Jim Seida / NBC News

L-R: Gail and Dennis Serwick from Woodbridge, N.J., and their daughter Megan, 7 (front left) and Kim and Rick Van Liew from Randolph, N.J., and their sons Matthew, 11, (front middle) and Russell, 12 (front right), In London's Olympic Park Thursday.

LONDON – A day at the Olympics in one of the most expensive cities on the planet was never going to be cheap. But for a group of sports fans from New Jersey this "once in a lifetime experience" was well worth spending the equivalent of about $1,000 for a family of four.

Ticket prices for every event -- including the opening and closing ceremonies -- start at a symbolic GBP 20.12 ($32), but most seats cost considerably more, and getting access to smaller venues such as the 6,000-capacity velodrome has proved tough.

“It was so incredibly hard to get tickets,” said Gail Serwick, from Woodbridge, N.J., who eventually managed to secure seven seats in the aquatics center at $110 each thanks to relatives who live in her native Wales.

Slideshow: No tickets to the Olympics? Five London parks offer the next best thing

Around London, alternative Olympic viewing sites offer locals and tourists a cheaper, crowd-free version of the Games.

Launch slideshow

Five were for the women’s 10m platform diving finals on Thursday morning, while two were for synchronized swimming in the afternoon.

“The allocation on sale in Britain was higher so it was the only real way we could get tickets. We tried everything and got so many rejections before we got these. You could get cheaper but we didn’t want nosebleed seats where you can’t see anything because we wanted it to be a special occasion," Serwick said.

She traveled to London with her husband Dennis and daughter Megan, 7, and another family -- Rick and Kim Van Liew and their sons Russell, 12, and Matthew, 11, from Randolph, N.J.

Their Olympic day out started with a shopping blitz for souvenirs and merchandise including London 2012 T-shirts and sweatshirts for the group and family and friends at home.

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In total, Serwick and Kim Van Liew spent $907 in the official London 2012 store in Hyde Park near their hotel -- easy to do when a T-shirt costs $40.

Jim Seida / NBC News

Kim Van Liew and her friend Gail Serwick show off their tickets to synchronized swimming at London's Olympic Park, Thursday.

Then there is the cost of food and drink inside the Olympic Park, where sponsors Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Heineken control the prices. A Big Mac costs $4.20, a Big Mac Meal $6.70 and an individual tub of Caramel ice cream $3.90. For drinks, a 500ml (16.9 fl oz) Coke costs $3.60 while a pint (19.2 fl oz) of Heineken is $7.20.

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In total, the group spent $93, or $13.40 per head on lunch and snacks while enjoying the sprawling park between their two events.

The only cost they didn’t have to worry about was transport: Free one-day Oyster transit cards are included with all tickets.

“We got a bus then a train to get here,” Van Liew said. “Everyone was very helpful – everywhere you looked there was somebody on hand to help.”

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In total, their day at the Olympics cost $1,770 between seven -- equivalent to nearly $253 per head, or about $1,011 for a family of four. So was it worth it?

“I was very impressed, I think the tickets were good for the price,” Dennis Serwick said. “I’ve been to Wimbledon and Roland Garros and these Olympic tickets were better value. We had a good view of the action, didn’t need binoculars or anything.”

Read more from NBC News about the Olympics

Rick Van Liew said the tickets were equivalent to the price of seats to watch Major League Baseball at the Yankee’s stadium.  Indeed, tickets for an October home game against the Boston Red Sox on sale Friday ranged from $38 to $200.

“This is a once in a lifetime experience," Gail Serwick said, "and it’s hard to put an exact price on that."

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SYDNEY - Fast-food chain KFC has been ordered to pay $8.3 million (AUS$8 million) in damages to the family of an Australian girl who was left severely brain damaged and in a wheelchair after being poisoned by a chicken meal. 

In 2005, Monika Samaan, then aged seven, her parents and her brother were hospitalized with salmonella poisoning after eating a "Twister" chicken wrap at a KFC restaurant near Sydney. 

KFC, owned by Kentucky-based Yum! Brands, said it was a tragic case but was "deeply disappointed and surprised by the decision" and would appeal against it. 

It had denied being responsible for the girl’s illness, challenging her family's claims during a four-week trial.

Last week, a New South Wales Supreme Court judge ruled in favor of the family, saying KFC had breached its duty of care to the girl. On Friday, it awarded the family A$8 million in damages, as well as court costs. 

Coma
Australian media quoted their lawyer, George Vlahakis, as saying the girl's illness had "exhausted the very limited resources of the family". 

"The compensation ordered is very much needed," Vlahakis said. 

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that, during a four-week trial in 2010, Monika's father Amanwial Samaan said he and his wife Hanna, son Abanou and Monika all fell ill with vomiting and diarrhea after sharing the Twister.

Unlike Monika, who was in a coma for six months and in hospital for seven months, they recovered.

Monika took the court action through her father, the newspaper reported.

'Unsettling'
KFC's lawyer, Ian Barker, QC, argued during the trial that there "never was a shared Twister" because there was no sales data to prove the family purchased it.

"You did not tell anyone at the hospital, when you were there between October 27 and 29, that you had shared a KFC Twister that Monday," Barker said in court in July 2010.

However, it reported that the trial also heard of hygiene practices at the restaurant that the family’s barrister described as "disturbing and unsettling."

News site news.com.au reported that the girl’s grandmother had been the only member of the family not to have shared the Twister and was not taken ill.

Experts at Westmead Hospital found Monika, her parents and older brother had a common strain of salmonella in their stools, although Monika's case was very rare.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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