With a recent afternoon to myself I decided to take a quick trip down to Camden New Jersey to check out a piece of history I’ve been wanting to check out for a long time.  After about a 45 minute drive south on 295 I arrived at the recently renovated Camden Waterfront that includes the Adventure Aquarium, the Camden Riversharks minor league baseball team, and the Children’s Garden.  But what I was here for was the huge battleship The USS New Jersey also knows as the “Big J”.

The USS New Jersey (BB-62) is an Iowa-Class Battleship.  It’s 887 feet (270.54 meters) in length, has a beam (width) of 108.2 feet (33.0 meters), a displacement of 58,000 tons, and had a crew of over 1,900 sailors.  It was launched in 1942 and served in World War II, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, and the Lebanese Civil War.  The battleship was decommissioned for the final time in 1991 after serving a total of 21 years in the active fleet.  In 2000 it was announced that the USS New Jersey would become a museum located at its final resting place on the Camden Waterfront.

Whew, now with all technical background out of the way let me say this is really an amazing ship (Sorry in advance as I’ll probably say that a few more times).  Before I actually went aboard there was a penny machine available right outside the gift shop on the dock.  You do not need to pay any admission to use the machine, but if you make the trip here I would highly recommend spending the money and taking the tour.

As you would assume the designs on the pennies incorporate the battleship in them.  The machine as shown above is a 4 design hand crank model.

The designs include:  Battleship New Jersey The Big “J”, BB-62 Firepower for Freedom Shield, United States Navy emblem, WWII / Korea / Vietnam.

With the pennies in my pocket I was ready to climb aboard the ship.  There are  two different tours you can take.  There is a self guided tour which I opted for just due to a limited amount of time I had available that afternoon.  But there is a guided tour available which is usually given by a very knowledgeable Veteran which gives a lot of personal insight of what it was like on the Battleship.

The self guided tour is done by following a special colored light painted on the deck of the ship and takes you in through all the different areas of the ship.  Each area has a ton of information and historical pictures available to give you more details about what it was like on board.

In the crew quarters you get a sense of how the more than 1,900 sailors were all packed into this ship.  It really is a huge floating city, but was hard to imagine that many people on all at once.  Luckily I was only there with about 20 other people and it was still pretty cramped walking through the different areas.

Above is a picture of the mess deck that fed the crew.  As you can see there was very little space that wasn’t used for some purpose.

Last up was the Captains in port quarters.  This was apparently mostly used for entertaining purposes, but gives a very interesting perspective of life on the USS New Jersey.  After my experience here I really want to head into New York and check out the USS Intrepid.  I may even come back and take the guided tour just to get some more details about what it was like to serve on this amazing Battleship.

A couple of days before July 4th I had taken a day off from work to stay at home with my daughter Hanna.  I had contemplated just staying in the house but with the crappy weather we have been having in Jersey I figured it was a good opportunity to get outside and visit someplace we hadn’t been to in a while.

As I do with most trips I plan I checked out pennycollector.com to see where some new penny machines may be located that needed to be pressed.  I have visited and acquired pretty much every penny machine available in the state, but ever now and then new machines do pop up and this was no different.  I saw that Six Flags Great Adventure had 2 new machines.  A few years ago I would visit Six Flags a few times a year trying to update the online records of the penny machines and which were still active, their current locations and any changes.  Unfortunately about 2 years ago all the machines were taken away and the last time I had checked there were still none available.  So needless to say I was excited to see some new machines had made their way back on stage.

Another new attraction at this Six Flags is their Safari Off Road Adventure.  They used to have a safari that you could drive through in your own car and the animals would come over for an up close and personal visit.

This was another attraction that closed a few years ago, but has recently reopened with a slight change to how you experience it.  Now you get in a large open view jeep style vehicle and there is a driver and separate guide that take you through the safari .  I had heard that this was a pretty popular attraction so we decided to head here as soon as the park opened.

  

The entire trip through the Safari takes about 40-45 minutes.  There is a stop in the middle of the trip where your dropped off at the Camp Aventura where there are some smaller animals you can interactive with.  They boast over 1,200 animals on the Safari and there is quite the variety.  The guide was very knowledgeable and more than happy to answer any questions we had along the way.

