It was a chilly and sunny Saturday afternoon. A few days previous had been my niece’s 9th birthday. My kids and I were meeting her and my sister-in-law for her choice of birthday activity: Fun Land!

We got there around 1:30. I gathered up the kids and went inside. Immediately in the door, I was hit by a wall of noise and light. Beeping games, laughing kids, and whirring rides all mushed together into a heaving din. The dim lighting contrasted with the bright flashes of hundreds of lights to dazzle my eyes. The children were delighted. I was less so. If you’re susceptible to noise- or light-induced headaches, you might want to sit this one out like my wife did.

The price offerings were… dizzying. If you want to do it a la carte, you load up a card with money and pay for each ride you want to do, plus money for games. There are a dozen or so rides, each costing 5 or 10 dollars a ride. I considered figuring out exactly what we wanted to do and just pay for that. But I opted to let the kids go wild and avoid decision paralysis, and paid for the group-of-four special. It came with unlimited rides, $20 of game credit apiece, and a pizza and drinks. That covered me and the kids; my sister-in-law got a similar one-person deal.

At my niece’s request, we went to do mini bowling first. It counted as a ride, so was included in the price I paid. That was good, because the lanes were not in good condition. About half of them were out of order; the one we started a game at broke down after a few minutes. We switched to a different lane and started a new game. If we hadn’t gotten the unlimited ride pass, it would have been very frustrating waiting the 10 minutes until the mechanic showed up to fix the thing. Another benefit of the unlimited pass was that I didn’t feel like I was wasting money when the kids got bored 15 minutes in and wanted to switch to something else.

We then took some time on the games. Most of them were the high-luck-low-skill ones that give you some prize credits on your card but aren’t much fun (in my opinion). I spent a few minutes at skee-ball - where only one of the three machines was working. In fact, a lot of the machines were out of order. By my count, more than a quarter of the games were out of commission. The kids weren’t fazed, though. They love those luck-based credit-spewers and were happy to drop most of their money in them. They also really liked the virtual reality roller coaster, which was more of an experience than a game.

 Rides-wise, I think we got our money’s worth. The bumper cars looked abandoned, but when I asked an employee they sent someone over there to turn it on for us. It wound up being a lot of fun! (But then, it’s pretty hard to screw up bumper cars.) My son went to the climbing walls and scaled pretty much every one. Important note: to do the climbing walls or ropes course, you need to be wearing sneakers. My son could do it but the rest of us were wearing boots and couldn’t go (much to my niece’s disappointment). The highlight of the rides, however, were the go-karts. 

 There wasn’t any line. It seemed like a slow day, plus it was cold outside, so not many people ventured out to the go-karts. I took the first round in an adult kart, complete with passenger seat that my 4-year-old daughter gleefully occupied. The throaty grumble of the dinky engine mixed with my kid’s delighted giggles was a soundscape that lifted my spirit. After that (since they don’t let kid karts and adult karts drive at the same time), my son and niece took their turn. That was the closest thing to real driving either of them had done. They were nervous but rose to the occasion, puttering around the track a dozen times without incident.

We closed out the afternoon with a visit to the prize wall and consumption of the aforementioned pizza. The pizza was expectedly mediocre, but the kids didn’t care. The prize wall was vast and varied, and the kids loaded up on candy (Cow Tales and Starbursts). All in all, Fun Land was reasonably fun, if a bit understaffed. It's a decent enough way to spend a couple hours on a rainy or cold day if you don't mind the noise and the cost. I suggest figuring out what you want to do before you head over, so you don’t have to decide where your money goes at the spur of the moment. There’s lots of stuff to do, but it all costs you. So, make sure to set clear expectations with your kids on what you will and won’t be doing. 

Matt Jones is our intrepid DadLands blogger. He is the parent of 3 children from toddler to teen and is always up for an adventure. Previous columns can be found at fredericksburgparent.net/Dadlands