Safari Land

After last week’s trip to Go Bananas we set out to see if any of the other indoor amusement parks set the bar higher. Though spring is around the corner, and we actually spent a decent time outside this weekend, it looks like indoor activities are going to be around for several more weeks. This weekend we went to Safari Land in Villa Park. Safari Land is located west of where 294 meets North Avenue. There is no admission to get in, but then you have to figure out how to pay for the rides, games and bowling. Figuring this out is easier than calculus, but not by much. You can buy a wristband for $20 which lets you go non-stop on all of the rides and the climbing maze, but you have to make sure your kid will go on enough rides to make it worthwhile. The rides are about $3-4 a piece and the climbing maze is all you can climb for $4. You may want to go a la carte the first time to see what your kids like before plopping down 20 bones a kid for the day.

Safari Land is extremely inviting from the outside. Our kid went absolutely crazy as we pulled into the parking lot with life size giraffes and elephants mounted outside of the venue. Inside is a whirlwind of activity with rides, bowling, video games, and screaming kids. In general, this is a great place for kids in about the 5-9 year old category. Or at least those that are 44″ tall. If you are 44″ you can go on the go-carts and the other rides. Adults can accompany kids under 36″ on the roller coaster and the tilt-a-whirl, but they can’t go on the go-carts at all. The day we were there, all of the parties were for kids that were at least 5 years old. The roller coaster and the tilt-a-whirl are great rides, but were probably a little too fast and wild for my 3 year old. Older kids were having a blast, though. The go carts looked pretty fast and fun on the indoor track. If your kid is coordinated enough to handle the pedals and the steering, the go carts are a ton of fun.

For small children there is a merry-go-round and arcade rides, some of which are a Ferrari, horse, taxi cab, construction roller, and a rocket ship. For 50 cents, the ride moves back and forward for about a minute. Smaller kids seemed to like it but I kept having to go get tokens every 5 minutes. I must have done $7 of one minute rides. To get your money’s worth, try the rides with two kids like the Ferrari and the taxi cab.

The video games all need a decent amount of eye hand coordination. They have the wave runner, motorcycles, soccer, karate, and gun games. There were not a lot of video games for kids under 4, but it was a field day if you had the coordination for the other games. I, of course, played several of the gun games and had a blast.

The climbing maze was probably the only real disappointment. There was a pretty fun net to climb up to the second story, but once on the second story, there is no more climbing to do. Just walking on ropes. There are a couple of tunnels and a slide to go down, but this is only a passable climbing maze. To date, our favorite climbing mazes are the following:
1. Monkey Island (Melrose Park)
2. Exploratorium (Skokie)
3. Go Bananas (Norridge)

The bowling was the best part. You get bright green, yellow, and orange shoes which the black lights make even brighter and the alleys are all neon disco with flashing lights. Its $6 a person for unlimited bowling which is not such a bad deal if you have a few people. They had balls as light as 6 pounds for the kids and the electronic scoring keeps track of which bowlers need the gutter rails. My kid had a blast for his first real bowling experience and even had one spare. Of course, the highlight was the ball return.

The food looked pretty good but there is a Portillo’s in the parking lot which we opted for. Don’t ever forget about Portillo’s awesome chocolate cake.

This is a fantastic place for kids probably 5 or 6 years old and maybe as old as 11 or 12. At that age, they can really appreciate the video games, go carts, rides and bowling. You will probably spend a fortune in tokens for the video games, but you will be rewarded by at least an afternoon, if not a full day, of entertainment. There is nothing for kids under 3 years old.

Review this blog or Safari Land

Larry and Donna

Mom Says: For school age kids Safari Land is great. The variety makes it especially fun. Preschoolers can have a good time, but toddlers will have a hard time finding much to do.

Dad Says: Go carts are fun every day of the week. For those kids just learning to bowl, Safari Land is a great way to learn because it is such a production with the lights and glow in the dark balls. Make sure you get in at least 2 games to make the bowling cost effective.

Posted in Venues | 71 Comments »

Go Bananas

Who knew it would be a white Easter? It was extremely inconvenient and if we knew we would get that much snow, we would have done a review of sleds and sledding hills last week to prepare everyone. But hopefully, that posting will wait until next year. Because of the weather we decided to try an indoor amusement park called Go Bananas. Go Bananas is at 4516 N Harlem in Norridge (with another location on Rand Road in Arlington Heights), so about 20 minutes from the city in decent traffic. There is no admission to get in, but you need to buy a wristband for $13.99 ($8.95 if your kid is under 3 feet tall and there are coupons on the web site) to go on the rides (a la carte is about $2.50 a ride). Video and arcade games are played with tokens which are $.25 apiece. Each game is anywhere from 2 to 4 tokens.