Once the Safari was over and we were back in the them park we began wondering around checking out the huge (and crazy) roller coasters and other thrill rides they have.  With Hanna being only 2 we were on the look out for some more timid rides.  As we headed out of the Frontier Adventures area of the park we came across the first penny machine.

The machine worked perfectly, well I should mention that I rolled one design short but that was completely as user error.  Luckily I had some extra coins on hand and pressed it again without any issue.  Since this machine was the closes to the Safari it was no surprise that the designs were inspired by the latest attraction: Safari Off Road Adventure was listed on all four designs which also included the Safari Jeep & Giraffe, an Elephant, a rhinoceros, and a Zebra.

We continued wandering around the park and got to checked out some shows and plenty of rides.  Hanna really had a great time on the carousel which is her absolute favorite.  We must have gone on that about 5 times.

She even got to spend some time with some friends I hadn’t seen since I was a kid.

Porky Pig and Marvin Martian, who doesn’t love these two characters.  There was no line and Hanna was able to spend quite a bit of time with them and I was amazed at how comfortable she was with them.  I don’t even know if they play Looney Tunes cartoons on TV, but she loved them anyways and is always looking to make new friends.

After our long day at the park we decided to start heading towards the exit.  I made sure to save the massive gift shop until the end so I didn’t have to carry any souvenirs around all day.  This was also where we found the second penny machine.

  

The machine was located outside the Looney Tunes Shoppe and the “M”Porium Candy Store.  As with the other machine this one worked perfectly and I made sure to line up my requested designs properly before turning the handle.

The designs at machine were really nice.  I’m not a huge roller coaster fan but these do capture the big thrill rides available at this location.  The designs included: Six Flags Logo Jackson NJ, Nitro, El Toro and Zumanjaro Drop of Doom / Kingda Ka.

We left the park completely exhausted and with a pocket full of new pressed pennies.  I think Hanna fell asleep about 10 seconds after I had her strapped in the car seat.  Luckily we didn’t have a long ride home but it was a lot of fun.  I remember years ago when Six Flags had over 20 penny machines available, and now they only have 2.  But 2 is definitely better than none.  Maybe if I keep my fingers crossed there will be more coming in the near future.

Unfortunately New Jersey’s been hit with a lot of rain and really crappy weather of late.  It has made it harder and harder to get out and press new penny machines especially when most are located outdoors, but I was determined to try.

This past weekend we decided to test out luck and headed down towards Atlantic City to a place called Storybook Land located in Egg Harbor Township.  This is a place that a lot of people have been too during their childhood, and just seems to have been around forever.  From our house it took about an hour and a half to get there, and it rained the entire drive.  However I guess my karma has been in good standing order and mother nature decided to clear things up for a few hours to let check this place out.

The main building that greets you when you arrive is designed to look like a castle.  This does include the ticket purchasing area, as well as the gift shop when you leave.  Not sure if you can tell by the above picture but there were only about 5 cars in the parking lot when we showed up.  This turned out to work in our favor as all the rides were operational, but with only a handful of people in the park there were no lines for anything.

We headed in through the main entrance and just started wondering.  Oh did I mention there was a penny machine here?  I’ll review that in more detail shortly.  This cute little park is designed after all the classic mother goose nursery rhymes, and other childhood favorites like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Alice in Wonderland, Moby Dick, and a whole lot more.  There were plenty of rides for the kids to go on, and a lot of great detail all over the place.  They also had animals like sheep and goats that could be petted and fed.

   

Hanna is still a little young to know some of the stories but the nursery rhymes she was all about. The park also has some character cutouts that make for some cute pictures.  There was also an area that magically transports you to the north pole.

After wandering around for a while we needed to fuel up.  Towards the entrance of the park is The Dining Depot.  This has your classic theme park food, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pizza, chicken fingers and fries, etc.  We ordered lunch and while waiting for it I took the opportunity to look for the penny machine that was located here, but came up empty.  I asked the employee’s if they knew whether the machine was located anywhere else in the park or if it was gone completely and they didn’t know.  Once we had finished eating our lunch we wandered around the park again checking out every little attraction and bathroom location we came across trying to find the machine.  With everyone starting to get tired we headed back towards the main entrance and headed through the gift shop that lead to the parking lot.  This way my last hope but it wasn’t located here either.  I asked another employee if they knew about the machine but was only told it has been taken away for repairs and didn’t know if it would be coming back.

