Prepare to be dazzled by The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze.

This mesmerizing, immersive experience is an outdoor walk among thousands of illuminated hand-carved pumpkins. Seeing these creative displays in person is truly one of those fantastic, autumn experiences that you need to witness. Photos, word of mouth hype, and even this post just don’t do this annual Halloween treat justice.

The thematic, jaw-dropping installations create a wonderful, family-friendly experience. It will keep the adrenaline pumping whether you experience the show at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration on Long Island or Van Cortlandt Manor in the Hudson Valley.

Our family visited the Long Island location. Here, you navigate the sometimes spooky, but generally tame foot paths past The Statue of Liberty, dinosaurs, a larger-than-life spiderweb, cemeteries, a pumpkin tunnel and sunflower fields all designed using intricately, hand-carved pumpkins.

Including our munching on apple cider donuts (unlike last year, the gift shop is open this time around), gazing at the exhibits took our family approximately 45 minutes to complete.

If you’ve been to The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze on Long Island before, this year you’ll see a few new displays: an 80-foot circus train, sea monster and an electrifying LED light-display on the barn. Our only negative comment is that we wish there were more of these new exhibits.

The key details for either Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze location:

ADVANCE TICKETS REQUIRED

• Admission is by timed ticket entry. This ensures crowds are controlled and everyone is socially distanced. Do not show up at the venue to buy tickets; you will be turned away.
• Tickets sell out fast! Buy now even if you plan to go later. The experience is open through Nov. 7.
• Ticket prices range from $40 to $48 per person.
• Parking is free.

IT’S OUTDOORS

• Blaze is a self-guided, touch-free experience set on the beautiful grounds of historic, Old Bethpage Village Restoration (Old Bethpage, Long Island) and Van Cortlandt Manor (Croton-on-the-Hudson in Westchester County).
• The outdoor gift shop includes cider donuts, popcorn, light-up necklaces and more.

MASK POLICY

• Required for unvaccinated visitors.
• Encouraged for vaccinated visitors.

Disclaimer: NYC Dads Group received complimentary tickets in exchange for a review. Thoughts, comments, and opinions have not been swayed by the free tickets. All photos: Somerfeld family.

Editor’s Note: Congratulations to writer Dan Zevin, a Westchester County-via-Brooklyn at-home dad, for recently winning the prestigious 2013 Thurber Prize for American Humor for his hilarious coming-of-middle-age book “Dan Gets a Minivan.” Dan, who I must disclose is my curly-haired doppelganger, writes with hilarity about leaving his “dudeness” behind to deal with the day-to-day issues of fatherhood. To celebrate, I thought you might enjoy this interview I did with Dan last year for DadCentric. – Kevin McKeever

+ + +

Any doubts about writer Dan Zevin and his non-street cred disappeared shortly after he answered his phone.

“Could you give me a call back in about 15 minutes?” he said apologetically. “That’s when the play date leaves.”

Zevin, 48, a former columnist for a Boston alternative weekly and an occasional contributor to The New York Times’ “Sunday Review” section, really is an at-home dad.

His new book, Dan Gets a Minivan, tackles his indoctrination into our small but growing niche-marketing demographic. His topics may seem well worn (date night, playground etiquette, the inevitable trip to a Disney theme park and aforementioned vehicle purchase) but he infuses each with a wholly original wit and flair. It’s the antidote for anyone worried the transition from being career-driven to driving a Dodge Caravan signals the end.

Rather, as he found, it’s the start of accepting a new higher purpose.

“After the kids came I felt like everything was shrinking. I felt like our house was shrinking, my brain was shrinking,” Zevin said. “I realized we were just outgrowing everything. The minivan felt like a metaphor for outgrowing our old lives.”

Subtitled Life at the Intersection of Dude and Dad, his book recounts the journey through those crossroads to the Promised Land — in his case this is a home in the suburbs of Westchester County, N.Y. He takes side trips to court for a leash-less dog and a prescription-enhanced rehabilitation for a torn ACL, among others, but mostly it’s a humorous coming to terms with the need to remake one’s self during the medical condition known as “middle-age onset parenthood.”

The transformation occurred as Zevin tried to simultaneously write from his hip but tiny townhouse in Brooklyn and tend to his young kids while his wife continued her successful career as a Manhattan publishing executive.

“It’s not that I’ve lost ambition, it’s just that my ambitions have evolved, shall we say,” he writes in what we at-home parents will agree is the book’s most relatable (and funniest) chapter, “On No Longer Giving a Shit.” “Twenty years ago, it was my ambition to win a Pulitzer Prize. Today, it is my ambition to get a reclining chair for the living room. And not just any reclining chair. This chair needs to recline and swivel. …

“See, I made a choice to stop giving a shit. And now, I’m empowered by indifference.”

Zevin isn’t indifferent about raising his children, now 9 and 6, just probably more laid back about it than many of his female counterparts -– and for good reason.

“There are no role models for us. The stay-at-home dad model is new,” he said. “We’re just figuring it out as we go. Women, our wives, have generations of role models to live up to.”

Still, he’s a man serious enough about the job to take a crash course on playing the guitar so he could serenade his tots just like his former Brooklyn neighbor, children’s music rock god Dan Zanes. “My dream is to get him to play at one my readings. Just once,” Zevin said.

Meanwhile, he’d be happy just to become the spitting image of his dad, a familiar-quotations spouting New Jersey gynecologist. Zevin experienced this epiphany (which he also writes about in the book) somewhere between the boatload of bananas and cut-rate coffins they saw together during a bonding trip to a discount shopping mart.