Go Bananas has rides, video games, carnival games, and a climbing maze. The roller coaster was broken when we were there but there was also a banana ride (sit in bananas that go around in a circle and your kid can make it go up and down), a small train, bumper cars, and a yak ride which goes pretty fast around in a circle. The train goes pretty fast and your kid can ring the bell if he sits in the engine. Our kid loved the banana ride and if you jerk the controller up and down fast, the kids kind of bounces around (which the staff didn’t think was as funny as we did). There is also a small bouncy and a fairly large climbing maze. The climbing maze goes 4 stories high with a large twisty slide or wave slide to go down.

There is a tiny bowling alley with little bowling balls (heavy enough that you don’t want them to drop them on their feet) and there are bars guarding the gutter so they hit pins most of the time. Then there are a variety of other video and arcade games. We played a Spider Squash game where you step on lights when they glow and a spider yells out in pain or the game makes a squishing sound. Our kid would have done better if he wasn’t laughing so hard at the sounds. We went on a wave runner and motorcycle video game together which had its share of laughs. All arcade games spit out tickets after the game that you can cash in for toys at the end of the day.

Overall, it is hard to say if we are bananas about Go Bananas. Our kid had a good time for about 2 hours and it is not that expensive of a day for all of the entertainment that it has to offer - rides, climbing, and games. The bowling was a ton of fun and we had not been on amusement park rides since the summer.

But though Go Bananas claims to be the “newest” indoor amusement park, we thought the equipment looked pretty run down and seemed to have a lot of patchwork (the climbing maze was reinforced in places and the train bell was kind of taped together). The climbing maze looked like it had not been cleaned in a while. We went on Easter so it was empty and pretty easy to do anything you wanted. But we could definitely see that if it got busy, it would be really hard to get on rides, bowl (there are only 2 lanes), or do the climbing maze. Their variety of entertainment is very unique, but each thing is small (the climbing maze is probably less then a quarter the size of Monkey Island) and the place in general is smaller than you think.

We’d like to go visit the location in Arlington Heights to compare.

Review this blog or Go Bananas

Larry and Donna

Mom Says: I knew I was in trouble the moment we walked in - the place smells bad. It took a good fifteen minutes to get used to the smell. The climbing maze was way too dirty.  There is a restaurant, but there is no way I would eat there. It would take a desperate, snowy day in March to go back.

Dad Says: I wish we had played more arcade games because we don’t do that very often and my kid got a big kick out of winning tickets and cashing them in for small toys. Go Bananas packs a lot of variety in a small place which is unique, but I would not stay too long if it got crowded and we had to wait for anything.

Posted in Venues | 71 Comments »

Seussical

This week we went with Grandma to see Seussical at the Marriott Theatre for Young Audiences in Lincolnshire. The show runs through May 10, 2008, with performances on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays (10am),and Saturdays (11am). There are additional performances at 12:30pm on March 21, 25, 27, 28 to accommodate spring break audiences. All tickets are $12.00.

The Marriott Theatre for Young Audience does a series of shows every year specially geared toward children. The key feature of these shows is that they are 1 hour in length. Even the best behaved child has their limit, and sitting still for 1 hour seems to be the maximum, so these shows are perfect. The venue also lends itself really well to children’s theater. It is small and set in the round, so there are iterally no bad seats. All children are close to the action.

I have never seen the full length “adult” version of Seussical, but it is clear that they had to do some drastic alterations to the plot to fit it into one hour. Rather than choosing one or two Dr. Seuss storylines, they kept many to form one story. If your children are at all familiar with the books this is confusing. They jump from one theme to another, unsuccessfully telling the stories of Horton, the Whos, Getrude McFuzz, and Mayzie. If parents and children can let that go and not care much about a plotline, the show is visually fun and filled with great musical numbers. A few of our favorites were “Oh the Thinks You Can Think,” “Amayzing Mayzie/Gertrude,” and “It’s Possible.” At one point the character JoJo is taking a bath, which turns into the ocean with fish swimming round - very fun.

The productions at Marriott are well done. The performers are very talented and the staging is creative. The quality is as high as any professional adult theater in the Chicago area. These were the strongest features of Seussical. For the first 2/3 of the show the children in the audience were very engaged in the fast paced songs and numerous scene changes. The last 1/3 of the show slows down quite a bit and the chatting among the children became obvious. Yet true to the clock the show wrapped up at the 1 hour mark and saved the day.