Even though I was unable to acquire the pennies here it was still a nice outing for the family.  Truth be told I had actually stopped in to this park in 2013 on my way to Atlantic City.  At that time the lady running the ticket counter let me run in without a ticket to use the machine without having to buy a ticket.

As I mentioned back when I had visited originally the machine was located in the Dining Depot right by the queue you wait in to order food.

The 4 designs include: Humpty Dumpty, Mother Goose, a Carousel Horse, and the Storybook Land Train.

As with machines that get removed from a location, I always hope it’s just to have the designs updated and not removed permanently.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but for now if you visit Storybook Land it will have to be just for the nursery rhymes!

Memorial Day weekend what a wonderful weekend it was.  Who can complain about having an extra long weekend.  Not to mention living in Jersey you are never more than 30 minutes away from a beach.  Usually the Jersey shore gets really crazy on the Sunday before Memorial Day weekend so we decided to go and check it out on Saturday.  This usually is a great day to go as the crowds aren’t too crazy, but everything is open and waiting for visitors.  As I mentioned there are numerous beaches to choose from up and down the coast but we decided to check out Seaside Heights.

For those of you that might not know Seaside Heights was one of the many areas that was hit hard during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.  There is a pretty memorable picture of the Pier falling into the Atlantic ocean, and a roller coaster that appears to be floating among the ways.

In the years since the boardwalk has been rebuilt and the pier show above has been put back together.  It’s call the Casino Pier and was in full swing when we arrived.  It was a beautiful day but the breeze off the ocean made it a little chilly.

  

We took our time walking up and down the boardwalk and had to make a stop so Hanna could try her first deep-fried Oreo.  Not sure if you have ever tried one but wow you must.  I’m not a deep-fried food fan usually, but these are the exception to that.

After filling up on the Oreos we headed back towards Casino Pier and into the Arcade.  All the usual boardwalk games are in here including our personal favorite skee ball.  There was a vintage carousel inside that Hanna and I took a spin on.

We wandered around the arcade see what else they had when I finally came across the one penny machine located here.  This machine seems to move each time I visit, but had the same designs from previous years.

The machine had 3 designs: A Carousel Horse, A Sand Artist, and a Sand Castle.  All three designs said Casino Pier and Seaside Heights, New Jersey displayed.  Here’s a close up of the marquee sign.

I pressed the coins to update the ones I already had in my collection.  The machine pressed the designs nicely and they only had a bit of a tail at the end.

By this time we were ready to head home.  Due to the breeze off the water it was too cold for us to get onto the beach or water.  We decided to save that for a trip later on in the summer.  It was a nice quick trip to mark the official beginning of summer at the Jersey Shore.

I had decided to surprise my wife with a special little weekend trip for our upcoming wedding anniversary.  A few different ideas had come and gone, and then I thought of a place we hadn’t been to in quite a while.

Atlantic City is only a about an hour and a half away from our house, and we aren’t huge gamblers but it does make for a nice (not to far from home) getaway.  I had booked a room at Caesar’s with a gorgeous ocean view, but we had places to go and things to see.  Our dinner reservations weren’t until later in the evening so we decided to talk a walk along the boardwalk.  This obviously isn’t peak beach season in Jersey so most of the stands and merchants along the boardwalk were closed, but spending time together was really the main reason we were there.  There are many amazing reasons I love my wife and one of them that always surprises me is her understanding of my pressed coin obsession.  While we walked along the boardwalk we stopped near the Taj Mahal casino and all of a sudden my wife said “Hey isn’t that ta penny machine?”  I knew there were some machines in AC which I had collected years past and was caught off guard that there were new machines and new designs.  Luckily I always carry extra change just for these type of encounters.

Across the boardwalk from the Taj Mahal is the famous Steel Pier.  During the summer season this place is packed with people riding classic carnival style rides and playing all the usual games to try to win an oversized stuffed animal.  During out visit unfortunately the pier was closed and covered in nice layer of snow.  Lucky for me they had pulled the penny machine out and it was located right on the boardwalk.  My cold hands fumbled with the change in my pocket but I managed to get what I needed and quickly pressed the coins.