“I can only hope to turn into my father. He is the consummate provider. The place that he goes to provide is Costco,” Zevin said. “He’s just got it to together. That trip to Costco – maybe that was my version of the father-son fishing trip. We went to the wholesale club instead of the golf club. Now I am an ‘executive member’ of Costco. I can get in an hour earlier than everyone else.”

While he said “never specifically set out to write about fatherhood” just “a collection of funny stories written by a dad,” Zevin said he is most surprised by –- and sounds most proud of –- the new identity being a parent brings with it.

“I used to be named Dan, and now I’m named ‘Leo and Josie’s dad,'” he said. “You merge. You become part of a new team. It’s good.”

Just like his book.

My family and I attended the special members-only preview of Legoland Discovery Center Westchester in Ridge Hill, N.Y., a much-anticipated event in our household. (There are 10 Legoland Discovery Centers worldwide, five in the United States, and this is the first in the Northeast.) Legoland Discovery Center Westchester opens officially on March 27.

Legoland Discovery Center Westchester review

After you enter, Legoland Discovery Center Westchester starts with a photo opportunity. You can get your picture taken as a family, and later they give you the option to buy the photo. An automatic door then opens into a factory for a hands-on exhibit/guided tour about how they make Legos. Your kid can push some buttons, crank a lever, and it will seem as if you were manufacturing some Legos.

From there you move into a “Save the Princess” moving/shooting ride. If you’ve been to Disney, it’s very similar to the Toy Story Shoot the Zorg ride. It’s pretty fun, and unlike Disney, this has some video game elements as well. (As to be expected, my wife got the high score! She’s a great shot.)

From there you move to the model area. Several architectural models of New York sites are displayed. It is very impressive.

Some of the highlights include: a Yankee Stadium pinball machine, where the Yankees are forever playing the Mets; The Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, St. Peter’s Cathedral, the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park, and Times Square. Many of New York’s architectural landmarks are preserved entirely in Legos.

One weird part of this is that things are conflated. The MetLife building is on top of Grand Central Terminal. The Guggenheim, Met and the Natural History Planetarium are all right next to each other. And there’s even a Lego version of the Ridge Hill Mall. Even conflated, the buildings are astounding, especially the working subway and the floating police boats.

Also very cool: Every 20 minutes or so it becomes night time, and fireworks explode over the Statue of Liberty, and the buildings all light up. It’s really quite beautiful. Many of the exhibits are interactive. For example, you press a button to make the subway work.

From there you move to the main area of Legoland Discovery Center Westchester. They have the Legoland Fire Academy, which is a play structure/maze. They have the Legoland Master Builders Academy, where you can go for Lego building lessons. They have a car building/racing area with places to build cars and then also test them. You can even go to a movie cinema where they show 4D Lego Movies (the fourth dimension is interactivity — you might get a little wet, or snowed on). You can also take a trip on Merlin’s Apprentice Ride — an indoor flying ride that you pedal to go up and down on as it goes around. Younger kids will love the Duplo area and Lego Friends area.

The center also contains a cafeteria for snacks and meals, and a couple of birthday party rooms to rent for events. As you exit, you pass through a Lego Store, also accessible without going through the LDC. You can buy all sorts of Lego kits and all things Lego here.

A COUPLE OF LEGOLAND SUGGESTIONS                                                    

All in all, there was a lot to love about Legoland Discovery Center Westchester, especially if your kid is crazy for Legos. And we recommend it as an experience! However, there were some challenges at this preview. Perhaps I’m sensitive to this, mainly because I’m a “Disneyphile,” and Disney sets the experience bar extremely high.

Here’s a few things that I hope they can fix or improve so that instead of a 7, the experience is a 9 or 10. 

• BATHROOMS — The Legoland Discovery Center Westchester bathrooms are well-designed, but with one fatal flaw.  No kid-sized sinks! In a place that caters almost exclusively to kids, there is no excuse not to have kid-friendly plumbing. They need to get some step stools, pronto.
• SIGNAGE — Uneven and all over the place. The sign explaining that kids had to be a certain height to ride the Merlin’s Apprentice Ride was very far away from the actual ride. What was even worse is that the ride is a two-person ride, and kids under 4 feet have to be accompanied by an adult.  A woman that we saw with three kids waited 15 minutes for the ride, only to find out that her two kids were too young to ride by themselves and that they couldn’t all ride together because she would have to leave one of the kids on the ground while she rode with the other kid. Fortunately, we saw the situation, and my wife volunteered me to ride with the extra kid. But she would have had a VERY BAD experience if we hadn’t been able to help out.
• STAFFING — Legoland Discovery Center Westchester did not have enough staff in the right places. The Lego Racers Build and Test area had nobody helping out. They were also very short on parts and wheels. You’d think with 10 of these worldwide, they’d have their staffing/Lego parts needs down to a science, but apparently not. Also, the guy who gave the factory tour (our first official experience of Legoland) didn’t have a great personality. As he was leading the tour, he was just kind of ineffectual. That first guy should be their best and most personable worker.
• RETAIL FAIL — I went on Friday to redeem our passes, and the two clerks were not very familiar with the retail computer system. They couldn’t restart or sign into their computers. Then they had a number of technical malfunctions they had no idea how to fix. Worse, they didn’t have manuals or cheat sheets on how to use their computers. It took them half an hour to figure it out. On Sunday, the day of our visit, the place wasn’t that crowded, but the waits were long as they tried to figure out how to get people in the door. They will figure it out, but once again, they have 10 venues already.  These problems should already be solved!

There were a few other things that I could mention, but I don’t want to give people the wrong impression (and I’m cognizant that this was the shakedown, and 3 months from now, most of these logistical problems could be solved). Legoland Discovery Center Westchester was a fun experience and we expect to be back soon. It’s just that, compared to DisneyWorld or even nearby Sesame Place, these guys don’t have their act together yet.