Review this blog or Seussical

Donna and Grandma Myrna

Mom Says: The Marriott Theatre for Young Audiences is an outstanding way to introduce your children to the theatre. I have enjoyed other productions here more than Seussical. However, if you are looking for a high quality hour of live entertainment (45 minutes of which are pretty great) give this production a try.

Grandma Says: I loved the creative and colorful costumes, and the songs were catchy and fun. The Cat in the Hat, acting as narrator, was my favorite character. Make sure your children are familiar with Dr. Seuss’s stories so they are able to enjoy the characters. I felt like a kid again.

Posted in Events | 89 Comments »

Spring Family Fun at Navy Pier

This week quietly seemed like the weather was tantalizingly starting to warm up. Of course this weekend made us forget all of that pretty quickly as it was freezing again. But for a few days, kids were back in the park, it was not painful to be outside, and delays due to snow and weather at O’Hare were minimal. Though it is obviously not spring yet, Spring Family Fun starts at Navy Pier on Friday, March 14 and goes until March 30.

You’ll find Spring Family Fun in the Crystal Gardens which is right next to the Children’s Museum. You’ll want to park in the West Parking lot at Navy Pier. Spring Family Fun costs $10 a wristband. Depending on who is at the ticket booth, sometimes they charge for adults and sometimes they don’t. You can get a $2 coupon on the Navy Pier site and if you are a Bank of America or Lasalle Bank customer, you’ll get another $2 off by showing your ATM card. If you are a Children’s Museum member don’t forget to run across to get your parking validating for $3 off parking. Unfortunately, Spring may melt away the snow, but it does nothing to help parking prices at Navy Pier.

Spring Family Fun is one of three similar events at Navy Pier each year. The other two events are Halloween and the Holiday celebration Winter Wonderfest in December. By far, the December event is the biggest and the best, but Spring Family Fun and Halloween are good fun as well. In the past, Spring Family Fun’s key attractions include a variety of bouncys and slides. There are also typically face painting stations, crazy mirrors for the kids to look at themselves, train rides, and some food and drinks. You’ll find some live entertainment, too, in the form of jugglers, clowns, singers and bands, and some circus acts (beware that the circus acts aren’t there on 3/15 and 3/16). As you might imagine from past posts, we spend the most of our time on the inflatable attractions and the trains.

In all, I would say it is about 2 hours of entertainment. If you don’t go to Navy Pier that often, you can stretch it to the afternoon with many of the other activities that are at the pier. Unfortunately, The Thomas and Friends store is gone. In the past, we sometimes could not get our kid to the event because he played in the store for so long. But there are plenty of other things to do.
1. The Children’s museum is worth a posting all its own, but there is tons of fun for the kids there including water, climbing,
construction sets, bowling, cars and buses, and dinosaur fossil digging.
2. There is a stage in the middle of all of the stores where you can see free magicians, musicians, and short plays.
3. Kiddie Train Express for train rides. Try to get your kid in the front car so that they can ring the bell as it goes around the track.
4. Good enough food at Riva’s (not great for kids) and Joe’s Be-Bop Cafe, as well as a food court.
5. Watch out for The Fudge Shoppe for awesome treats.

Spring Family Fun is a quick shot of adrenaline and feels like being outside before Spring really starts. We wish there were a few more things to do, but they are confined in a small amount of space. If you go to the other events at Halloween and Winter Wonderfest, some of the activities can get monotonous because they reuse some of the inflatables. The wristband lets you go in and out of the event so you can do other things at Navy Pier and go back.

Review this blog or Spring Family fun

Larry and Donna

Mom Says: We really enjoy this event. The space is bright and cheerful. The children can run around and be entertained. And it’s not too crowded.

Dad Says: I look forward to all of the Navy Pier events. Our kid recognizes the circus train inflatable and goes through it about 26 times before the day is over.

Posted in Venues | 71 Comments »

Web Sites To The Rescue

What conversation doesn’t start with, “Can you remember the last time we got this much snow?” We don’t know anybody that is not completely annoyed and frustrated with the frequency of snow. I look at the forecast this week and it shows snow for Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Ridiculous. You can’t be sledding and out of the house the entire time. And your kids are getting bored of their toys. And you can’t let them sit in front of the TV constantly (though it’s tempting). This week’s Blog points out some of our favorite kids web sites to help you pass the winter time.