The designs all included four separate images of the steel pier.  As you can see from the image above two of the designs pressed fine, but the other two were rolling a little short.  I don’t know if this was due to the cold weather or just over use, but hopefully the machine will get fixed before the busy summer season.

We headed back towards our hotel and headed into a mall type building that extends out over the water on a long indoor pier call the Pier Shops.  This is part of the Caesar’s resort and includes a lot of high-end stores which makes for some fund window shopping.  However for the rest of use non-high rollers there are some other stores with a family friendly budget.

First was a store called It’s Sugar.  This is exactly as the name suggest and is a very big candy store with every kind of candy you can possibly imagine.  As we wandered through this candy land I located their penny machine.  This was a machine I had previously collected and checked my online database to verify that the designs hadn’t change.

Since I didn’t press any new coins I can’t vouch for how it was pressing, but I know that the last time I used the machine it worked perfectly.  The designs are all candy related.  There was a Gum ball machine, a Chocolate Bar, and Airplane and a Lollipop.  All the designs say Atlantic City and It’s Sugar.

After filling up on some much needed sugar we continued walking through the mall and towards the end of the pier there was a round sitting area with an elevator.  As we sat down for a quick rest my wife pointed out another penny machine next to the elevator.  I walked over and pressed the set.

These designs were really cool.  There was the Atlantic City Boardwalk, Caesar’s Resort, an I Love AC poker chip, and a stack of money saying “Show me the money”.  As I rolled these designs I noticed the bottom of the penny machine cabinet said Machine #2, which meant …. There was another machine here somewhere.

As I walked back to get my wife she knows me so well that I guess the look on my face said it all.  She said “Is there another machine in here?”  I smiles and we were on our way to the second level.  Thankfully the machine was beside the elevator as we got out on the second floor.  I pressed the pennies and we were on our way back towards the boardwalk.

 

 The coins had designs of the Atlantic City skyline, a pot of coins, the Beach Patrol, and dice.  As we headed out of the Pier Shops we got back on the boardwalk we noticed a familiar sign.  We walked a little further down the boardwalk and went inside the Rainforest Cafe.

We always like to go into these locations whenever we come across them.  With our dinner reservation quickly approaching we weren’t there to eat but to browse the gift shop and the animatronic animals.  There was a penny machine near the entrance which I checked the designs and saw that they too hadn’t changed since the last time I was there.

These designs are classic Rainforest Cafe.  If you have pressed any of their designs they are all pretty similar but one unique thing is they always list the location.  These all said Atlantic City on them and had designs of different animals including a Crocodile with a Slot machine, a Gorilla flying a plane, a tree frog and a roulette wheel.

We headed back out to the boardwalk for one last look at the water and the bright blue sky before we headed back to our hotel to get changed for dinner.

It was cold out and the beach looked funny with patches of snow on it.  But this was turning into another great trip with my beautiful wife to celebrate another wonderful year together.  We did make our dinner reservation and enjoyed the rest of our stay in Atlantic City.  To be honest it’s not quite what it used to be with some of the casinos no longer open, but you can’t beat the Jersey shore even it was technically still winter.

Another weekend was upon us and we wanted to take our daughter out again to someplace we hadn’t been to in a while.  She has recently been really into identifying different animals from her picture books, TV shows and iPad games.  If it was warmer out we would probably have checked out a zoo, but with a few inches of snowfall last week we decided to find something indoors.  Luckily we have a really great place about an hour south from our house in Camden.  Now Camden is not the most picturesque place to visit, but right by the waterfront has been cleaned up and is really nice to visit.  During past trips we have visited the U.S.S. New Jersey Battleship, and even Campbell’s Field which is home to a minor league baseball team.  But this trip was all about the Adventure Aquarium.

The Aquarium sits right along the Delaware River and you can see right over into downtown Philadelphia on a nice day.  Saturday ended up being a great day to visit, with the recent snow there weren’t a lot of people there and it made for a very enjoyable and somewhat relaxing visit.

During the month of January 2015 they had a new exhibit on display titled “Dinosaurs of the Deep”.  We made sure to check this out and Hanna really liked the “Touch a Dinosaur” lagoon which was really just a place to check out horseshoe crabs but was still a cool thing to see.  They also have a Stingray exhibit that you can also touch, they swim right up to the sides and as long as you use the correct technique you can touch them without harming them.

