there. It really was a nice break from all of the other hectic activities we did earlier in larger themed parks.
Have you ever been to Crayola? What did you think of what they have to offer? What was one of your favorite or least activities to do at Crayola? Would love to know your thoughts in the comments below.
