'It's humongous': World's largest rubber duck amazes crowd at Idlewild park

When Katie Luttner and her two grandchildren approached the giant, bright yellow duck through the trees at Idlewild & SoakZone on Friday, they were in awe.

“I’ve never seen it before, and I didn’t realize how huge it is,” she said. “(It’s) bigger than what I expected.”

The “World’s Largest Rubber Duck” — a six-story inflatable duck — is making a home at Ligonier Township’s popular family amusement park for the weekend.

Luttner of Latrobe said her grandchildren, Oakleigh, 4, and Ford, 1, of Greensburg, were amazed at the sight. It was their first stop when they arrived at the park.

“I have season passes, so we kind of live at Idlewild all summer long,” she said. “We had to come see the duck.”

When the Luttners arrived at Idlewild on Friday morning, they said, they saw more cars than usual at that time of day.

“I think it brings a lot of people that aren’t local from the area,” Luttner said. “It brings more revenue to the community.”

Similar to the Luttners and others Friday morning, Renea Hunker made a beeline for the giant duck as soon as she stepped foot in Idlewild.

“Everybody’s flocking over here first to get to see the big duck — they just keep getting pictures,” said Hunker, 56, of Connellsville. “They seem like they are coming right over here.”

At first, she noticed only the baby duck positioned next to Mama Duck.

“It’s a sight to see — it really is,” Hunker said. “We’ve never seen anything like this. … It’s very cool.”

A little after 11 a.m., she observed that there weren’t too many people by the giant duck, but she expected the crowd to grow as the day went on. Her grandchildren will be coming to see it this weekend, too.

Hunker came to Idlewild on Friday with her friend, Carla, who she said was “adamant” about seeing the duck.

Land display preferred

Jeff Croushore, director of marketing at Idlewild & SoakZone, explained an exploration of the cost of bringing the giant duck to the amusement park showed it’s more expensive to put it on water — by a lot.

“We thought the land display at the ball field would be a lot more interactive,” he said. “Families can get really up close and personal with the duck.”

Croushore discovered the duck could be booked after Raging Waters Los Angeles, a sister park of Idlewild, booked it last summer.

“When I found out you can book the duck for personal appearances, I put that on my list for this summer because I knew it would play very well in Western Pennsylvania,” he said. “It has been a really great crowd today for so far.”

To keep the duck at the park for a weekend, Croushore said, it cost approximately $10,000. He and his marketing team got special button-up shirts with ducks to wear this weekend for the special occasion.

“We thought it was time to bring it back to the families of Western Pennsylvania, and so far, people are really enjoying it.”

Daisy Scarborough, Madison Hoffman, 12, and Liv Stritmatter of Greensburg saw on the news a few weeks ago that the giant duck was coming to Idlewild, and they knew they had to go.

“It’s really big, and I’ve never seen one like that,” said Scarborough, 11. “The duck’s head is huge, the duck is huge. The baby’s adorable.”

Alongside Mama Duck, named Henrietta, is a 10-foot baby duck named Timmy. Croushore said Timmy will be around the entire weekend as well, and people have been taking photos with the baby, too.

“The kids are smiling, and I think it’s … a great memory to see it again,” he said.

Stritmatter, 12, said her reaction to the duck was “it’s humongous.”

“It’s a giant duck — who wouldn’t (want to see it)?” she said.

Scarborough said she was kind of surprised by the duck being on land, as well as the somewhat small crowd Friday morning, which was the duck’s opening day.

“I thought there was going to be more people, but there’s still a lot,” she said. “You would think it was going to be in the water.”

Jase Wiarda, director of operations for World’s Largest Rubber Duck, said the first duck was able to go only on the water, but the duck at Idlewild can be on either land or water because it has a special base.

“This is technically a duck 2.0,” he said. “What’s nice about being on land is you can have it at a lot more places, and it’s a lot cheaper. It’s really expensive to put it on water — you need a crane and a tugboat and everything else.”

Wiarda said the giant duck was set up Thursday, and Croushore said it takes about an hour and 15 minutes to inflate. It’s deflated every night in case of bad weather, Wiarda said.

The duck travels all across the United States every year and sometimes to Canada, he said.

“We just have a really high demand, and it’s kind of just whatever weekends line up with where we are to kind of create a little bit of a tour,” Wiarda said. “There’s some places that hire us every year.”

Though Croushore doesn’t know specific numbers as of yet, he believes people showed up earlier than normal Friday to Idlewild.

“Normally, it’s a steady buildup for our daily crowd, but a lot of people came early,” he said. “I think they want to enjoy the duck and then go ride all the rides and attractions … and make a whole day of it.”