Hopefully you have realized by now that if I’m posting about the trip you know there had to be penny machines and this is no different.  We had visited the aquarium a few years ago and I had picked up all of the 16 designs at that time.  Unfortunately the designs were still the same during this visit but the machines are always moved around to different locations.  I decided to press another set because I never know when someone may need a them for their collection.

After we were done with the petting areas we headed upstairs to the Kids Zone where Hanna was in heaven.  There were lots of things for the kids to run around, climb on, and make a lot of noise with.  Hanna found this metal dome that had a drum stick attached to it that she could beat to her heart’s content.  While I stood by filming her first public performance I saw the first penny machine out of the corner of my eye.  Once Hanna finished and very cutely handed the drum stick to the next little girl in line (I was so proud), I gently nudged her towards the penny machine.  Now she is still only about 2 1/2 so she hasn’t caught the penny collecting bug, but my wife kept her occupied while I pressed the first set of coins.

First off I’ll say that all the machines at the Aquarium worked perfectly and rolled great designs.  My family are huge zoo and aquarium fans so these designs I have seen at other locations, but they do have the Adventure Aquarium logo printed on each which makes them a little more unique.  The first machine has 4 designs: a Seal, a Penguin, a Tuna and Piranha.

The Kid zone continued with a frog section, jelly fish, and another shallow touch tank with some pretty large star fish that Hanna almost pulled right out of the tank to take home.  We then wandered back downstairs and checked out the Shipwrecked section.  This is a really unique area that makes it look like you are under the water with boat bottoms hanging from the ceiling and there are aquarium exhibits all along a winding hallway with all the usual underwater creatures.  Eventually the hallways opens up into a large stadium style room with a huge glass windowing looking into the massive center tank.  This tank contains a huge sea turtle, sharks, sting rays, and lots of fish all living together.  My wife and Hanna sat down to watch the show while I slowly headed towards the second penny machine located at the back of the room.

This machine included designs of a Tropical Bird, an Octopus, a Puffer fish, and a Parrot.  After the watching the fish swimming around and wondering how the sharks don’t just eat all the other fish we continued on to the next area.

Hippo Haven was a new area we had not seen the last time we had visited.  They had two large hippos in this very interesting area that had two different viewing areas, one above water and one below.  After the hippos was another large tank that contains many different types of sharks.  Another cool section we walked through was the Shark Tunnel where you get to walk through the tank with the sharks swimming all around the glass tunnel.  This seems to be a popular attraction at most aquariums now a days as I’ve seen this a few times before but it’s still a great way to see these amazing sharks.

Unfortunately once we had finished with the shark area we ended up at the Aquarium Gift Shop where most attractions end.  Hanna immediately ran off to check out all the stuffed animals and other toys on display to try to figure out what she would want as a souvenir.  While she shopped with her mother I found the third penny machine right by the entrance to the gift shop.

These designs were of a Hippo, Flamingo, Porcupine and Alligator (maybe a Crocodile I can never tell).  Once I was done with this machine I knew there was one more and started to think back as to whether we had skipped any areas because I couldn’t remember missing a machine. After walking around the gift shop Hanna had decided on a stuffed Mermaid which she shed a few tears before finally convincing us this was a must have purchase.  We waited in the check out line and as I was paying for the Mermaid I saw the fourth penny machine right by the exit to the gift shop.  After the Mermaid was adopted into our family I walked with my wife and Hanna over to the machine and pressed the final set of pennies.

This machine included designs of a Stingray, Longnose Saw Shark, Sea Turtle and Shark.  We left the gift shop and headed back towards the lockers where we had left our coats before heading home.

I figured I should mention that the aquarium also had 2 medallion machines available with 4 designs each.  I don’t usually collect these but did take some pictures of the designs in case anyone was interested in seeing what they had.

The medallions are also a little more expensive.  I believe they are $3 each or 2 for $5.  They look pretty nice but the last thing I need is something else to collect.

The trip was a huge success and Hanna had a great time.  We got to see a lot of great sea creatures, and even some “dinosaurs”.  As with most places we will always be back and maybe by then they will have updated the penny designs.