First, a couple of technical warning notes. Keys on IBM laptop keyboards are easy to snap back into place. However, once a key from a Dell pops out of the keyboard by little prying fingers, it is detached forever. So until your kids learn to be careful with the computer, keep a close eye on how they are using it. It can be easy to confuse a drum and a computer.

One of the most educational parts about playing on the Web with your kid is that they will learn how to use a mouse and start to feel comfortable navigating the computer. When our kid was 2, it was pretty difficult to use the little touch pad on a laptop or the little joystick embedded in the keyboard. We bought a small wireless mouse from Gigaware that was the right size for his hand with easy access to the buttons. At 3 1/2, he is more comfortable with the touch pad on the keyboard.

All of the web sites we play with are from television programs that we watch. This relationship makes it familiar and easy for the kids and also gets them excited about going on-line. Our favorites are the following:

5. http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/mmch/index.html. Playhouse Disney on Disney Online has all of the television shows from the Disney Channel. This link is for the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. To get into the site, you have to click on the familiar “Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse” to get going. Our favorite parts of this site are Goofy’s Silly Slide in the Activities section and Donald and the Beanstalk in the Stories section. Goofy’s Silly Slide lets your kid build a slide and then click on a button to watch the different characters slide down. Donald and the Beanstalk (a short version of the episode of the same name) takes you through Mickey and the gang rescuing Boo Boo Chicken from the giant. It is a very interactive story involving counting, shapes, colors, bubble machines, and directions.

4. http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/littleeinsteins/index.html. Little Einsteins is also on Playhouse Disney On-Line and is mostly great for learning instruments. Our favorites are Quincy and the Magic Instruments in the Music section, Orchestra Ocean Treasure Hunt in the Games section, and the Glass Slipper Ball (a short version of the episode of the same name) in the Stories section. Quincy and the Magic Instruments and Orchestra Ocean both match pictures of instruments with their sounds. Orchestra Ocean ends in a picture that you can print and color in. Glass Slipper follows Rocket and the kids to Austria to the ball by learning how to use the space bar, choosing colors, listening for sounds, and helping Annie dance.

3. http://www.thomasandfriends.com. Thomas is as fun on the Web as he is on TV and in toys. Our favorite parts of the site include Decorate Tidmouth Sheds (where you can put ballons, flags and ribbons the engines), Engine Jigsaw (where you can do puzzles of Thomas and his Friends), Build an Engine (where you put together the different engines), Building games (building engines with Legos), and the Matching Game (standard concentration games where you match pictures of the different characters). Of course, if you are just getting into Thomas, there is the Engine Depot that will teach you and your kid all of the characters’ names.

2. http://www.sesameworkshop.org. Like Disney On-Line, PBS Kids (http://pbskids.org/) has all of the PBS Sprout shows. The Sesame Street Workshop has all of your favorite characters, but the best games are in Elmo’s World. Warning: Never ever let your kid see Elmo Potty Time. This is the most annoying thing on the Web and will drive you crazy. As long as you avoid that, Weather (dress Elmo for different climates), Limbo (pick different sizes of monsters to go under the limbo stick in tune with cool Elmo Reggae), Keyboard-a-rama (learn the letters with pictures that sound like the letters, one of our all time favorites), and Peek-a-Boo Elmo (find Elmo in various surroundings) are all great games on the Elmo site.

1. http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/bunnytown/index.html. Disney’s Bunnytown is made by the creators of Jack’s Big Music Show on Noggin. We don’t watch Bunnytown all that much, but the Web site is our favorite. The site allows you to customize your own bunny for the home page (colors and clothes). However you dress him up, is how your bunny shows on all the pages. You can also customize your bunny house, by putting furniture in it, hanging paintings, and putting toys in your room. As long as you go to the site from the same computer, the site will remember your choices when you return. You can buy clothes and furniture with carrots at the Carrot Shop. The site starts you off with 50 carrots and you win more carrots by playing games like Ice Cream Parlor (teaches counting and reading by serving scoops of ice cream to bunnies) and Do the Bunnytown Hop (make bunnies dance and then replicate the dance yourself - hysterical).

Larry and Donna

Mom Says: Learning to use the computer at a young age is a valuable skill. Educational and fun, it’s a definite step up from watching TV.

Dad Says: These are great sites and I would probably give honorable mentions to the Doodlebops and Ooh and Aah on Disney and Curious George on PBS Kids.

Posted in TV | 79 Comments »